Satyopanisad

[Guest guest]

Swami! We hear of purusarthas, the four goals of life. How are we to achieve

them?

 

I tell my students quite often about the four `F's'. The first `F' is `Follow

the master'. Dharma, righteousness, is your master. Follow dharma at all times.

All your actions must be approved by dharma, the ideal norms of life. If you

hold on to dharma throughout, the very same dharma will protect you, dharmo raks

ati raks itah. Manava, being human, should follow the dharma of a human being,

manavadharma, and never that of a demon danavadharma.

 

The second `F' is `Face the devil'. What is the devil here? While dharma is the

master, artha, wealth or money, is the devil. Most people struggle a lot for

money. They resort to all sorts of tactics, do unrighteous unjustified, and

wrong deeds only for money. You think that the world goes by money,

dhanamulamidam jagat. No, the world relies on dharma, dharmamulamidam jagat. One

should earn money righteously and not unrighteously.

 

The third `F' is `Fight to the end'. What is the enemy you should fight till the

end? It is kama, desire. Until the last desire too vanishes, you should continue

to fight.

 

Once Sage Dakshinamurthy happened to walk along the shore of a sea. He noticed

the rising waves pushing a small blade of grass, towards the shore. He felt bad.

After all, it was a tiny grass blade and the mighty sea sent forth its mounting

waves to push it away on to the shore. " How arrogant is the sea not to tolerate

even a grass blade! " thought the sage within himself. Then the Sea God, Samudra,

appeared before the sage with folded hands and said very humbly, " Oh! Great

sage! I am not at fault: Do not blame me and call me arrogant. I am not

arrogant. I cannot afford to have a single, simple blemish. I do not want a

blemish, not even a blade of grass in me. So my waves pushed it away to the

shore and not out of any hatred or enmity " . This is what `fight to the end'

means.

 

Then the fourth `F' is `Finish the game'. What is the game? It is the game of

life. When does the game of life finish? It finishes with the attainment of

moksha. So moksha is the final goal of the four objectives of life.

 

Here you should remember one important point. Of the four purusarthas, dharma is

`Follow the master',

 

artha is `Face the devil', kama is `Fight to the end' and moksha is `Finish the

game'. The first one is dharma and the fourth is moksha, with the second artha

and the third kama in between. It implies that artha should be earned with

dharma: Then kama should be used only to attain the fourth goal of life moksha..

So, the four `F's' stand for these purusarthas of life. But now, I tell you

there is another purusartha, the fifth one which is the supreme goal of life.

That is `Love'

 

Love is God,

God is Love, hence,

Live in Love.

 

There is nothing that you cannot achieve without love.