Article by Dr Raghuram Y.S. MD (Ay) & Dr Manasa S, B.A.M.S
Thus says Acharya Vagbhata,
One needs a good life-span or longevity of life to achieve the chief goals in one’s life i.e. Dharma (righteousness), Artha (wealth and goodness) and Sukha or Kama (happiness, satisfaction, accomplishment of desires). All these, when religiously done, would free us from the vicious cycle of life-and-death i.e. in attaining Moksha. All these i.e. Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha are called Purusharthas or Purushartha Chatushtaya – four goals or aims of life.
To achieve longevity which is the means to achieve Purusharthas, one should follow the principles, fundamentals and advice laid in the deep core of Ayurveda treatises.
Follow Ayurveda → Gain Ayu (longevity) → Achieve Purusharthas
According to this principle, we would obtain Purusharthas as the end-product of what all we do in our lifetime in terms of our healthy choices in relation to how and what we eat and live. Following Ayurveda principles become the Karana for Ayu and Purusharthas and the later two become the Karya of leading an Ayurveda way of life.
We will try to reverse the equation and put it the other way and see if it makes any sense.
How about translating Purusharthas as four most important objectives of our day-to-day life?
How about making Purusharthas as a ‘Dinacharya’ module?
It sounds like a mind-blowing idea isn’t it?
Let us see how it works!
Purushartha-Module of Day-to-Day Life
-
Analyze everything you do in a day in the language of Purusharthas and accumulate them and credit them to the bank account of your life!
a. Earning Dharma in day-to-day life –
Dharma comprises every single good thing or deed you do. Do everything which is defined for you to do, in the most honest way you can do, without expecting too much out of it. Good deeds will give good returns. Keep your intentions pure and objectives clear. Do anything which you would not be guilty for or would have to repent in future. Be a conscious doer.
Take a few minutes before you jump into your karmas – actions of the day. Question yourself if you are doing it right and then go ahead. Plan and execute every task within the bracket of righteousness. Follow the rules and regulations of your karya-kshetra – work-place. This will make you a role-model for others and you would have set high standards for yourself. See that you don’t disrespect anyone around you and create a lovable environment, immaterial of you being a boss or worker.
b. Earning Artha in day-to-day life –
Artha actually means wealth. Artha also elaborates into many meanings which includes all the goodness that we earn. In day to day life, Artha is what we earn and gain, every day. Artha also should come into our lives in a dharmic way. If we are following Dharma, everything which comes into our life will be good and would bestow on us immense goodness and bliss. It need not just be financial gains. It may include good wishes from best friends and family, the good-mornings, good-evenings and good-nights that we get from happy people in our life, the love we get from our beloved people, the food which one’s mother or wife prepares, the pocket-money one’s father gives, the blessings that our teachers, parents or elders give us, the hundreds of smiles that comes back to us and create an aura of happiness around us, the gifts, the hugs, the phone calls and everything which makes our life easy and happy every single day is the Artha we gain.
Keep earning as much good as you can. Important is that you need to be good to the world before that. Give ‘good’ and the ‘good’ will come back to you in manifolds.
c. Earning Kama / Sukha in day-to-day life –
Kama means desire. We will have many desires in our life but everything that we desire will not come and fall into our lap. The desires shall be meaningful, ethical and dharmic in nature. One should know the limitations and boundaries to make a wish or desire. Our wishes and desires keep changing from day to day. We may keep desiring the same things often or might develop newer desires. The word Sukha also has been used interchangeably with Kama. Sukha means contentment, happiness, bliss or satisfaction. They all come with the fulfillment of desires. Sometimes we will be tempted to go out of our boundaries to get what we desire. In doing so, we will be making many mistakes knowingly or unknowingly. This will increase the burden of our sins.
It is important that one is sure of what wishes to make and what to desire. If our desires yield results which are not favourable to us, we need to amend our ways in making desires and learn to desire in a meaningful, moral and dharmic way.
Untoward wishes would bring devastating results into our lives and push us into deep dungeons of misery and sadness. Desires and wishes are not just what we need, they come with immense responsibilities and need to be handled with maturity.
d. Attaining Moksha in day-to-day life –
Moksha means freedom, salvation. It is when one becomes free from the vicious cycle of life and death. There is a temporary cycle of life and death that we are undergoing on a daily basis. Sleeping at night brings a temporary death to our day-long activities and in the morning we wake up to a new-life and start living from the beginning. This cycle goes on from the first day of our life to the day we breathe the last. The phase where we sleep is like a temporary Moksha – freedom from all that we have done.
One can sleep better and deeper, without any disturbance, awkward dreams or scary nightmares if most of his daily dharma-artha & kama / sukha accounts were pure and clean. The next-life i.e. the life on the next day too will begin and proceed in an awesome way and with positive and happy vibes. So, for a better tomorrow, we need to work on the mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology of today.
This means to say that our daily KARMA should be good and kind. The Karma of our life depends on accumulation of these small day-to-day karmas which will help us in attaining a decent Moksha and attain oneness with the creation once and for all.
-
Evaluate and Score yourself on Purushartha Day-to-Day Performance Scale
Dharma Score –
At the end of the day, make an entry on the ‘Dharma Page’ of your personal Diary about how much you have been on the ‘good side’ of the day’s scale. If you have done something which is not ‘dharma’ or if you feel it was not, make an entry. Write a pledge beneath it promising that you will fortify the good works on the next day and avoid doing the wrongs. And then remember to freeze the pledge inside you as a smooth alert for the following day. It will consciously alert you if you are taking up the known wrong things into a task.
Score yourself. Enter scores against ‘good’ and ‘bad’ deeds columns. The columns may be marked as dharma and not-so-dharma. Improvise the first column on a day-to-day basis and maintain consistency.
Follow the same method for documenting and scoring your Artha, Kama / Sukha and Moksha on a day-to-day basis.
Artha Score –
Make an entry everyday in the Artha section regarding what and how many good things, wishes or people you have earned and how much did each of them provide you with happiness, satisfaction and contentment. Also mention things which you got into your cart which were not meant for you, and things which you wished, got it and yet not happy or contended after getting it, and things you wished would not have come to you. Also mention what things you missed out which you should have got and what all you lost which you should have gained or retained. Score your good earnings, not-so-good earnings and deserved-yet-missed out earnings and gained-yet-worth missing things. This will trim your wisdom and make you a better chooser in life, which also teaches you what to reject for your good – both of which are the foundation for bliss and salvation.
Kama / Sukha Score –
Desire scores shall similarly be made. How many wishes and desires that you had made along the day made you happy and contended? Were they conscious or accidental choices and desires? Do you think you should have not wished for something that you got? Did you not get something good that you desired and did that made you sad or off-sync? Would you in future days confess not or never to wish for something which came true but with bitter or pungent experiences? Have similar questions and be innovative. Maybe, the same questions should be answered every day by you. Score all beneficial and satisfactory wishes that came true with positive numbers. Score a minus for those things which did not reach you in spite of you wishing them honestly. Score a minus for wishes which came true but you wished they did not come true or gave you bitter experiences. Also score a minus for the undesired wishes which came true with pungent experiences and a plus for undesired wishes which came as a surprise and you are glad that they came in with a lot of positivity and bliss.
Moksha Score –
Moksha is a release phenomenon. It puts you in a state of bliss and happiest freedom. It is like you have successfully mastered your twenty four hours, everything included in that timezone and everything coming in your way. If you get that feeling towards the end of the day, when you are on the verge of retiring into a deep relaxing sleep and rest, you just need to embrace that feeling, feel proud and sleep with it. You are a winner today. You don’t have any ties or hashes leftover. You have now gained freedom from the day long chores with a tint of satisfaction of doing all good and all right. You don’t have any guilt or shame. You are in a state of eternal bliss and you want the same thing to happen every single day. It is a matter of practice. You can. With that feeling, you sleep deep and at peace and will wake up with a winner badge, the next day and you are ready to win again.
Now, before retiring, go ahead, take your diary or open your purushartha document on your laptop and give yourself a proud score and rating for a proud and happy day that you have spent. There might have been small errors, you are a human being after all. But pledge to improvise on not making them and time that ‘alert trigger’ deep inside your sub-conscious level. But remember that you have done most things right. You have all the rights to tap your back and appreciate yourself.
Your Moksha score is also a summation of Dharma, Artha and Kama scores, which are foundations for Moksha-for-the-day!
-
Repeat and improvise on your Purushartha Performances and Scores every day
The final thing you are going to do is to improvise on your Purushartha Performance. The previous performance, on the day before, gives you the perfect guidelines for doing so and will make your journey easy. You now have a template to follow, a benchmark you set for yourself every-single-day, as a foundation to repeat doing the Purusharthas all-right on the following days. You are an example for yourself. You are your friend, philosopher and guide. You are the master and servant. Making a habit of this, will make you a better person every-day and your life more and more meaningful. Make sure to overcome your wrong-doings that will eventually cut-off the negative scores from your scorecards. Make sure you repeat the good-doings, that will improvise your positive scores. Be generous to appreciate and thank yourself at the end of each day. Also thank everything and everyone who helped you to have a meaningful and satisfactory day.
Conclusive thoughts
To sum it up, I have made a small attempt in this article to help us all to customize our Purusharthas on a day-to-day basis. This will help us understand that we can control our life with the intelligence bestowed on us from divine creation. Finding oneness with the creation as we live and when we don’t should be the motive which would drive us in the pathway leading to a meaningful life and a respectful departure towards salvation. If we will, we can. There is no fixed pattern for doing this. We can be creative and innovative in doing it. We can customize the Purusharthas as they fit us but the bottomline is that we need to be honest to ourselves. We can choose living this way if we make conscious choices which are good for us and everyone around, every-single time, every-single-day and get habituated and addicted towards doing them like crazy.
This article is to keep us aware that the Purusharthas are gross earnings, but they are made up of small attempts made every day to accumulate the good parts of them. Ultimately they will grow up into immense treasure. Rather than correcting and amending what we did in the past, when we look back from the future, it is better to work on them on a daily basis and travel towards the future.
We can. Can’t we?
