The primary focus of yoga is the transformation of the quality of your mind, character and nature.
You begin the yogic journey with that focus. The yogic journey is part and parcel of your day-­to-­day experience and of the different stages that you go through during your lifetime.
When the seers were thinking about the direction of life and how one can live efficiently and effectively with right action, right understanding and right thinking, they considered the entire lifespan of the individual.
The seers found that the journey of life that each person has to go through is actually divided into four stages, which are known as ashramas.
Traditionally, the word ‘ashram’ does not refer to a spiritual community, even though that is what most people believe it means.
There are two words here: ‘a’and ‘shram’. ‘A ’ means to come and shram means making the necessary effort, putting your energy to good use, overcoming and transforming laziness and weakness into creative dynamism.
Shram means to keep yourself linked with kriya, action, and karma, work. Ashram, therefore, means to come to a place where you can make the required effort to improve the quality of your character, nature, personality and behaviour.
Wherever and whatever that place may be, any place where you make an attempt to enhance the quality of your life, becomes an ashram.
The word ‘shram’ is integral to ashram, and thus in the four ashramas of life, you have to perform four different types of shram.

 

 

In each ashrama, you have a particular duty to carry out and a definite responsibility to fulfil. The work, behavior, practice, way of thinking and vision is different for each ashrama.
There has to be a different understanding, a different perspective. A different dharma is to be followed and a different aspect of your character is to be developed in each stage.
Just like in school you go from class one to two to three, every person should make the effort to go through each of the four ashramas or stages of life and imbibe the teachings of every level.
Each ashrama contains its own system of teaching and participation in action, and these have been defined in the vedic tradition.

Yoga Sadhana Panorama Vol 8,  Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati

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The four ashramas

The primary focus of yoga is the transformation of the quality of your mind, character and nature.
You begin the yogic journey with that focus. The yogic journey is part and parcel of your day-­to-­day experience and of the different stages that you go through during your lifetime.
When the seers were thinking about the direction of life and how one can live efficiently and effectively with right action, right understanding and right thinking, they considered the entire lifespan of the individual.
The seers found that the journey of life that each person has to go through is actually divided into four stages, which are known as ashramas.
Traditionally, the word ‘ashram’ does not refer to a spiritual community, even though that is what most people believe it means.
There are two words here: ‘a’and ‘shram’. ‘A ’ means to come and shram means making the necessary effort, putting your energy to good use, overcoming and transforming laziness and weakness into creative dynamism.
Shram means to keep yourself linked with kriya, action, and karma, work. Ashram, therefore, means to come to a place where you can make the required effort to improve the quality of your character, nature, personality and behaviour.
Wherever and whatever that place may be, any place where you make an attempt to enhance the quality of your life, becomes an ashram.
The word ‘shram’ is integral to ashram, and thus in the four ashramas of life, you have to perform four different types of shram.

 

 

In each ashrama, you have a particular duty to carry out and a definite responsibility to fulfil. The work, behavior, practice, way of thinking and vision is different for each ashrama.
There has to be a different understanding, a different perspective. A different dharma is to be followed and a different aspect of your character is to be developed in each stage.
Just like in school you go from class one to two to three, every person should make the effort to go through each of the four ashramas or stages of life and imbibe the teachings of every level.
Each ashrama contains its own system of teaching and participation in action, and these have been defined in the vedic tradition.

Yoga Sadhana Panorama Vol 8,  Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati