A compass for the confused

In no shape do I possess the required qualifications to impose this framework on the reader. Nor does the reader who sees life as random and meaningless possess the required throughput for these ideas to enter their skull. I only write this to commence the dismantling process of the programs of fear and shame that are woven in the fabric of the collective consciousness of India. In my opinion, these programs of fear and shame are the reason for the country’s current collapse, buffoonery, identity paralysis, and its takeover. The eternal, authorless, and infallible Vedic principles that materialized on this land have been preserved till date, and they are still being practised in lineages, and I’m extremely blessed to be born literally on the land on where Krishna gave his teachings to Arjuna. But the sacred knowledge from the sages has been diluted and distorted and weaponized over time. So has the land, with its meteoric rise to the global pollution leaderboards. India is confused! Wait, I’m getting carried away. My bad. Let’s stick to the sacred framework so the dismantling process happens the right way, the right time. When I’m in my feelings, I will channel all my Mars energy and dedicate an entire treatise like Ludwig von Mises — to rant about the state of India.

---

The word Purushartha combines 2 terms — Purusha (person, human being) and Artha (purpose, goal, meaning) — hence “the 4 foundational goals of human life.” Together, the 4 Purusharthas — Dharma, Artha, Kama, Moksha — form the complete map of human aspiration — ethical, material, emotional, and spiritual.

This is not just abstract and philosophical, but a practical framework that anyone in the world can borrow and use to live a well-balanced and meaningful life. According to Pythagorean number symbolism, represented by the square, the number 4 is associated with order, practicality and organization. It is the basis of all practical construction. The 4 Purusharthas are like the 4 legs of a table, even if 1 leg is weak or missing, the entire structure becomes unstable. Before I fully committed to writing, my own life structure was unstable. Though I had (still do) a beautiful jumpshot like Steph Curry that I worked really hard for 5 years to develop by watching YouTube videos — after a series of injuries, I started to settle with the fact that my hoop dreams were a long shot. Other than basketball, I was simply drifting on the lifeless school-to-college-to-job path to success. Come to think of it, my hoop dreams were more of an escape from reality. I gave up my hopes of studying abroad because of a stupid girl, joined an Indian college, dropped out of that college to join another college for a stupid piece of paper that says I’m an MBA — not because I was always obsessed with human nature and buyer psychology, but because I wanted to fulfill family expectations for their validation, just so my grandpa could shut up. But he died before I could prove to him that I’m not entirely useless...

I just realized I am too lazy to turn this riff into a short cohesive story about how I lived my past lives in unconsciousness. The point is I have always been the black sheep, the outcast, everywhere I went, even in the case of basketball, which, for a long time, was the only area where I could be of some utility to anyone. I did not know the answers to the constant questions I got everywhere I went — “What do you want to be when you grow up?” or “Why are you so quiet?” I have burned my entire childhood in a self-induced psychosis, a deep loneliness and depression, well before all the “mental health awareness” propaganda started creeping into social media feeds during COVID. My mom took me to a shrink once, and before I could utter a word, she said “Anchit you are 18 but why do you think like a 40-year-old?” I was shocked. I didn’t show it. It was more of an internal ‘huh?’ And that was my first and last meeting with a psychologist. I had this belief of “Why should I pay a stranger to listen to me?” I rather chose isolation, developed the habit of locking myself in my room at a young age, became a textbook nihilist, living in my own distorted reality — a reality where I don’t deserve love and only deserve pain. Of course, I have graduated to higher level of delusions now that everyone knows psychiatrists are not real. I have come to realize that once I believe something, it essentially means death of inquiry, which is not good for my business and my internal climate. If you’d asked me then, I would have told you life is pain without any aim, backed by various stories of my victimhood.

Aimlessness and paralysis is what this framework exists to catch. Besides the steadiness and practicality of the 4 legs of a table, the 4 Purusharthas operate on a level of metaphysical abstraction that they can be used as a compass to unparalyze yourself and recalibrate in the real world.

1. Dharma

Righteousness. Moral values. Duty. Right conduct. The pursuit and execution of one’s nature and true calling, thus playing one’s role in the cosmic concert.

“Duty is just social programming,” says the modern objection. “It’s how they keep you in line.”

It’s partly right. Duty has been bent into obedience for as long as there have been people with something to gain from your compliance. But that isn’t what Dharma is. Dharma comes from the root dhri — to hold, to bear, to uphold. It’s the thing that keeps your entire compass pointing true. Dharma precedes Artha and Kama. Duty precedes wealth and pleasure — if there’s a conflict, Dharma should prevail.

I started by telling you I’m unqualified because I am still in the dharmic phase of my life, building Devoted Media to serve my readers and customers. I drifted aimlessly throughout the first half of my life, precisely because I had not found my duty. Without Dharma, one cannot live a conscious life, and is bound to live an accidental one, in a constant state of reaction, as a slave to outer stimuli.

For example, gold is produced by nature. It is classified as a metal or mineral. Mineral production is a geological process and, according to the Vedas, forms part of nature’s bounty. Hence, nature produces minerals and metals such as gold on a continuous basis. The more mankind lives in accordance with natural laws, the more minerals are produced and the more prosperous human society becomes. The actual purpose in printing paper money is recognized as counterproductive by Vedic authorities, not just Austrian economists. This, we can understand, is because, through paper currency, man wants to override nature’s mechanism, and steal from the future as a short-term band-aid solution. Whenever man follows the laws of Dharma and lives a righteous life, society is benefited and nature automatically produces ample supply of wealth. Whenever man flouts the laws of nature, he finds himself facing the uncertainties of nature and inevitably we find how, nature withholds its supply of natural resources. We find adverse climatic conditions, geopolitical tensions, and scarce resources — these are the ripple effects of non-observance of the foundations of Dharma or righteous life by humanity.

On an individual level, depending on your role, stage of life, and situation, Dharma can mean different things for different people. For a doctor, the Hippocratic Oath is Dharma. For a marketer, finding creative ways to sell the truth instead of creating fake fear and fake scarcity is Dharma. For an entrepreneur, earning profit by creating (not extracting) value is Dharma. For a seeker, a systematic inquiry into the nature of truth and reality is Dharma. But the common theme remains that Dharma never supports selfishness or harm. It always points towards truth, compassion, responsibility, and integrity.

Considering the chaos and uncertainty the earth is currently in, living by Dharma is stupid simple:

• Choose honesty. I learned this the hard way. Before I turned a teenager, I stole Gandhis from my family to gain the transitory trust of fake friends in school, thereby eroding all the permanent trust in my real family. As it turns out, honesty really is the best policy.

• Lower your time preference so you can expand your time horizon. Don’t be a hedonistic twat.

• Give respect, even when they say 6 + 9 = 69.

• Be sincere and kind, donate your old clothes to people without turning the whole act into Instagram content.

• Be loyal. Keep your promises. You can break the shitty promises you made with fake people, or never intended to keep in the first place, just because you were in a happy mood. Never promise anything when you are in smiley mode.

• Pay people well, tip the food delivery guy if you can, treat them like a human — duh.

2. Artha

The means of life. Wealth. Career. Economic energy. Financial security. The proper pursuit of Artha is considered an important aim of human life.

“Money is either cope or corruption,” says the objection. “Either you rise above it or it owns you.”

I have never understood the shame Indians attach to wealth. Because our own texts don’t share it. In fact, they acknowledge the inevitable game everyone on earth has to play — the economic game. Kautilya, writing his treatise on statecraft over 2000 years ago said, “Poverty breeds vice and hate, while prosperity breeds virtues and love,” and treated material security as the foundation everything else is built on. The Gita, meanwhile, calls greed one of the 3 gates to hell.

This only sounds conflicting but it’s not. One is describing the floor, the other the ceiling. Dharma governs — those are the riverbanks. Artha enables — that’s the water. A river with banks and no water is a dry ditch. Water with no banks is a flood. And Artha is the single word my ancestors used for both wealth and meaning. Your means and your meaning were never supposed to be enemies and the sages made sure of that. They were the same word. Without financial stability, it becomes impossible to think of anything, let alone higher goals. On the other hand, absolute power corrupts absolutely and there are many examples — both dead and alive. This is why Dharma precedes Artha. The crypto scammers might look sexy to the naked eye — but deceit, exploitation, altering other people’s reality and perception (just because you’re a hedonistic twat) comes with an emotional and spiritual cost. How you earn is more important than how much you earn.

The wisdom of the Purusharthas make it explicitly clear that money is not evil, greed and attachment are. Artha becomes a problem when the means becomes the end — when you no longer have money, money has you, and your “enough” always seems to be one installment away. If earned and used correctly, Artha becomes the soil that sustains your Dharma and Kama.

Balancing Artha is also stupid simple like asking yourself:

• Am I compromising my ethics just for more money?

• Am I ignoring my health and relationships in the name of “career”?

• Is my worth completely dependent on my bank balance?

If the answer is “yes” to any of these, then welcome to the club young man/woman. Instead of support, Artha is becoming a source of bondage and it is time for us to recalibrate using the wisdom of the Purusharthas. Also, I can’t believe I’m saying this but don’t ask your AI agent answer these questions for you. These prompts are for the LLM inside your skull.

3. Kama

Desire. Pleasure. Aesthetic enjoyment. Love. Affection.

This is not only sexual desire but all forms of refined enjoyment — art, beauty, companionship, comfort — when pursued consciously. In unconsciousness, I have struggled the most in this area throughout my life, more than Artha. When Kama goes out of the bounds of Dharma, it only leads to attachment, suffering, and disorder.

Now, we have reached the point in the essay where, if I write anymore, instead of serving you, I will start revealing secrets I only gossip about with my dog and God (like the recurring appearance of S-named girls from my teens till my early 20s). I’d rather tell you a story on lust and desire rather than my own struggles with desire to get my point across.

There is a famous story of Lord Shiva (aka the deity who kidnapped me 2 years ago) about destroying Kamadeva — the god of lust and love. After Sati’s death, Shiva withdraws from the world into fierce tapasya in his penance grove, high in the Himalayas — indifferent to creation and completely absorbed in meditation. At the same time, the demon Tarakasura is terrorizing the three worlds, and a prophecy states that only a son of Shiva can kill him. So the Gods must somehow bring Shiva and Parvati (Sati reborn) together. Parvati is sent to attend him, bringing flowers for his daily worship. But he remains inwardly detached. Therefore, Indra (Vedic god of weather) and the other gods decide to enlist Kamadeva (the deva of desire) to gently stir love in Shiva’s heart. Kamadeva arrives at Shiva’s retreat, creating an untimely spring — flowers bloom, bees hum, and the whole atmosphere becomes charged with sensual beauty. Armed with his flowery bow — its string a line of bees — and five arrows tipped with blossoming flowers, Kama aims at the meditating Shiva and releases his arrow of love toward Shiva’s heart. Shiva’s meditation is disturbed, and a flicker of desire arises, directed toward Parvati, who is nearby. This is exactly what the gods wanted but it violates the sanctity of Shiva’s meditation. Recognizing this, Shiva opens his third eye — which, if I had to imagine, is the equivalent of an anger that’s 1000x worse than the Younger Dryas impact — from it bursts a blazing fire that instantly reduces Kamadeva to a heap of ashes.

Now, this is a problem. The world cannot run without desire. There is no life without desire.

Kamadeva’s wife, Rati, is devastated at his sudden destruction and laments bitterly. The gods console her — telling her to gather and preserve his ashes — and plead his case before Shiva, explaining that Kama acted not out of malice, but in obedience to them for the welfare of the universe. Moved by her devotion and the larger cosmic purpose, Shiva grants a boon and Kamadeva is reborn, but without a physical body — the bodiless one. Which is a way of saying that you cannot point at something and call it desire, yet it is encoded in every cell of your body. For example, I find myself a Diet Coke very desirable. In our last illuminati meeting of writers, we learned how David Foster Wallace, in Consider the Lobster, gives a maximalist expression to the lobster’s desire to live as they are about to be tossed into the World’s Largest Lobster Cooker. If you look around, you will find infinite scenarios of desire at play — in the yogic lore, in Diet Coke — for it is the invisible glue that binds us in many ways.

How I think you can measure the health of your Kama goes back to my point on time preference, because we live in world where you can basically “get off” with the click of a button. There are billion dollar companies actively competing for ways they can traumatize you so they can monetize you — and I don’t just say that because it rhymes.

4. Moksha

Liberation. Self-realization. Freedom from samsara. The equivalent of transcending the matrix like Neo.

Let’s be real, neither of us are at this stage. I can give you examples of things I find liberating, like hitting the publish button. Also, there was a bug in my meditation app and for some reason, all my progress got reset after yesterday’s session so I can’t show-off even if I wanted to. My point is, the line between a buddha and a buddhu is extraordinarily fine. I am most probably the part of the latter crowd. If you are at this stage, shoot me a DM or email me at hello@anchitmalhotra.com, I would love to interview you.

---

Notes

The Arthashastra — India’s First Economics Treatise

• Full title: Kautiliyam Arthasastram — “Kautilya’s compendium on worldly affairs.”
• Considered as one of the upavedas.
• In the very first mantra, the author declares that it is not his work but a combination of many treatises on the Science of Politics as have been composed by ancient teachers for the acquisition and protection of the earth.
• 15 books, 180 sections, 150 chapters — covering statecraft, economics, taxation, trade, military strategy.
• Attributed to Chanakya (375-283 BCE), counsellor of Chandragupta Maurya.
• Disappeared after 12th century. Rediscovered in 1905 by R. Shamasastry. Published 1909.
• India had a comprehensive economics treatise 2,100 years before Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776).
• The foundational chain from Chanakya’s Arthashastra:
  1. Sukhasya Mulam Dharmah — The root of happiness is Dharma (ethics)
  2. Dharmasya Mulam Arthah — The root of Dharma is Artha (wealth)
  3. Arthasya Mulam Rajyam — The root of Artha is the state/organization
  4. Rajasya Mulam IndriyaJayah — The root of the state is mastery over senses
  5. IndriyaJayasya Mulam Vinayah — The root of sense-mastery is humility
  6. Vinayasya Mulam Vriddhopaseva — The root of humility is serving the wise
  7. Vriddhopasevayah Mulam Vijnanam — The root of serving the wise is competence
  8. Vijnanena Atmanam Vindet — Through competence, one discovers the Self
• The chain traces happiness THROUGH dharma BACK TO artha. You cannot skip the wealth step. Spiritual realization requires material foundation.
• Kautilya declared Artha MORE important than dharma and kama on practical grounds. Without economic security, you cannot practice virtue, and you cannot enjoy life. This is the OPPOSITE of the “spiritual people don’t care about money” narrative in the zeitgeist.

Poverty breeds vice and hate, while prosperity breeds virtues and love.

Be ever active in management of the economy, because the root of wealth is economic activity; inactivity brings material distress. Without any active policy, both current prosperity and future gains are destroyed.

Material gain is the most crucial of the three ends of life, as it supports the realization of Dharma and Kama.

Bhagavad Gita on Wealth and Action

Chapter 2, Verse 47 — The Core Teaching:

“Your right is to action alone, never to its fruits.”

Chapter 3, Verse 35 — Svadharma:

“It is far better to discharge one’s prescribed duties, even though they may be faulty, than another’s duties.”

Chapter 18, Verse 46 — Work as Worship:

“By worshipping through one’s own duty Him from whom all beings originate, man attains perfection.”

The Isa Upanishad Resolution

Act and enjoy with renunciation, do not covet.

Indian philosophy resolved the tension between wealth pursuit (pravrtti) and renunciation (nivrtti) through “action with renunciation” — act without craving for results. This is not anti-wealth. It is wealth pursued with Dharma.

Ludwig von Mises

Ludwig von Mises was an Austrian economist who wrote Human Action — a 900-page treatise on Economics. It is unlike me, but for various reasons, I actually bought this physical book last year, and made it my responsibility to internalize. To my surprise, Mises’s work relates a lot to the knowledge in the vedas.

Relax. I’m kidding!

Psychiatrists are very real. And the world definitely needs them. I absolutely love Dr. K and his work.

Dharmo rakshati rakshita

One who protects Dharma is protected by Dharma. This holds true on an individual level but it also holds true on a wider national and international scale.