The Four Aims Across a Lifetime

We have seen the four stages of a life. Now let us lay another picture gently over the first, like a second pane of stained glass over the window, so that the two together throw a richer light.

You met this picture once before, long ago, in the age of the great epics. There the tradition named four worthy aims for a human life. The Sanskrit word for them is purushartha, which means a "goal of a person," a thing truly worth pursuing. There are four. Let us remember them together.^[2]

The first aim is dharma: right living, duty, the keeping faith with what is good and true. You have followed this great word across many ages. It is the aim that guides all the others, the banks that keep the river in its course.

The second aim is artha: honest wealth, work, and the means of a good life. A roof, food, the security of a family, the doing of one's craft well. The tradition does not frown on this. To gain honestly, and to provide, is itself a worthy aim.

The third aim is kama: pleasure, love, beauty, the sweetness of life. The joy of music and food, of art, of the bond between husband and wife. Kept within dharma, this too is good and right. The tradition never taught that a full life must be a joyless one.

And the fourth aim is moksha: final release, freedom from the long round of birth and death. This is the highest aim, the one the others finally serve. You have met it before, and you will meet it again. Here it stands as the last and deepest goal of a human life.

Now here is the lovely thing. These four aims fit the four stages of life like a hand fits a glove. Each season of a life leans on different aims, and brings them forward in their proper time.

The student leans most on dharma. His whole work is to learn what is right, to build a steady and good character before the busy years come. He is laying the banks before the river runs full.

The householder takes up the most of all. His is the season of artha and kama together, earning and providing, loving and raising a family, tasting the sweetness of the world. But he keeps both resting on dharma, so that his gaining is honest and his joys are good. The householder lives all four aims at once, in their fullest weave.

The forest-dweller begins to set things down. Slowly he loosens his hold on artha and kama, on wealth and pleasure, for he has had their season and it is passing. His heart turns toward the last aim. And the renouncer turns to it wholly: he seeks moksha alone, having let everything else go.

So the four aims are not a cold list to learn. They are a living rhythm. A whole life moves through them: first the building of character, then the rich full years of work and love and family, then the gentle setting down, and at last the turn toward freedom. And through it all, dharma keeps the others true.

This is the great kindness of the picture. It does not ask a person to choose between the world and the spirit, or to pick only one aim and starve the rest. It says: there is a time to gain, a time to enjoy, and a time to let go, and a thread of right living that runs through them all. A full human life has room for every good thing, in its season.^[1]