Even though the puruṣārtha's we have seen so far - dharma, artha, and kāma - include everything we ever pursue in our lives, śāstra tells us there is a fourth puruṣārtha as well. It calls this puruṣārtha 'mokṣa', which literally means 'freedom', and it says that it is universal, not just for humans, but also for every living being.
If someone tells us, "You are pursuing freedom," our first response would likely be, "Freedom from what? I am already free. How can I be pursuing freedom unless something is binding me?" If someone is sitting in a jail, seeing people walking freely outside, he knows he is bound, and he desires to be free. But imagine if the whole world were sitting in a jail, and nobody even knew that it was possible to be free, then no one would feel bound. Śāstra says that our bondage is like this: it is universal, so no one really knows they are bound. But with a little bit of analysis, this bondage becomes very clear.
Everything we do in life starts as a desire that comes to our minds. If we can easily fulfill this desire there is no problem, but in many cases we struggle to pursue it. Sometimes we end up doing things that should not be done in order to fulfill it, all because of the control it has over us. Moreover, this pressure does not subside after one desire is taken care of, because many more quickly emerge in its place. We go through life as a 'wanting' person, with the objects of our desire changing, but the basic dissatisfaction with ourselves and our circumstances remaining constant. It is this dissatisfaction that binds us, and keeps us going helplessly in pursuit after pursuit. We are never free to say 'enough' and just be happy with what we have.
Śāstra tells us that our basic pursuit is to be free from this dissatisfaction - from always being a 'wanting' person. It is for this freedom that we pursue all other things, but we never achieve it because we have never really thought about whether our pursuits can give us this freedom. As we take a closer look at this mokṣa puruṣārtha, we will see how this freedom is possible.
2 comments:
But without this pressure, which you are calling 'binding', will we not lack the motivation to do good things? Will we not be without ambitions in our lives?
Desires and ambitions are not the problem. In fact, as we will later see, there is no way to prevent desires from coming to our minds. The problem is only when these desires do not leave us free to make the right decisions. Freedom means that I should be comfortable regardless of whether I am able to fulfill my desire or not. When I have this freedom, I will be able to do good things much more effectively than I am right now. I will be able to see clearly whether what I think to be 'good work' really is going to be beneficial.
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