Purushartha

The four classical aims of human life: dharma, artha, kama, and moksha.

Overview

The Vedantic framework that classifies every deliberate human pursuit under one of four aims. Swami Sarvapriyananda uses this framework to open the whole lecture series: if you generalize any activity people do, it falls under dharma (good action, moral duty), artha (wealth and worldly accomplishment), or kama (pleasure). These three are the worldly pursuits. The fourth, moksha, is qualitatively different — it is the transcendent aim, the subject of the Gita.

Swami’s framing: spirituality and the Gita itself begin when a person realizes the first three cannot yield lasting happiness. “We have been trying and trying and trying, but we are unable to be really happy in those three pursuits.”

Related concepts

• The four aims: dharma, artha, kama, moksha
• Moksha is the aim that the Gita is about — a Vedantic scripture

Lecture evidence

• Ep. 1 [04:02]: All worldly activity classifies under dharma, artha, kama.
• Ep. 1 [06:20]: Spirituality begins when we realize the three worldly pursuits can’t give real happiness.