The Essence of Dharma: 9. Swami Krishnananda.

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Saturday 29, March 2025, 17:13
Scriptures
The Essence of Dharma: 9.
Swami Krishnananda
(Spoken on February 11th, 1973)

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Now, dharma, artha, kama, moksha, the concept of the fourfold duty of man, is also very interesting. Dharma is duty, dharma is religion, dharma is justice, dharma is law. Dharma cannot be translated. Artha is material value. Anything that is materially significant for life is called artha. It does not mean merely gold and silver or coins and currency notes. Any kind of material significance or value in life is called artha, while dharma is the law that regulates the acquisitions and operations of this material value and all other values. Kama is the fulfilment of the vital value, the emotional value, and the personal value of the human being. Moksha, I have already explained. I will not say anything further about it because if I do, you will go into ecstasies and go crazy. Let us not say anything further about it.

If somebody who is very beloved dies, we do not tell his name because if his name is told we will start crying once again. Like that is moksha. Do not utter his name. Gauranga Mahaprabhu could not bear to hear the name of God because if he heard it he would go mad and cease to be at that moment. “O Hari!” That word is sufficient. The personality will melt and become liquid immediately. Moksha is some such thing. You will become liquid. You will melt if you know what it is. We do not know what it is, and therefore, we remain still solid.

Dharma, artha, kama, moksha. These four are blended together in our religion in a beautiful manner to conform to the gradation of the concept of reality. There is an external universe. Though the universe is a continuum of being ultimately, it appears to be an outside factor for us. As long as the universe appears to be an external factor to our consciousness, it also has to appear as a material something, and it has a value for us. That value which we attach to the universe as being something outside our consciousness is artha. It is very important indeed; we cannot ignore it. It includes political values, economic values, and every concrete value that we can attach to material existence. That is artha. We know how important it is. I need not comment upon it.

Kama is equally important. Kama means the necessity to fulfil emotional demands. Psychoanalysis of the West has gone very far in this subject. It is a very interesting subject, which everyone should read and study well, though you need not accept every one of its conclusions. Everything has good in it; everything has some defect also in it. Psychoanalysis is the study of what happens when emotions are repressed, which will also tell you how necessary it is to fulfil emotions. Emotion is a desire that arises in the mind. A longing, a craving, a wish, a preference, a like – that is called an emotion. If you have a tremendous longing and do not fulfil it, you know very well what will happen. Therefore, longings have to be fulfilled under the regulation of dharma.

Dharmāviruddho bhūteṣu kāmo'smi bharatarṣabha (BG 7.11): “Arjuna, I am kama which is regulated by dharma.” It is not unbridled kama, but kama, or fulfilment of desire, which is justifiable according to the law of dharma. That God Himself is. If you do not justifiably, rationally and moderately fulfil your emotional needs, you will not be a sane person. You will be an abnormal being, and therefore, it is essential. But you should not fulfil your emotions against the law of dharma. Otherwise, you will be an abandoned person condemned in society. You will be dubbed unethical and immoral. So again we are here in a difficult quandary of living. Life is difficult; it is not a joke. Life is a science, and all science is difficult to master.

Dharma is the law that regulates artha, kama, and the fulfilment of the ultimate need of the soul, which is moksha. Dharma is supreme; there is nothing equal to it anywhere, and dharma is supreme because it is the law of existence. The law of existence is called dharma. It is the law of the Absolute, as satya in the terms of the Rigveda. It is rita, the law of the cosmos in the terms of the Rigveda. It is the law of the government, it is the law of the nation, it is the law of society, it is the law of our family. It is the law of our individual personality, our physical body, our mind, our intelligence, our understanding, and our logical science. It is the understanding, and the law of our spirit. Dharma is everything and anything – the law of the physical body, the law of the vital body, the law of the mental body, the law of understanding, the law of logic, the law of spirit, the law of society, the law of nations, the law of political government, the law of the cosmos, the law of the Absolute, and so everything is determined by it. Justice is abidance by this law.

Thus, dharma, artha, kama, moksha is blended together beautifully in life. This blend, beautifully brought out in an artistic fashion, is the religion of Bharatavarsha.

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The Rasa Panchadhyayi of the Srimad Bhagavata Mahapurana: Swami Krishnananda to be published in Bhagavatha puranam.Article on Scriptures

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