From more to meaning

Years after parting ways, a guru returned in search of his favourite disciple. Once, the young seeker had lived with little more than a loincloth and a heart at peace. But when rats nibbled holes in his only garment, he found a simple solution - a cat. The cat needed milk, so he bought a cow. The cow needed fodder, so he tilled the land. The land demanded labourers. Labourers required supervision, and all the complex management needed a companion. Soon, there was a household to manage, and before long, a sprawling mansion replaced a humble hut. The guru looked on in quiet amazement. 'Master,' the disciple smiled sheepishly, 'it all began because I wanted to protect my loincloth.'

The disciple's story is amusing until we recognise our own modern-day reflection in it. A single desire fulfilled often awakens another. Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs marvellously explains this quest - from survival to self-actualisation, human growth as a progression of needs, from the physical to the incorporeal.

Centuries-old panch kosh describes five sheaths that veil our true nature, guiding us from the body and mind, from what we acquire, to the bliss that lies at our core, is the Anandmayi Kosh. In this view, happiness comes from shedding what obscures our essence. Both philosophies, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and 'panch kosh', describe journeys toward awakening, though one addresses 'accumulation' and the other, 'uncovering'.