Purusharthas: Giving life a meaning
आहार Ahaara (food), निद्रा Nidra (sleep), भयं Bhaya (fear) and मैथुनं Maithuna (sex) are the four significant cravings of मन: Mana – mind – which transcends species, space and time. To sustain one’s body a living being needs food, to heal and rejuvenate one’s body and mind sleep is essential, in survival fear plays a dominant role and for procreation as well as recreation – sex appears to play a crucial part. It is in pursuit of achieving these natural urges of the senses that there happen umpteen conflicts in the wild. Animals at times kill their kind for the sake of food, sleep, fear, and sex. It’s also the root of Chaos. To ensure that humans don’t live like beasts they created families, societies and, even, civilizations. पुरुशार्था Purushartha as an ethical code of conduct created by Vedic seers to survive, assess, pursue and achieve their desires without conflicts. It was to over-ride the “natural order of things” where the “strong crush the weak” in exchange for “peaceful co-existence.”