Page 28 - Complete Works of Dr. KCV Volume 1

So ultimately it became important that liberation should be the ultimate thing to determine our choice of artha, or choice of kama, or choice of dharma. Naturally, then, we wanted the person who can give us ultimate liberation to be in charge of the three other portfolios in life. And so we wanted one God to whom we shall appeal to give us freedom whilst granting us wealth; give us freedom whilst granting our desires; and to give us freedom whilst granting our dharma, or preservation of righteousness. That is why the idea of one God to whom we can go and ask for these things became very dominant.
We passed then from what is called polytheism to monotheism. The concept of one God who can give all the four, regulated by the fundamental principle of liberation became, I think, the cardinal principle of our own Hindu religion and tradition.
Now there are so many institutions and men who can cater to these things by appealing to the one God. But what happens is, in life, that the ultimate motive for liberation seems to get dimmed as men, even when they go to that One God, are anxious to ask for the lower but not for the higher also. That is why one of the great dictums of a great saint was "seek ye the kingdom of God first, and all things shall be added unto you."
So firstly seek the kingdom of freedom, moksha. Then you will find that every other thing will naturally follow from it, namely righteous wealth and righteous power, righteous enjoyment of love and desire, righteous enjoyment of dharma-God in this universe. So firstly it becomes incumbent on us to seek the ultimate being. That is why whenever we go to a god we ask for the ultimate reality or freedom, or moksha. And then we are sure the other things would follow.
There have been, of course, some people who in their anxiety to promote only liberation have asked us to deny the other three things and say I want only liberation. I do not say that it is wrong. All that I say is that they want us, as a practical expedient process, denying the lower so that they can show their anxiety to get the higher. In many cases, as I may put it, it appears to me that it savours of a kind of mental hypocrisy, and therefore I would rather have a definite frankness with the Divine in asking for liberation. A liberation that includes everything, rather than excluding