Hinduism: The Goal of Life (Jīvan-Laksh)

[KALKI]

The goal of life (jīvan-lakshya)

The goal of life is stated variously as the realization of one's union with God, attainment of the vision of God, attainment of perfect love of God, realization of the unity of all existence, perfect unselfishness, liberation from ignorance, attainment of perfect mental peace, or detachment from worldly desires. The goal is to have the direct experience of divinity, regardless of precisely how one may choose to define it.

The experience of divinity is the only thing that can give one true peace and happiness, and salvation from suffering and ignorance. According to Hindu thought, one does not necessarily have to wait until death to attain salvation; it is possible to achieve it in this very life.

One who attains salvation while living is called a jīvan-mukta

Multiple ways to reach the goal (yoga)
In whatever way a Hindu might define the goal of life—and multiple definitions are allowed—there are several methods (yogas) that have been developed over the centuries for people of different tastes and temperaments. Paths one can follow to achieve the spiritual goal of life include:


Bhakti Yoga (the path of love and devotion),
Karma Yoga (the path of right action),
Rāja Yoga (the path of meditation) and
Jñāna Yoga (the path of mystical understanding).


Bhakti yoga is prescribed for people of emotional temperaments. Karma yoga is prescribed for people who like to always be engaged in action. Raja yoga is recommended for meditative people. And Jnana yoga is meant for the rational person. It is typical for Hindus to combine two or more of these paths into their spiritual life to create a path that suits their personal temperaments.

A few schools hold only one or two of these paths leads to salvation. For example, some followers of the Dvaita school hold that Bhakti ("devotion") is the only path. A large number of Hindus, however, believe that although one particular path may be best for them, another path may be better for another person, and any path—if followed sincerely—can lead to God.

Note: Although to many westerners the word yoga may evoke images of stretches and stress reduction, yoga in the Hindu religion is a spiritual practice whose primary goal is self-realization.



Bhakti yoga
The bhakti school emphasizes cultivation of love and devotion for God as being the path to salvation. Followers of bhakti ("bhaktas") typically worship God as a divine incarnation, such as Rama or Krishna, or as some other aspect of the personal God.

Bhakti tends to attract those who are emotional by nature. Followers of the bhakti path strive to purify their minds through the chanting of God's name (japa), prayer, the singing of hymns (bhajan), and by treating all living creatures with compassion (dayā). Whereas the followers of the jnana yoga seek the realization that

"My inner soul is none other than God," followers of bhakti yoga "wish to taste sugar, not to become sugar."

Therefore, bhaktas seek to enjoy communion with God, but do not seek to merge their consciousness with God completely as the followers of jnana yoga do.


Karma Yoga
The followers of karma yoga seek to achieve mental equilibrium and perfect unselfishness by performing their duties in the world in a dedicated but mentally detached manner.


According to Hinduism, work, which is inevitable, has one great disadvantage. Any work done with attachment to its fruits generates a kind of psychological bondage, or anxiety, in the mind of the worker.

Therefore, followers of karma yoga emphasize the following injunction in the Bhagavad Gita:

Do your duty, always; but without attachment. That is how a man reaches the ultimate truth; by working without anxiety about results.

Many followers of karma yoga try to attain mental detachment from the results of their work by mentally offering the results of every action to God, thus combining karma yoga with bhakti yoga. However, it is also possible for even an atheist to follow karma yoga by simply remaining mentally detached from the results of his or her work by means of willpower.


Raja yoga

Swami Vivekananda, was a Hindu sanyāsin (monk) recognized for his inspiring lectures on spiritual topics such as bhakti yoga, karma yoga, raja yoga, and jnana yoga. He founded the Ramakrishna Mission, which today conducts religious teaching and philanthropic activities worldwide.The followers of Raja yoga seek to realize spiritual truths through meditation. Raja yoga, also known simply as yoga, is based on the Yoga Sutras (aphorisms on yoga) of the sage Patanjali.

Through the practice of meditation, followers of this path seek to gradually gain control over their own thoughts and actions, rather than being controlled by their impulses as most people are. They seek to attain one-pointed concentration and perfect equanimity of mind.

Ultimately, through meditation, the followers of raja yoga seek knowledge: by concentrating all the energies of the mind inward, they seek to perceive whether they have souls, "whether life is of five minutes or of eternity, and whether there is a God."
Thus, the highest goal of raja yoga is God-realization, or experiencing the Ultimate Truth.

The actual act of sitting down for meditation, however, is only the tip of the iceberg in Raja yoga. The disciplines of raja yoga actually consist of eight steps, of which dhyāna (meditation) is only one.


According to Patanjali, the eight practices of Raja yoga are:

Yama: Restraining harmful thoughts and impulses.

Niyama: Cultivating good habits.

Āsana: Learning sitting postures suitable for prolonged contemplation.

Prānāyama: Learning the technique of rhythmic breathing.

Pratyāhāra: Withdrawing the senses from their objects of enjoyment.

Dhāranā: Fixing the mind on the object of contemplation.

Dhyāna: Uninterrupted contemplation (meditation).

Samādhi: Total absorption of the mind in the object of contemplation.


As with the other yogas, Raja yoga may be combined with bhakti yoga, karma yoga, or jnana yoga to create a customized path suitable for an individual aspirant. The aspects of raja yoga that deal with physical exercises (especially āsana) are known collectively as hatha yoga. Although in western countries hatha yoga is commonly practiced in isolation to improve physical health or for relaxation, the traditional Hindu view is that hatha yoga and the other practices of raja yoga are interconnected and have to be practiced simultaneously.


Jnana yoga
Jnana Yoga has been called the path of rational inquiry, and is prescribed for people to whom reason appeals more than faith.[61] The followers of jnana yoga emphasize a two-step process to help one attain salvation:

(1) viveka, the practice of discriminating between things that are impermanent (i.e., worldly pleasures) and those that are permanent (i.e. God and the soul), and

(2) vairāgya, renunciation of unhealthy attachment to things that are impermanent.

For monks (called sanyāsīs or sādhus ) and nuns (sanyāsinīs), renunciation may mean actual physical departure from worldly activities such as marriage and earning money. For the vast majority of people, however, renunciation means mental detachment from selfish desires while continuing to fulfill family and community obligations.[63] By focusing the mind on Divinity instead of the desire for selfish gain, one can maintain a healthy mental equilibrium in the face of the inevitable highs and lows of life.

"It is on account of ignorance (or māyā) that humans identify themselves with their physical bodies and their egos (the sense of "I" and "mine") "

These are impermanent, and thus ultimately unreal. The true "self" of every person—the only part of a person that is permanent--is the inner soul, called the atman. Further, the atman of each person is eternally connected to the atman of every other person, with God, and with all existence.

To take an analogy, each individual soul is like a wave on a shoreless ocean.
The ocean is the Infinite Brahman. When a person sees rightly, he comes to understand that each wave is none other than the one ocean. Similarly, the highest realization that the followers of jnana yoga strive to attain is that all living beings are essentially none other than the infinite, eternal Brahman.
Having this realization makes one naturally treat all people with love and compassion, since one understands that by doing good to others, one actually does good to oneself. It also removes all fear of death.

Jnana yoga is often associated with the Vedanta school of philosophy, although Hindus of the Vedanta school may incorporate elements of bhakti yoga and the other yogas into their spiritual practices as well.