The 4 Purusharthas - Dharma, Artha, Kaama and Moksha

The four purusharthas or 'macro-objectives of life' are famous in Indian vocabulary, thinking and life – they are Dharma, Artha, Kaama and Moksha. Every single act of life must fall into one of these categories if it is to be useful to man.  It is normally thought that the first three are tangible goals of human endeavour and the fourth, a state of liberation that requires both the human effort as well as divine grace.  However it is Moksha or freedom alone that all of us seek.  Until we realise that we are indeed seeking a freedom that is true and lasting, we go on seeking various things.  Finally when we are fed-up of everything else, we begin to seek freedom for the sake of freedom.  This is not a 'freedom from something' or the 'freedom for something' or even the 'freedom to something'.  It is merely freedom as a quality, as a fundamental characteristic of our very being, as a fragrance that exudes from our very presence.

However, our current education system does not bring this into sharp focus and hence we are forced to find the purpose of life through our own individual explorations.  We are taught vocations and professions to earn money.  This money is a means to an end.  All such means that enable us to realise a particular end are called artha.  Even though we are working to earn money, there exists an ulterior aim within every working person - to reach a point when we don't have to earn money.  To reach a point when we can say we have enough money so that we don't have to work with the aim of earning money.  So really what we want is not to work and earn money.  But to work and earn enough means so that we don't have to earn any more.  We want freedom from the pressure of earning money.  This desire for freedom is hidden within our desire to work.  It is indeed the reason for us to want to procure means, to procure artha.  Therefore the acquisition of artha is also for the attainment of freedom.

When we acquire wealth or the means to possess something, we use it to satisfy our desires – we spend and shop - to satisfy our desire to have a nice home, a nice vehicle, a nice family and to satisfy our desire to travel and vacation in various places.    Even though it seems like we are having these various desires, which are nothing but kaama or desire in some form or another, we realise that the reason we want these things is so that this desire that has taken root in our mind can be fulfilled and will no longer bother us.  Even though we may not realise or acknowledge it, even our desires are there to be fulfilled and discarded.  More than desire itself, we actually want through the process of the fullfilment of desire, a desire that is hidden within these desires – a desire to be free from desire.  This alone is the fundamental desire.

But the world seems to be a strange place.  Even if we satisfy many desires, more desires seem to take root and drive us endlessly in a web of desires.  Even if we acquire the means to retire, we seem to be driven to acquire more and more means in a endless cycle of effort.  This is because we don't understand the nature of artha and kaama - of the nature of ‘money and means’ and of the nature of ‘desire’.  Both artha and kaama  are easily coloured by the mind.  There are means and desires that are natural to every human being.  These are natural and sustainable.  However, the artificial creations of the mind and the ego are largely unnatural and unsustainable.  That which is natural and sustainable is dharma.  On the outset it appears to lead to artha and kaama, but actually it will lead eventually to freedom from them.  However an opposing choice - that which is unnatural and unsustainable is adharma.  It leads to anartha and dushkaama, wasteful means and wrongful desires.  These negative steps lead you away from freedom and into bondage.  Thus dharma is that which removes the colouring of the human mind and ego from human endeavour and desire.  It makes human endeavour white, it makes human desires pure and it makes human life free.  It leads you towards true freedom - towards Moksha indeed!

Of the first three purusharthas, the first step is dharma.  Dharma is the foundation on which the entire world rests.  Dharma is that which sustains.  Dharma forms our consciousness and human identity.  Dharma is what raises us from sub-consciousness to consciousness.  This is the first vital step that requires definition of the way in which we work and the field in which we work.  Without dharma, any action becomes scattered and purposeless.

In worldly life, it seems that if you need to possess something, you have to pay a price.  And the currency for this payment is money.  However, ancient wisdom of India recognised a currency prior to money; and that is karma.  The effect of karma can be good or bad and in Sanskrt the words for the accumulation of good and bad effects of karma in our subtle bodies are termed as punya and paapa.  Good karma [punya] is positive currency to buy good things in life, things that help in integrating our lives, and gradually give us freedom from karma.  Bad karma [paapa] is negative currency which will enable us to buy the same things but to our deleterious effect and will result in bondage[lack of control over the circumstance you are in]!  The only thing is that where karma and its fruit is concerned, there is a phase lag, there is a time gap.  It is the presence of this gap that makes the karmic laws somewhat mysterious, invisible and intangible and makes faith and patience an essential component.  Oftentimes, the fruits of one's karma bear fruit only in the next birth, and yet when it so bears, it bears with spectacular effect and yields manifold and abundant fruit like a tree bursting into fruition, making the inevitable wait across births truly worth it.  In fact this spectacular effect can also be equally negative when one accumulates a lot of negative karma.  The knowledge of what karma is beneficial and what is deleterious comes from knowing the law that sustains and operates the manifest world.  And this universal law that is independent of human opinion is called dharma.   

When actions are rooted in dharma, they result in Artha, which gives the capacity to satisfy human desires.  But often the very acquisition of the means gives rise to a sense of power for the ego.  The ego now makes a claim, and tries to lure you by stating all the various avenues that can be explored with the newly acquired means.  The fact that the artha has been acquired through proper Dharma may even prod one’s ego to profess righteousness about dharma itself.  While Dharma is an ever-flowing river and all we have done is take a ride in it in the right direction, the acquisition of means or artha, leads our mind to believe that dharma is an object that can be possessed.  This is a great pitfall and therefore, one must train one’s mind to become subordinate to one’s consciousness – to become and stay a 'vidheyaatma' ['an obedient mind'].  One who does not subordinate his mind driven ideas to the higher intelligence and consciousness, runs the risk of transforming artha into anartha – a means that becomes counter productive.  One also runs the risk of using the means and power at his behest to try to fulfil destructive desires – thereby moving towards unconsciousness.

Kaama or desire can be fulfilled through the utilization of means or artha.  Such rightful utilisation of artha will take one from unconsciousness to consciousness, from desire to contentment.  Nevertheless one must be extremely careful what to desire for.  One must examine one’s desire carefully to determine whether they are natural to him or in line with Dharma.  When desires are in line with dharma, their fulfilment leads to gratification and cessation of desire.  However, fulfilling desires that are adharmic and unnatural leads to infatuations and addictions.   Examine for a moment whether your desires are your own or are they borrowed.  Are they necessities or do they arise from comparisons and a desire to impress someone else?  Do you need them or do you want them?  Realising that the human life is meant to be used for the highest good of life on earth, one must strive to serve the higher cause through the abilities that come his way.  At every step one must experience gratitude and express it to the indwelling universal spirit which indeed is the source and substratum that is to be revered and respected every moment of our existence.

Realising the fullfilment of your desires, you have now reached the plateau of human gratification.  And yet there is something within the core of the human being that remains dissatisfied even if every external desire is fulfilled.  This is what separates the human being from the animal.  This marks the beginning of the quest for all of that which is beyond mundane existence – a search for something eternal, a state beyond the transient human existence.  And in this search one realises that the hidden desire behind every kaama is only the desire for freedom – a true freedom that can come only with an experience of oneness with the absolute truth – a desire for the dissolution of the many.  One realises that in the search for artha, what one is really looking for is the means to a true freedom – a freedom from lack of every kind.  One no longer needs to think of artha or kaama as an intermediate goal.  Every act and every word must now straightaway connect to the idea of freedom.  True happiness can only come from true freedom.  Even the idea of doer-ship which is the very foundation of this great human drama has to be discarded.  With the discarding of individual will and doership, it is the end of everything that is done with a thought of personal gain.

Dharma brings us to the threshold of freedom - it leads us to consciousness; adharma to unconsciousness.  All of misery and pain, misfortune and violence abide in the field of adharma.  The field of dharma is filled with happiness and sustenance, well being and dignity.  Everything high and noble is dharma.  All that is low, dark and ignoble thrives in the field of adharma.  While dharma leads to the means to achieve the fulfilment of desires, adharma while seemingly giving us the means, eats away the connection to our soul.  Adharma leads us away from consciousness, away from being in control of our lives.  Slowly we lose control of our lives and become unconscious.  Strange circumstances and powers start ruling the lives of those that follow adharma.

With dharma, one gains the ability to shoulder more and more responsibility and will also be blessed with the necessary means.  One gets the chance to not just take care of oneself or one’s family but also one’s work will enrich others who come in contact.  The light of dharma spreads from one bright lamp to another willing wick effortlessly and yet consciously.   It is a matter of fact and not a matter of karma.  One’s duty is only to ensure that one’s flame of consciousness is burning, and burning bright.  The rest will happen by itself.  The lamp of consciousness draws oil from dharma.  As it burns steadily and for a long time, a strange thing happens.  Suddenly the flame will lose its dependence on the oil called dharma.  And it will burn independently without any earthly fuel.  It is as if the lamp has become a solar lamp drawing free and unlimited power from an eternal source.  No more bills.  Nothing to pay for.  And yet you have all the light that you could wish for.  It is as if your little lamp has suddenly realised that it is just a small part of the light that comes from the sun that sustains all life on this planet.  There is no need to draw something from the earth.  Light can straightaway be drawn from the sun.

This is the beginning of the experience of moksha or freedom – the realisation that you are made in the image of the Lord and you are but a splinter.  When this happens, the lamp still gives the same light that the oil lamp used to give.  Only difference is that it is now steadier and is free from dependence on the notion of dharma.  If a willing wick is met, the oil of dharma is again used to light that lamp.  With the onset of the state of liberation, the three bonds of dharma, artha and kaama are released.   And yet they remain in your obedient possession.  They no longer hold you – but you hold them as if it is a stick in your hand.  Hold this stick of the purpose of human life in your right hand and walk this earth free and liberated.

Moksha is nothing but freedom.  In the outside world we are fighting for our rights, for freedom of expression, movement and work.  We talk, express, converse, argue, fight verbal battles and launch attacks with our freedom to express.  And after a long period of such expression, there arises a desire to just remain silent.  To allow the world to just be.  While we are young we wish to travel, see the world, know about other cultures, explore nature and at home, we struggle with traffic on the way to work and compete with colleagues while at work.  And yet there arises at some point within us, a strange want - to just one day put your legs up and do nothing - to just stay calm and enjoy the garden in the front yard.  No matter what drives us in our younger and ambitious years, there comes a period in the life of every human being when the whole world seems like a blur.  And you want the freedom to just witness it.  You no longer wish to take part in an involved way since you have seen its eventual futility.

You wish for a calm freedom - a freedom from every ideology, every compulsion, every demand and every pressure of life.  You are tired of the external search for freedom.  And you want now to find something from inside, deep inside - from a place independent of external circumstances.  This spring of calm freedom that exists deep within us is moksha or liberation.  This is true freedom that can never be taken away from you.  It is free and available for everybody.  One only has to abandon the belief that he doesn't have it.  For one who has attained true freedom, there's nothing more to be achieved at a personal level any more.  All that remains is an all encompassing love and compassion.  Living one's life thus and radiating bliss, one learns to live this liberated life on this planet with one's consciousness stationed firmly at the feet of that indwelling and sacred presence from whom we have arisen.