About Life

By Victor M Fontane

There is a text, Vicharsagar (Old Hindi) in which human beings are divided in four categories.

1. Instinctive animalistic life, I want pleasure, I want fun and for that I need money and resources, that’s all I want, I want this and I want now (traditional scheme of values). It’s called in Sanskrit Palmer or uncultured, instinctive a basic kind of mindset.

2. A higher level called Dharmika Vishai means a worldly person who want things but on the basis of Dharma (the eternal and inherent nature of reality, regarded in Hinduism as a cosmic law underlying right behavior and social order). Most people in society belong to this category and they still want things but for their family and want to be a moral and decent person, not particularly spiritual but interested in morality and also religion.

3. Those more evolved spiritually with a more mature mindset that realizes that ultimately no permanent happiness satisfaction can be achieved in this physical life (Samsara).

4. Spiritual seekers and practitioners looking for a spiritual life in any tradition that promises that there is something higher: realization, liberation, enlightenment and nirvana.