Sanatan dharma is often thought of, by those outside it and sometimes within, as a tradition concerned only with renunciation and the next world. This is a misreading. The tradition holds a complete vision of human life, and at its centre stand four aims, the purusharthas, that together describe everything a person may rightly pursue. They are dharma, artha, kama and moksha. Held in balance, they make a whole life. ## The four aims Dharma is righteousness, duty, the moral order. It is living rightly, in accordance with truth and one's responsibilities. Artha is wealth, prosperity, the material means of life. It is the pursuit of security, resources, and a stable place in the world. Kama is desire, pleasure, enjoyment. It is love, beauty, art, the legitimate satisfactions of the senses and the heart. Moksha is liberation, release from the cycle of birth and death, union with the divine. It is the final aim, the ground the other three rest upon. The tradition does not rank these as good and bad. It affirms all four. A human life is meant to include prosperity and pleasure, not only duty and liberation. ## Why the order matters The four are usually given in a deliberate sequence, and the order is the teaching. Artha and kama, wealth and pleasure, are legitimate, but they are placed within dharma. One may pursue prosperity and enjoyment, but only by righteous means and within the bounds of duty. Wealth earned by harming others is artha that has slipped its banks. Pleasure taken at the cost of one's responsibilities is kama without dharma. The tradition does not ask us to renounce wealth and pleasure; it asks us to pursue them rightly. So the householder's life is built on three of the four: dharma guiding artha and kama, duty shaping the pursuit of prosperity and enjoyment. This is not a lesser path. It is the proper fullness of worldly life, and most people are meant to live it. ## Moksha as the ground The fourth aim, moksha, is different in kind from the other three. Wealth and pleasure are gained and then lost; even dharma, lived perfectly, keeps us within the world. Moksha is release from the whole round of gaining and losing, the realisation of what we truly are beyond the changing self. The tradition's deepest claim is that the first three aims, however well pursued, cannot finally satisfy. Wealth does not still the heart. Pleasure passes. Even a life of perfect duty leaves the deeper hunger unanswered. Moksha is the aim that answers it, and so it stands as the highest of the four, the one toward which a mature life eventually turns. This is why the tradition speaks of stages of life, the ashramas, in which the early years are given to learning and the householder's years to dharma, artha and kama, while the later years turn increasingly toward moksha. The aims are not in competition; they unfold across a life, each in its season. ## A vision of balance The purusharthas are, taken together, a quietly radical vision. They refuse the false choice between a worldly life and a spiritual one. They say a person may be prosperous, may love and enjoy, may fulfil every worldly duty, and may also seek the highest liberation, and that these belong together in one well-ordered life. The error is never in pursuing wealth or pleasure. The error is in pursuing them without dharma, or in mistaking them for the final aim and so never turning toward moksha at all. A life that honours all four, in their proper order, lacks nothing. Pursue prosperity, but righteously. Enjoy what is good, but within your duty. And do not forget, amid the gaining, the one aim that the others were always pointing toward. ## Related reading - [The Bhagavad Gita in Daily Life: Chapter 2 Explained](/sanatan-katha/bhagavad-gita-chapter-2-daily-life) - [Saguna and Nirguna: Two Paths to the Same Truth](/sanatan-katha/saguna-nirguna-paths) - [The Upanishads: Where to Begin](/sanatan-katha/upanishads-beginner-guide)