Moksha : The Ultimate Goal

The basic goal of life on which the  are founded is dharma : morality especially as it expresses itself in the fulfilment of one's duties. But the ultimate goal of life is moksha, enlightenment. The previous three aims are understood with this very much in mind.

Prosperity and pleasure are great. Just about everybody wants them. But they don't last forever. After eight or nine decades at the most, the soul loses both at its physical body crumbles away. If your pursuit of the good things in life hasn't been from the perspective of the supreme good, then death can be a horrendous experience. Being cut off from the people and things we're attached to its wrenching.

Death is less of a trauma if during our lives we've been practicing the premier Hindu spiritual discipline of vairagya, dispassion. Western students sometimes think vairagya or nonattachment means stifling nature and cutting ourselves off from relationships. In fact it means expanding them.

Truly dispassionate people are the most loving folks you'll ever meet. They don't just love their family members and friends. They love everyone and everything. The divine inner nature, which is love itself, is allowed to shine in all directions, embracing everyone without particular attachment to one individual or another.

As human beings we naturally love our children, our family and friends. Hinduism suggests though that we not get overly attached to our attachments. At some point, we will have to let everyone of them go. If we bear this in mind through life, death becomes an expensive experience, not a fearful ending. We look forward to-and work toward- an illumined state of consciousness that enfolds all our fellow beings in a state beyond time.