Yoga in its origins is delightfully life-supporting and embracing of every possible desire. The yoga approach to meditation is always intended to support you in thriving, whatever your mission is in life. The techniques are ways of joining with pranashakti, the life force, and being tuned up so you function better as an embodied being.
Desires flow endlessly and each one is a little packet of energy and information to energize you and help you have a sense of direction. In the yoga literature, there is a succinct statement of the desire flow of life, summed up in four categories:
Moksha - Freedom. Liberation.
Kama - Love. Affection. Sensual pleasure. Sexual love. Enjoyment. Longing. Desire.
Artha - Substance. Wealth. Property. Money. Fulfilling material needs.
Dharma - Virtue. Morality. Religion. Good works. Justice. Ethics. Each of these is a vibrating field of energy, a current of desire flowing through a body, and we have come here to live.
All together these are called Puruṣārtha - “the object of human pursuit.” This is just a simple way of pointing to the flow of natural desires. Your body is always flowing with dozens, hundreds, thousands, of little desires. A hum of life.
These may play in any order and mix and combine. In any given moment, one may be teaching you, active, calling for attention, for tending, and the others rush in to support it.
When you are practicing mediation in a way that is cooperating with the energy of your own life, then the four purusharthas will play with each other, one will come to the surface to be felt and tended to, then another, then another. They may even join forces and make teams to help each other.
The texts suggest you keep in mind these four aims, called purusharthas, and be in a learning feedback loop to adjust the practices so that they are in the service of life.
One of the skills of meditation to cultivate is to notice which of the purusharthas is calling to you in a given moment, and give in to it. In meditation, much of your time will spent with your body processing the interaction of your energies and the demands and opportunities of the outer world.
Many of the thoughts, sensations, emotions, daydreams, and currents of desire you feel during meditation will be side effects of the way your body is processing the momentum of desire, pleasure, freedom, affection, wealth, and morality.
You want your practice to support you in pursuit of all your life’s purposes. All your pleasures and needs.
Don’t leave any part of you behind. Don’t turn your back on yourself in any way.
