In this episode of “5 Minutes,” Dr. Robert Svoboda explores the four Purusharthas and their role in understanding the aims and stages of human life.

Purushartha means the aims of human beings, and there are four: Dharma, Artha, Kama, and Moksha.

Dharma is your path through life. Artha is everything you need to collect and obtain in life. Kama is the fulfillment of your desires. Moksha is freedom from attachment to the ideas of responsibility, possessions, and desires.

Ayurveda teaches that if you want to achieve these aims and fulfill the purposes of human life, you must first be healthy while you are doing so. Therefore, before you begin thinking about everything you want to accomplish in life, you should think about preparing yourself.

Do everything necessary to become healthy. Then try to understand what your Dharma is, what you are truly meant to do in this lifetime. Ideally, you discover this while you are still young. Once you understand your purpose, you begin acting in the world in a way that allows you to fulfill it and, if possible, obtain what you need in order to accomplish what you are here to do.

You may need to use resources such as money, or in different societies, other forms of exchange, to bring to yourself what you cannot produce on your own.

Eventually, once you have been following your Dharma properly and obtaining what you need, you will recognize that your responsibilities are being properly taken care of. Then you can begin to consider the things you truly wish to do that may not be directly connected with your Dharma and Artha. This is where Kama comes in.

Finally, the hope is that you reach a point where you understand that you will never be able to completely fulfill every aspect of your Dharma, accumulate everything you might want, or satisfy every desire you may have.

Then you should be able to let go of these things so that when death comes, you are not carrying a great deal of craving that makes the transition difficult for you or for those around you.

Ideally, the first stage of life is spent understanding your Dharma. The next stage, approximately the next twenty years, is the period called Brahmacharya, the stage of learning and discipline.

After that comes the stage of Grihastha, the householder stage, where you focus on establishing a home, a family, and the responsibilities of life in the world.

Then comes the stage of Vanaprastha, which means moving gradually away from active involvement in society. Traditionally, this could mean living in a simple dwelling, perhaps not in the city, but not so far away that family members could not visit.

During the later years of life, one enters the stage of Sannyasa, where one consciously recognizes that life is temporary and prepares for the end of the physical existence.

Dharma, Artha, Kama, and Moksha together form a pattern that allows a person to achieve as much as possible in this lifetime and then make a graceful exit.