Topic of the Month – dharma

DSCN1402The topic for the month of January 2015 is –

dharma: righteousness; merit; religious duty; religion; law; a goal of life (puruShArtha); medium of motion (Jainism); scriptural texts (Buddhism); quality (Buddhism); cause (Buddhism); religious teaching (Buddhism); unsubstantial and soulless (Buddhism); (from the verb-root dhRRi = “to uphold, to establish, to support”)

  1. Literally it means “what holds together” and thus it is the basis of all order, whether social or moral. As an ethical or moral value, it is the instrumental value to liberation (except for the mImAMsaka who considers it the supreme value).
  2. varNa Ashrama-dharma is one’s specific duty.
  3. sanAtana-dharma is the eternal religion.
  4. sva-dharma is one’s own individual duty.
  5. According to the mImAMsA school, it is what is enjoined in the Veda. It is religious duty, the performance thereof bringing merit and its neglect bringing demerit.
  6. Generally dharma is twofold: sAdhAraNa-dharma, which is common to everyone, and varNa Ashrama –dharma, which is specific to each class and stage of life.

From: A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy (New & Revised Edition) Sanskrit Terms Defined in English, John Grimes, Indica Books. ISBN: 8186569804
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Q.360 – Suffering

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAQ: I have tried several spiritual paths and I was always stopped in my search by this question: How do we explain suffering?. Why does all pervading, partless, actionless Consciousness create, allow, dream of Auschwitz? Surely Consciousness could do better than this?

Answers are provided by: Ted, Martin, and Sitara. For answers by Dennis, see Q.24 and Q.33 and Q.62 and Q.120 and Q.294.

A (Ted): Your question is certainly understandable. It is the same question just about everybody has at an early stage in their spiritual understanding. It is based on a fundamental erroneous assumption we make about the nature of reality due to the conditioning we receive either directly from religion or indirectly from the religious beliefs that undergird the generally accepted perception of reality that informs the society.

 Our mistaken assumption is that awareness is an anthropomorphic (i.e. human-like) entity who has some overarching personal agenda and is orchestrating—or at least overseeing—the activities and events transpiring in the world with a vested interest in their nature and results. But this is not the nature of awareness. Continue reading

Tat Pada Vicāra – 4. Īśvara – Dharma manifest

DharmaEverything that there is, is īśvara. That is why we can invoke mahāgaṇapati  in a small mound of turmeric and even worship a milestone as īśvara. For us, trees, rivers, mountains, pillars, vāyu, ākāśa, bird, insect, snake, anything and everything is īśvara.

Though there are many Hindu’s who might not understand the philosophy, ask even a supposedly illiterate villager as to where God is, and prompt will come his reply “God is everywhere”. It is only the Hindu religion where all its practices have arisen from its underlying philosophy.

There are a number of philosophies, both in the past and the present, from the west, such as those of Aristotle, Socrates, Satre, Descarte etc. which are not religions; there are religions such as the Abrahamic, actively practised and proselytized, which do not have any meaningful philosophy behind them. That we are able to worship īśvara in every form, conceivable and inconceivable, is an example of applied philosophy practiced as religion.

We do not worship idols. We worship īśvara who is form manifest. We are not mere form worshippers. We worship the formless, on whom all the forms are superimposed. How can anyone worship the formless? The formless is to be understood as the truth and the substratum. The forms are the one that can be worshipped.

There are theologies that say there is one God. The problem with this thinking is which or whose “One God” is the true God. Everyone lays claims to their own God as the real, ultimate, and final one. It is this issue that has been plaguing the world. It is in the name of this issue that millions were persecuted in the past, and massacres are being committed currently.

We do not subscribe to this view of one God. We say there is ONLY God. All that there is, is only God; because he is the upādāna kāraṇa of this entire jagat.  kāryaṁ sakartṛkaṁ kāryatvāt ghaṭavat. Therefore, all that is experienced is God indeed; even the experiencer is God, for there is nothing other than God.

This jagat, which is īśvara sṛṣṭi, so purposefully and well created, functions in an orderly manner. There are a number of orders that govern the functioning of the world. Let is look at some orders in order to understand yet another dimension of īśvara.

  • The Physical Order – There is an order that exists in nature in the form of physical laws; for example, the intrinsic nature of fire is heat and light – and fire burns anything that comes in contact with it, irrespective. We say fire burns, but think about it, is it fire that burns? The Law of Gravity works, irrespective of who or what falls. The sunrise, the seasons, the rains, its failure, everything works within īṣvara’s order.
  • The Physiological Order – whatever we eat is digested and absorbed by the digestive system, taken to various parts of the body by the circulatory system, the waste thrown out by the excretory system, food converted into reproductive power by the reproductive system, and requisite oxygen continously supplied by the respiratory system.
  • The Emotional Order – emotions such as anger are within the emotional order of īśvara. Anger is a reaction and not an action – no one can consciously become or remain angry – if you don’t believe me, try and be angry for the next 30 secs – you will find yourself smiling rather than angry. Even desire is within the order of īśvara. These reactions cannot be controlled, but they can be managed – we shall see the monumental implications of these truths later in the series.
  • The Social Order – ahimsā – non-injury – our scriptures say ahimsā paramo dharmaḥ – non-injury is the foremost of all dharmas – everyother dharma arises from this basic dharma – no one wants to be hurt including animals; but it is only humans that do not want to hurt others, atleast that is the expectation from them. varṇāśramadharma, as prescribed by the scriptures, is an excellent system that takes competition out of the equation, thereby making everyone a contributor rather than a competitor.

īśvara is the very order manifest in the jagat. In the light of this vision, everyone in the world, everything that happens, all stand validated. There is no one to blame, there is nothing to feel guilty about.

I would like to draw the attention of the readers to a very important difference between our vision and other religions. While the others consider dharma as the mandate of īśvara, we consider dharma as the very īśvara manifest. dharma as God’s mandate, is open to (mis)interpretation. dharma as God manifest, is to be understood and abidbed by. This means we are always within īśvara. If it has happened, it is within īśvaras order, irrespective of whether we consider what happened as just or not.

Q. 352 – sexual desire and happiness

Q: I have read the book ‘How to Meet Yourself’. I understand I think about desire; that it is a searching for a return to our natural state of happiness. I understand that we are already that, but when around women or just bored I start moving toward pornography to get relief from the desire. How exactly can I just access this happiness? Do I not take the desire seriously and not look at women, or do I need a more practical way to cope and not go down this spiritual route so to speak?

Answers are provided by: Ramesam, Sitara, Ted, Martin and Dennis. Continue reading

Advaita for Mothers (Q. 323)

We are honored to have input from Swamini Atmaprakashananda, a direct disciple of Pujya Swami Dayananda  for this week’s question!

Q: My question is, as a mother is it ever possible to not be very attached to my child, and be a mother only by Dharma and karma, and ease from the clutches of Moha for my child. How do I do that? I would greatly appreciate if anything here can help me because I truly am looking for it, and struggling with the issue for a long time.

A (Sitara): Advaita does not really make a distinction between different kinds of attachment. While it is true that the bond between a mother and her child is especially strong, it still needs to be dealt with like all other kinds of attachment.

 So how to deal with it?

 First of all: Trying to overcome attachment by dealing with it directly will only work to a limited degree. So I recommend to deal with it both ways, as described below. Continue reading

Seeking – giving up pleasures? (Q. 322)

Q: I can see I need to live more austerely, and I am prepared to sacrifice much to bring about a more lucid and disciplined spiritual practice, but if I am honest, sacrificing those pleasures will have their cost and I will miss them. I would give up nearly anything to find a way forward, but I have heard that unless giving up pleasures is seen as so necessary it isn’t actually a sacrifice, it won’t produce any progress, making it pointless. I am confused. Living austerely definitely means sacrifice, and I could do it, but what’s the point in doing it if it won’t work? I hope I have been clear. If you could tell me what you think, I would be most grateful.

A (Sitara): Your emphasis on austerities and sacrifice indicates that you are influenced by a tradition other than Advaita Vedanta. While following dharma (an ethical lifestyle) has its place in Advaita Vedanta, it does not require austerities. It just means “be fair”, i.e. treat others the way you yourself would like to be treated. Also following a spiritual practice of meditation and prayer is thought of as beneficial for the seeker; but there is no need for much sacrifice here either, except for remaining with it even if sometimes inconvenient – having to get up a little earlier for example. Continue reading

saMskAra-s, svadharma and karma (Q. 320)

Q: I read about the above topics in your book and struggled with them, not only because there are a number of things to remember, but also because how exactly they function is complex.

 I thought about what you said regarding svadharma and how not going with it, with the example of Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, would have been bad for ones karma and thought about Hitler.

 You might say that it was Hitler’s svadharma to do as he did and that to go against that, in other words, to be an ordinary politician or something for example, would have given rise to bad karma for him, the same way as going against his duty would have caused Arjuna bad karma, as explained by Krishna: ‘slay thy foes’. But then that seems unfair to him (Hitler), since surely his ‘bad actions’ (genocide, etc.) that his svadharma would have had him following would have brought him bad karma any way, so either way, things, from that perspective, looked pretty bleak for him? Then one might say that what Hitler did was not really his svadharma, but this I personally would agree with, as a ‘person’ cannot act outside of Brahman, that is, everything we do, feel, think is Brahman, so even Hitler’s ‘evils’ were also Brahman? Continue reading