Can you expound about Dharma?
How can one identify one´s Dharma?
I feel my Dharma involves many different aspects:
personal, growth, family, community, sometimes difficult
to prioritize.
Dharma is a sanskrit word.
It comes from the root verb dhru, dhru means to hold.
Dhru means, to hold.
Hold means one with.
I´m holding this, I´m with.
This word Dharma been a sanskrit word, has so many meanings, you can not imagine.
So many meanings.
If I will go on talking on Dharma, with my limited knowledge, I can talk some hours.
And those who have really studied more they can talk for days.
Only dharma.
What is dharma?
Very simple meaning of dharma is the quality or property.
Quality or property, nature.
One simple meaning of dharma.
Fire.
Fire has its own dharma.
What is the dharma of fire?
So if I keep my finger to fire, fire will burn me, fire will not be kind towards me.
Okay.
Burning is the nature of fire.
Quality of fire.
It is dharma.
You heat water, water is hot.
But it is not the nature of water.
It is borrowed.
If you keep water away from the source of heat, water cools down.
Coolness is the dharma of water, nature or property, quality of water.
Hot water is heat, or warmness, is not quality of.
So in this way, if you go on seeing the property, quality, nature,
so this is one meaning of dharma.
I am a human being.
This is a dog.
This is a cat.
This is a cow.
This is a tiger.
Each animal or each living being, they have their dharma.
Manava dharma, dharma as human being; dharma as animal, pasu dharma.
You can teach human dharma to the animal.
They might adopt a little bit if they come closer to us and stay, but
when they will be outside, they will forget.
So what is the human dharma?
The human dharma: to develop positive human values.
Positive human values.
Now I am a son.
I am a son, you are my mother, he is my father, she is my sister, he is my brother,
she or he is my friend and so on.
When I am a human being, being a social person, we have different relationships.
My relationship with my father, is different from my relationship with my mother.
The way I've treated my mother, is different from the way I behave with my father.
So I being a person, having different relationships, I have different roles.
To do my role or my duty in a healthy, positive, peaceful, loving way is my dharma.
Being a son, I have my dharma duty towards my parents.
Just little before, I was talking to a very loving person,
and I was hearing about the father of that person,
hundred years old, who completed hundred years on 6th of September.
And how the person is concerned about the wellbeing of the father.
So, so nice to hear this.
So we have our duties, responsibilities, as human being with our special relationship,
it is also dharma.
You accepted special way of life.
For example: you accepted to meditate, to get initiated.
So now, as you are initiated, you are a student or a disciple.
When you accepted a special way of life, you have some dharma, as a disciple.
So this dharma is …..dharmasya gahanā gatiḥ…….
it is very difficult to exactly to define what dharma is, it is beautiful.
One very simple thing, simple verse, I will quote from the Ramayana:
kṛte ca pratikartavyam eṣaḥ dharmaḥ sanātanaḥ
This is eternal dharma.
If you are getting a little benefit, or little support from anybody, be always grateful.
Gratefulness or gratitude, is the eternal dharma.
In the Mahabarata, hundreds of places, it is written,
ahimsa parama dharma, ahimsa parama dharma:
Not to hurt others through words, thoughts, or activities.
Is supreme dharma.
But unfortunately, dharma is translated in English, as a religion,
and which is completely wrong approach.
I am just telling... you see the words.
In English, Christianity, Islam, Judaism- this is English.
Now in the Indian word, we tell Bauddha dharma, Jaina dharma, Hindu dharma,
so when you translate it into English, we told Hinduism, Buddhism, ism.
Dharma is not ism.
Dharma, one meaning is: way of living, way of life.