Dharma is the universal truth, and this universal truth applies to all of us.
It is only when we live in full sync with this truth, do we live our life to its full potential.
Because unless we are one with the truth itself, everything else that we think or do is an illusion, and nothing else.
And when what we think or do is an illusion, then it’s also true that one day this illusion will break. And the day this illusion breaks, it will cause you lot of pain and suffering.
This pain will not be just of realizing that what you thought was right, was wrong all along. But the pain will also be of realizing that you won’t know what to do next, or what is the truth after all.
So an understanding of Dharma is essential to live your life in the right way. And Dharma is nothing but a way of living your life itself.
You and I weren’t born with the knowledge of what is right, what is wrong. Somewhere along the way we picked up all those things, and started applying it all to our lives.
So our definition of how to live our life is based on lot of external factors, which weren’t in our hands.
You learned what your parents taught you, and, more importantly, from what you saw your parents actually do themselves. Sometimes, or maybe more often, what our parents teach us, and what they themselves follow, are two different things.
You learnt what your teachers taught you, which also varies based on how your teacher himself learned about all those things.
You learnt what your friends and social circle taught you, some of which you absorbed either knowingly or unknowingly.
And finally, you learnt from everything that you saw or heard, be it in reality or imagination, be it from movies, songs, or books.
So there are lot of things that have influenced the way you live your life today. And all it takes is just any one of the above factors to go wrong, to take you towards the wrong path in life.
That is where Dharma comes in.
It is Dharma, or rather the full understanding of it that helps you figure out your path in life. And if you are already walking on your chosen path in life, it helps you to walk on it in sync with the truth.
There are various great teachers of the past who have showed us this way of dharma. Who not only taught us the way of dharma, but actually walked on the path of dharma every single day of their lives. It is from them that you and I can learn about dharma.
Right now we may be fully ignorant about that way, but by reading more and more of such teachings, the understanding of the dharma slowly begins to dawn upon us.
Dharma isn’t a fashion trend that comes and goes with each season. Instead it is the only thing that remains the same, irrespective of what happens in the universe.
For example, being kind to all forms of life, not hurting anyone unnecessarily isn’t something that only applied to a certain place or certain period of time. It applied as much a million years ago as it applies today, and as it will apply a million, or billion, years from now. That is dharma.
That is the way of life I want you to understand.
It is dharma that keeps breaking all your illusions, one by one, and replacing it with all the truths, one by one.
It is dharma that brings your life back from wrong towards right, from chaos towards clarity, from distractions towards focus, from restlessness toward peace, from suffering towards joy, from falsehood towards truth, from selfishness towards selflessness, from darkness towards enlightenment.
Dharma teaches you to separate yourself from your individual identity and become universal in nature. It helps you to break all the barriers of your ego, and become egoless. It destroys all the dualities of your mind, and shows you how everything is one.
It expands your definition of who you are and what are you supposed to do in your life. It shifts your focus from thinking of only your own well-being, towards thinking the well-being of every life form on the planet, and even beyond.
It makes you walk carefully on the road so that you don’t hurt even any tiny little creature unknowingly. It makes you forgive even that mosquito that bites you, and let it go instead of killing it. It makes you forgive even the biggest of your enemies and pray for their well-being as well. And above all, it makes you forgive even yourself for all the wrongs that you have done, whether in thought or action.
It is dharma that guides every waking moment of your day. And, believe it or not, if you practice the dharma long enough you can’t do anything wrong even in your dreams. Because then even in your dreams you will know what is right and what is wrong. And that will happen because dharma doesn’t just purifies your body, or your heart, or your mind, it purifies your very soul itself. And when the soul itself gets purified it won’t do any wrong even in a dream.
There are so many ancient Indian texts in which someone says that they won’t do anything wrong even in their dreams. What that means is that their sense of what is right, of what is their dharma, is so strongly engrained in them, that even dreams can’t make them part away with their dharma, and so they can’t do anything wrong even in their dreams.
Have you ever tried to act in a moral way in the outside world, but deep inside you act in immoral ways? Now what I mean is, do you pretend to be gentle and kind on the outside, but from inside you are violent and selfish?
Do you talk politely to a beautiful woman whom you come across, but think of them with lust and all kinds of sexual thoughts afterwards?
See, what we are in front of the world isn’t who we are. What we are in our thoughts when we are alone, is who we really are.
So, dharma doesn’t teach you only to make a showoff of being a good person, it teaches you how to become a good person in reality, both outside and within.
There are so many ways you may have tried to improve your life, so many productivity hacks, so many techniques to change your bad habits, and what not. But all of them fail because they only exist at a surface-level.
It is dharma that exists at the deepest core of our being. It is not just a way of thinking, or a way of practicing, or a way of speaking; it is a way of being itself.
And that is why the changes it brings within you are permanent in nature, and are not just some hack or trick or technique to bring positive changes in your life.
The purpose of walking on the path of dharma is to become one with dharma, or make dharma one with you, whichever way you say it. You are Dharma. Dharma is You.
And when you become dharma itself, is there even any possibility that you could ever do anything wrong. Absolutely not.
When you become one with dharma, it is dharma that guides you for the rest of your life. It is dharma that shows you the way ahead, and it is dharma that acts all the time via you.
You only become a medium then, and you let dharma do whatever is good for all humanity. Then you no longer live your life based on the limitations of your body and mind, but you live every moment of your life based on the limitless dharma.
Dharma sets you free from all the bondages which your mind has created upon you. It clears all the conditioning of the mind, and brings your mind to its purest state, just as your mind was always supposed to be.
It is dharma that breaks the cycle of birth and death, and makes you timeless in nature, as you always were to begin with.
It is dharma that destroys your illusion of identifying yourself as only a man/woman/father/mother/daughter/son/husband/wife, and instead makes you aware that you are consciousness itself, in its purest form. And that it’s the same consciousness which exists not only in every human being, but in every being, in every tiny particle of the universe.
It is dharma that makes you one with the highest form of consciousness that exists, call it God or Parmatma or whatever you will. And once you become one with that Supreme Consciousness what else is left for you to do.
That Supreme Consciousness, that God, that Parmatma will take care of you from then on. And you will then live the highest form of life, the best life it’s possible for a human to live, the rightmost life it’s possible for a human to live.
Then you will not only know the way to live your life, but you will become one with your way of life.
And then nothing can come between you and your way of life, and no other way will ever be able to lure you towards it, because you’ll already be walking on the highest path – the highest way it’s possible for a human to walk on.
And all that happens only when you let Dharma show you the way to live your life.