What are the aims in your life? Browsing the internet, I found some interesting answers:

– My main aim in life is to get out of this slavery corporate job.
– Improve my career and become financially independent.
– I want to live life in such a way that I will die with satisfaction.
– I want to start my own company and employ people.
– My aim in my life is to become person who has wealth and values.

Most answers were centered on materialistic pursuits.

What does Hinduism tell us in this regard?

Hinduism believes that there are four basic aims of life.

What a man wants for himself in his life- the aims of a man’s life- are called the purusharthas in Sanskrit. There are four purushartas.

What are these four purushartas?

These are Dharma, Artha, Kaaama and Moksha.

What do they mean? Dharma refers to one’s duty, a code of good conduct, Artha is pursuit of wealth and prosperity, Kaama refers to desires and pleasure, sensual gratification, and Moksha is the pursuit of liberation.

Hinduism is not against pursuing wealth or fulfilling your personal desires. It places Dharma first.

What is Dharma? The word is derived from the Sanskrit root “dhr” to uphold, sustain or nourish.

Dharma denotes beneficent action, good or virtuous deeds.

Mahaperiyavaa of Kanchi says:

“There is a law governing the behaviour of everything in this universe. All must submit to it for the world to function properly. Otherwise things will go awry and end up in chaos. It is the will of the Lord that all his creation, all his creatures, should live in happiness. That is why he has ordained a dharma, a law, for each one of them. It is compliance with this dharma that ensures all-round harmony.”

To the question,”Ko dharmah?” (what Dharma?), Sri Adi Sankaracharya’s answer is “Abhimato yah sistanam nija kulinam”. It means that dharma is that which is determined by the elders and by learned people.

There need be no doubt or confusion about the dharma we ought to follow. We are all steeped in the dharma that our, great men have pursued from generation to generation

“The principle on which the Vedic religion is founded,” observes the Sage of Kanchi “is that a man must not live for himself alone but serve all mankind.”