Transcriptions
Dev Priyānanda Svāmī Bhagavān
Video Link: YouTube
Namaste. So let’s talk about the four most important things in life.
In Sanskrit, these are called the puruṣarthas. puruṣa means a person and artha means a gain, something valuable that you receive or earn by your actions. So the four puruṣarthas are dharma, artha, kāma, and mokṣa.
Dharma, of course, means religion in general, but specifically it means the knowledge of what is, how it is, and why it is the way it is. It’s actually very deep. So it’s one thing to conceive of dharma as simply religious rules and regulations. That’s a very shallow kind of understanding of dharma.
Real dharma means how to understand the world, the universe, the way it is, the way life is—and not just the way it is in terms of matter, but how it is in terms of consciousness and experience, the lived experience of being a human being in this world, and the reasons behind it; not only what is and the way it is, but why it is the way it is.
And this is a very deep study, and you can look back at our videos on this channel and you see that we’ve gone into this extensively. So beyond all that, once one gets integrity, then it’s possible to approach the real state of being, when one is in harmony with the universe, in harmony with God and nature.
And this is the real state of human beingness, that if one thinks of oneself as “Me against the world,” just an individual trying to get what he wants, this is actually animal life. One who is spiritually developed, who has *dharma—who has integrity—sees, because it’s easy enough to see this directly, that “I am not separate from the universe.”
Even if we accept that, okay, the body is the self—it’s not really—but even if we accept just for the sake of argument, the body still needs air, water, food, shelter, clothing, association, so many things we need from the outside world for this body, for this self to exist. That we can’t really say that we’re separate from the environment in which we live.
Of course, the ego creates the illusion that we are, and this is why we see the people who are against environmentalism, against religion, atheistic type people, have huge, very solid egos. So of course, once one gains integrity, he sees the effect of his actions on the whole world and realizes, “Oh man, I got to change my ways, I got to shape up and become a spiritually oriented person.”
So when one achieves this ethical advancement of dharma, then he becomes eligible for artha. Artha means wealth, and not only material wealth, but the real wealth. Material wealth comes and goes. It’s called Lakṣmī, or chanchala, one of Lakṣmī’s names is Chanchala. It means “one who doesn’t stay anywhere for very long.” So wealth comes and goes, but the real wealth is spiritual; the real wealth is Self-realization, advancement in knowledge.
Transcendental knowledge: not ordinary knowledge, but knowledge which is based on consciousness and in relationship with the Supreme, is something that we can take with us to the next life. They say that ‘you can’t take it with you,’ but when it comes to transcendental knowledge, you sure can, because this knowledge gives a state of being. It’s not simply words, symbols, ideas, concepts, like that.
It’s actually a change in our state of being, a change in our state of consciousness. And as one develops in consciousness, the effects of this work, sādhana, that is used, that is the method for advancing in consciousness, becomes more and more permanent. So this artha, the real wealth, is Self-realization.
And then one gets kāma. Now again, kāma is usually interpreted as sense enjoyment, but that’s a ** shallow interpretation. One of the names of the Devī is Kāmeśvarī, and Śiva is also known as Kameśvar.
So are They simply lusty gods enjoying in some kind of heavenly realm? Well, They do enjoy with each other, but the more important thing is that the original kāma, the original desire which arose in Brahman is, “I am one; let Me become many.” In other words, the desire to manifest the material world, the creation, the physical universe, and a desire to expand into a large population of many different entities.
So this is the original kāma. This is the original desire, the desire for bliss, happiness, ānanda. And this is another thing that, once obtained, cannot be taken away—again, because it’s a state of being. It’s not a possession. Possessions are something external. If kāma was simply external sense gratification, then just like wealth, that sort of thing comes and goes. It’s not reliable. It’s not something you can take with you to the next life.
But ānanda is, because ānanda, real ānanda, is based on the ānandamayakośa, the bliss body. We talked about these five kośas back in the series on Ulladu-Nārpadu. So you should go back and take a look at that. Here’s the link.
Anyway, the real wealth, the real bliss, is that bliss which cannot be taken away, which doesn’t fade over time. The real knowledge, too. All of these things are states of being. They’re not external things. Just like we talked about in the series, Being Integrity. Being integrity is different from having integrity. Because if you have integrity, it’s an external virtue. And so it can be separated from the Self. Being integrity is a state of being which cannot be separated from the Self.
So once one acquires dharma, he automatically has being integrity. Once he acquires artha, real wealth, that wealth can never be taken away, because it’s spiritual knowledge. Spiritual knowledge can even be used to attain material wealth.
I’ll give you an example from my own life. When I was serving Śrīla Prabhupāda as a book editor, I edited most of his Caitanya Caritāmṛta series. Those skills that I learned in that service then became the basis of a business, editing and writing business, that supported me for over 25 years. And it enabled me to have my own business, work from home, have clients like Apple, IBM, so on, and travel all over the world, because I could save up enough money that I didn’t need to work for a couple of years. And then I could go to India. So that’s been my lifestyle my whole life.
So the qualities and the skills that we learn in acquiring dharma, approaching a spiritual master, doing seva, these are very valuable and can help us in our material life to make it secure and to have the facility to engage in long retreats, concentrating on meditation. And really this is the key to success. So one can get artha, wealth, and kāma, enjoyment—not just superficial sense enjoyment, although that’s there too, if you want it—but the really deep bliss that comes from having a close relationship with the World Mother, the Goddess, especially, Lalithā, Tripurasundarī, and I can’t express, words cannot express the deep emotional satisfaction that comes with serving Her, chanting Her mantra especially, and doing ceremonies and such to please her.
So this is the Śrī Vidyā. This is why we advocate and promote Śrī Vidyā in all of our series. So all of these together, dharma, artha, and kāma, when they’re taken in the deep spiritual sense, lead to mokṣa. Mokṣa means liberation.
And mokṣa is higher than simply mukti. Sometimes mukti is also translated liberation, but mukti is actually another kind of state of being that is granted by higher authorities and leads to residence in the spiritual planets, other higher abodes. But mokṣa means that one becomes liberated and never has to return to the round of birth and death.
We can read in the scriptures that even the denizens of the heavenly planets and even the spiritual planets like Goloka and Vaikuṇṭha sometimes fall down in the material world. They have to take birth. I mean, even Viṣṇu has to take birth in his different incarnations.
But those who attain mokṣa never take birth again. That’s the difference. So we should endeavor, we should aim and strive for mokṣa. And of course, the path to mokṣa is dharma, artha, kāma, taken in the deep spiritual sense of those terms. So these are the puruṣarthas. These are the four main aims of human life.
And if someone is not striving for these, he can’t really be called a human being. He’s more or less like an animal, just living selfishly for sense enjoyment, not doing any service to benefit the world. Just like we’re doing these videos, and we’re also working on a big web development project which will be unveiled soon, where these videos are put into structure and context, and it becomes clear then what is the path through these videos.
Right now, they’re all kind of mixed up together. But on the course site, it will be clear that one can go by developing the cakras, the seven cakras, one-by-one, and together also, that one can attain these four highest aims of human life.