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Humanity and
Dharma
The
Meaning of Dharma: Dharma is perhaps the key term for the great spiritual
traditions of India and East Asia, Hindu and Buddhist, whether relative to
their understanding of the outer world of nature or the inner realm of
consciousness. It is the basis of India’s vast and diverse culture and its deep
commitment to Yoga and meditation as tools of self-realization for all. A
respect for Dharma is said to be more important even than a belief in God,
because it implies certain values and a way of life that promotes truth, unity
and respect for all life above ideas or emotions.
Dharma
in Sanskrit comes from the root ‘dhri’ meaning ‘to uphold’ and is symbolized by
a pillar. It refers to the spiritual, ethical and natural principles that
uphold the entire universe. Dharma has always been linked to Veda or vidya,
which refers to an inner capacity to perceive the nature of things. It reflects
a higher awareness pervades and underlies all existence.
Dharma
is a very difficult term to define and eventually must be understood in its own
right. To provide a basis for this, we could say that Dharma indicates both the
nature of reality at a universal level as well as the proper place for each
thing in the universe according to its particular qualities and capacities.
There is a specific dharma relative to each creature and every aspect of
nature, as well as to the whole of existence. Dharma indicates the harmony both
of the totality and the individual, which are complementary and interdependent.
According to a dharmic view, the entire universe is present in each object and
in every creature, which in some way embody or express the totality.
There
is a dharma or natural way of working behind the great forces of nature, the
five elements of earth, water, fire, air and ether, the seasons, the three
worlds as earth, atmosphere and the heavens, and the different aspects of the
cosmos as matter, energy, and light, which follow interrelated laws and
patterns. There is a dharma or unique quality and energy in every plant and
animal which serves to make it what it is. Everything has its place in the
Dharma, which reflects its role in the cosmic order. And there is a special
dharma or role on Earth for the human being, which is to seek to embody a
higher truth and work to promote a higher consciousness in the world. The
universe is an organically connected vibratory field in which all things are
linked together into a greater network of harmony, beauty and vitality. This is
the universal ‘web of dharma’.
There
is dharma or way of right action relative to all aspects of human life and
culture: a dharma of art, a dharma of business, a dharma of communication, a
dharma of relationship, a dharma of science, a dharma of religion, and so on –
each of which requires its own examination. What is done according to dharma is
performed with grace, intelligence and respect for the natural order. Each
different domain of our lives has certain principles and practices necessary to
unfold its full potential, which constitute its dharma. If we follow the dharma
in what we do, we will not only be successful, but will act so in a way that
promotes the well-being of all.
We
have our own individual or ‘svadharma’ that reflects our capacities and
aspirations in life. Yet this is not something that divides us from others.
Each person has similar potentials that we must honor.
The
Social Dharma: Relative to society, the term Dharma is used in a special way as
indicating the right way for society and its members to operate in harmony with
their natures, with the environment and with the universe as a whole. This is
what we could call the ‘social Dharma’. For social well being, there must be a
proper understanding and implementation of Dharma on all levels.
In
Vedic thought, human society is looked upon like the human body as a single
organism with different limbs, organs and functions, which all serve the
benefit of the whole. The social organism is one in essence, but the role of
different individuals, communities or professions must vary in order to fulfill
the diverse and specialized needs of the whole. Such social differences should
not become a matter of high and low or good and bad, but an organic necessity
in which each particular role is vital, just as each organ of the human body
has an important and irreplaceable role in the well-being of the entire body.
We cannot forget society’s connection with the Earth and nature, if we want
society to be healthy, harmonious and without violence.
There
are special principles of Dharma or right living for society, nations and
communities, including special guidelines for men and women, the young and the
old, for different professions and for different stages of life. There is an
organic order to life, even at a social level, as there is in how our body
functions.
However,
Dharma also requires that our outer actions and life-styles change along with
changing times and cultures. Dharma does not consist of rigid rules that can be
blindly applied to all circumstances, but of guiding principles that require
adaptation according to the differing needs of time, place and culture. The social
Dharma cannot become rigid or the social organism will decline. This means that
the vision of Dharma is more important than any specific formulation of dharma
in a particular book or by a single person, though we should not discountenance
the value of the dharmic wisdom from the past.
Today
we need a new social dharma that can integrate what is best in science and
technology while restoring our deeper connection with both Nature and the
Spirit, such as the great seers of India maintained.
Dharma
and Human Rights
Western
political thought and modern democracies in general are based upon the idea of
“human rights”, which are primarily defined on an individual basis, according
to political ideals of freedom, equal opportunity, and justice for each person.
These democratic principles have helped protect the individual, reducing
oppression and discrimination on various levels within the society relative to
race, ethnicity, gender, class, occupation, or other social affiliations.
Yet,
on the negative side, an over fixation on “individual rights” encourages a mere
outer freedom to do what one wants that can make people more aggressive and
acquisitive, lacking an inner dimension of spiritual search. Outer freedom
without a corresponding inner aspiration can become a license for the ego to do
what it wishes, even if it causes eventual harm to others or to the
environment. It often becomes a hectic pursuit of the material world, a running
after the external allures of Maya.
The
American Declaration of Independence is a very interesting document in this
regard. It is based upon the three principles of “life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness” as the inalienable rights of man. Life and liberty are our
inalienable rights to be sure, but the “pursuit of happiness” taken only at an
outer level easily promotes an external seeking of enjoyment, pleasure and
power. What you pursue or run after usually runs away from you! This pursuit of
happiness or desire has given rise to the current commercial society that in
many ways is becoming increasingly vulgar and destructive. Each individual
tends to seek his or her rights, which easily lends itself to self-promotion
over the greater good of all.
Dharma,
on the other hand, teaches us that life, liberty and happiness are our inherent
nature and can be found within ourselves, without the need for external seeking
or accumulation of possessions. Dharma promotes freedom from any sort of outer
dependency. This includes freedom from commercial exploitation and an inner
orientation to life, which implies a spiritual search. Our role in life is not
simply to gain what is due to us, as if the universe owed us a favor, but to
help in the well-being of the world as a whole, which is part of our own
greater nature. Our place in life is not simply to take, as if we existed in
isolation, but to give, reflecting our relationship with the whole and the
wholeness of who we really are.
Dharma
and Duty
Dharma
indicates duty, obligation, and responsibility as well as rights and freedom.
Rights can never exist without corresponding duties and obligations. Unless
rights and duties are balanced, the society itself will become imbalanced and
disturbed. Each one of us no doubt has our individual place in the universe
that must be honored and a destiny of our own to be fulfilled, but we must also
respect the universe upon which we depend and realize that our well being can
never be secured at the cost of that of others.
In
this regard, Dharma is connected to the idea of giving, offering and sacrifice
-what Vedic teachings call yajna. Yajna is symbolized by a fire sacrifice. Fire
can only burn if given an offering of the proper fuel. Our place in life is to
make the proper offering so that the universal fire of Dharma can illuminate
both ourselves and the world around us. Ultimately, we must ourselves become an
offering for all, rather than holding to our personal existence or private
property as final.
Yajna
says that our lives should consist of worship and honoring, including relative
the Divine, our ancestors, other living creatures, all human beings, and the
spiritual heritage of the entire human race. If each one of us acts for the
good of all, we will all certainly flourish. If we act only for the good of
ourselves, our family or our particular community, we will breed long term
division, inequality and violence.
Broader
Human and Universal Rights
According
to the principles of Dharma, it is not only individuals that have rights but
all aspects of the social organism and the world of nature as a whole. Families
have rights, as do communities, including the right not to be interfered with
or to be broken up. Cultures have rights not to be denigrated or exploited,
even in the name of progress. Today in the name of individual human rights many
traditional communities and cultures are being devalued and denigrated, if not
eliminated, often paving the way for commercial exploitation.
The
non-human world also has its rights. Animals have the right to live without
human interference or exploitation and to have their natural space to move
freely. Plants do so as well, as the plant also has consciousness and feeling.
The world of nature does not exist solely for our own personal advantage as
human beings. Each creature has its own existence that we must honor.
Ecosystems also have a right to remain as they are and evolve according to
their own energies, without being turned merely into human habitations or
recreation sites.
When
human rights do not respect the rights of other creatures, they invariably lead
to conflict and problems in human society as well in the world of nature. The
greater life organism of the biosphere gets damaged, which means that human
beings will also not have a harmonious natural environment that can provide for
health and well-being. This is what we are seeing today in which our
environment has been damaged by making human needs, desires and profits
predominate over the natural rights of other creatures and the sanctity of the
Earth itself – in which we are failing in our duty to the universe in the blind
pursuit of personal enjoyment.
Dharmic
Pluralism
Dharma
reflects a pluralistic view of life which honors unity in multiplicity. It
recognizes that there is a diversity of human beings, with each individual
being unique in one way or another. There cannot be one job all for all, one
medicine for all, or even one religion or spiritual path for all.
Therefore,
there should be a corresponding diversity in society in terms of culture,
philosophy, art and spirituality so that each person or group has something
that their particular Dharma can relate to and find fulfillment in. According
to Dharma, unity lies not in uniformity of name, form or action but in the
inner freedom that allows the individual to move through and beyond all outer
forms to the inner essence that is one with all.
Dharma
and Relativism
Dharma
holds that we must look at each individual and circumstance according the
particular situations, energies and capacities involved. For this reason, a
Dharmic approach remains flexible and does not seek to impose any absolutes or
rigid rules upon humanity. For example, if you are driving down a road you
cannot follow a rigid set of rules or formulas; you have to actually see the
movement of traffic moment by moment. Similarly, Dharma rests upon perception
more so than any doctrine.
Yet
Dharma is far removed from an ‘anything goes’ attitude or a mere moral
relativism. Dharma says that there is a right and appropriate way to do each
thing, whether it is right way to eat, a right way to breathe, or a right and
respectful way to organize our societies, reflecting individual circumstances
as well as the broader principles existence. This way of right action cannot be
reduced to a fixed pattern but is not without enduring principles either.
Dharma requires consciousness in its application and cannot be turned into a
standardized creed or mechanical set of rules.
Dharma
and Secularism
Dharma
does not imply a rule of religion over life or society. Dharma and secularism,
the idea that church and state should be separate, share certain attitudes,
values and concerns. Dharma holds that a government should not be used to
promote one religious belief or another. It holds to freedom of religion and
says that the individual should have the freedom to pursue their own Dharma in
life, free of control by the state or by any external institution.
Yet
Dharma is different from secularism in certain ways as well. Dharma regards all
life as sacred and so cannot accept a merely commercial view of life, which is
the tendency of so-called modern secular cultures. Dharma says that we must
respect the sacred aspect of human life and try to make our social actions into
something respectful of the greater universe. Dharma can project a spiritual
vision without violating the principle of individual freedom. This is because
it sees the spiritual path as a matter of individual practice, an expression of
freedom, not something enforced from the outside.
Dharma
and Religion
Religion
is often translated as Dharma in Indian thought today. This reflects another
side of its meaning. Dharma like religion states that we should recognize the
universal and the eternal and base our human culture on a spiritual goal or
higher consciousness. However, Dharma cannot be reduced to one particular
religion, book, teacher, revelation or another. Dharma is not based upon belief
and does not seek to spread, much less impose, a single belief upon all
humanity. Dharma accepts freedom of religion as well as a freedom of the
individual not to follow any religion at all. Above all, it places individual
spiritual practice over any overt religious institutionalism.
Dharma
places the need to act for the good of all above any religious labels or
differences. Dharma says it is what we do that matters, not what we call
ourselves, and that truth ultimately transcends all names and boundaries.
Dharma says that the supreme truth is impersonal, apaurusheya, and cannot be
reduced to a human formulation or representative that all must follow, however
helpful these may be for certain groups or individuals.
Yet
a dharmic approach does recognize that different individuals, groups and
communities may want to follow different spiritual and religious paths – which
need not all be the same – and which may have their own respective practices,
formulations and values. Dharma accepts pluralism in religion as in all of
life, including the freedom of individuals to differ and disagree on matters of
religion, as long as they do not turn these differences into a pretext for
conflict and violence.
At
a higher level, Dharma embraces Yoga as its Moksha Dharma or teaching about the
liberation of the soul, which is a matter of sadhana or inner spiritual
practice through the science and art of meditation.
Dharmic
Values and Ethics
Dharma
rests upon certain clearly defined universal values and ethics. These are not
simply dictates, laws or commandments but a recognition of how life works and
how we can attune ourselves to the consciousness of the greater universe. Such
dharmic values are perhaps most simply defined in the basic principles behind
Yoga practice of non-violence (ahimsa), truthfulness (satya), self-control
(Brahmacharya), non-stealing (asteya) and non-acquisitiveness (aparigraha).
There
is no living being that wants to be hurt. We ourselves do not want to be hurt,
so honoring the universal dharma, the universal culture as it were, we do not
seek to harm anyone. Similarly, we do not want to be deceived. There is no
creature that wants to be deceived, so honoring the universal dharma we tell
the truth. Dharmic ethics therefore are a matter of universal courtesy, as it
were, not only towards others but also towards ourselves. Without such dharmic
ethics we cannot have access to the cosmic mind or the greater civilization of
the universe, which is one of consciousness, not merely of science and
technology.
Towards
a New Dharmic Movement
Today
humanity is suffering from a global crisis, which is not simply a lack of
resources but a crisis of values. Today we must learn to coexist and pluralism,
not only at a political level but also at cultural and religious levels, is
essential. We cannot survive as a planet by promoting national, cultural or
religious boundaries as final, as that is to deny the greater unity and value
of humanity as a whole. A new vision of Dharma can help us in this direction
because Dharma does not divide human beings up into opposing camps. It says we
are all of one family and must all eventually come to the same truth and
self-realization, albeit according to our own path and in our own time and
manner.
Great
modern teachers from India like Sri Aurobindo, Mahatma Gandhi, Swami Dayananda
(of the Arya Samaj) and Swami Vivekananda, and many others from all over the
world have looked into and provided their insights about creating a new social
order or Dharma. Many Buddhist teachers, like the Dalai Lama are also promoting
a greater dharma for humanity.
Ultimately,
there needs to be a new renaissance in dharmic thinking. This implies a great
deal of questioning, deep thought and profound meditation – an endeavor that
may take decades to come to real fruition. It must rest upon an uncompromising
pursuit of truth, not simply an attempt at social accommodation, appeasement or
pleasing everyone. A new dharmic order is not a simple matter of a new
political party but an infusion of higher values into our social interactions,
which means a new approach to politics that considers not only the outer human
being but the inner essence of the soul.
Unfortunately,
the political world today tends to rely upon slogans, vote banks and appeals to
mass fears and desires, looking forward only to the next election. The
personality of the political leader is made more important than any deeper
vision for humanity. Political parties today are lacking in any real idealism
and vision and quickly compromise in order to gain power or influence. Even
modern education is imed at training a person more in a particular technical
profession, rather than providing a well rounded education that includes an
examination as to what is the ultimate meaning of life. Clearly Dharma must be
brought back into education and into social service for it to affect society as
a whole.
A
new world order defined by Dharma – not simply by religion, politics, or
commercial concerns – is crucial for our way forward as a species and can help
promote and preserve the good in all. It is important that a regard for the
universal Dharma is brought into both our personal lives and into our
societies. Otherwise our civilization may continue to flounder and is unlikely
to find peace or harmony with life. This is a matter first of all of upholding
Dharmic principles and practices in how we live and think. The work begins with
each one of us.
Guruji. A. Sivaguru Swamy
Whatsapp Skype IMO 9963334337 Facetime 9346346956
Skype – sivaguruswamy29
45/2, Opp.Railway Station, Sirkali Tq, Vaitheeswaran Koil,
Naagai Dist, Tamilnadu–609 117
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