Your essential pursuits in life

Humans constantly pursue varying goals—short-term and long-term, often opposite in nature. While one strives to buy a house, another seeks to sell it; one desires marriage, while another escapes it. These goals shift with time, age, and circumstances. What once seemed essential may later lose its appeal, even if freely available. Superficially, life’s goals appear infinite and ever-changing.

On closer examination certain universal and timeless desires emerge, shared by all humans and even animals instinctively. These can be classified into three fundamental categories, not hierarchical. Seeking security - Present instinctively in animals but refined in humans—manifesting as financial stability, insurance, or physical safety. Longing for Peace - A universal yearning, leading people to seek tranquil environments or activities to calm the mind. Searching for Happiness and Fulfillment - The pursuit of joy and contentment through various means, like relationships, possessions, or achievements. While the methods differ, the goals of security, peace, and happiness remain universal and eternal.

Vedanta points out that all these three are available within. Also, emphatically states that they are within only. The significance of ‘within only’ is that they are not available outside. Therefore, if you seek them outside all of them will elude, evade. If you look for these outside the search becomes a misplaced search. That is the fundamental problem, we search for something in a place where it is not available. An intelligent approach is to search for where it is available. But why do we search outside? The treasure may be available within, but they are hidden. Hidden by layers of covering. Remove the layers and tap the eternal spring. This process is called discovering.

There are three layers of covering. The grossest, the subtle and the subtlest. They are impurity, agitated extrovertedness and ignorance; known as mala, vikshepa and avarana. To remove these layers three spiritual disciplines are suggested called yoga. Yoga means that which unites the seeker with the sought. The seeker ‘me’ with the sought called security, peace, happiness. The three Yogas prescribed are called karma yoga, path of Action, to remove the first layer - the layer of impurities, second is called bhakti yoga, path of devotion, to remove second layer of obstacle - extrovertedness. The third, jnana yoga, path of knowledge, removes the third layer of covering - the ignorance. Thus, in the journey of life, you do not acquire something new but reclaim the treasure that is already within you.