Be The Source Of Dharma

I can’t stress how futile it is to teach the Dharma way of life to someone who doesn’t care for it.

I am not perfect either in following my own dharma, and I have my own flaws, but when I see someone living the wrong way I try to show them how to live the right way, i.e., how to live the dharma way. I tell them what things they can do so that they don’t keep getting stuck in the same problems in life again and again.

But all my advice falls on deaf ears.

There are many who don’t like to take any advice about living their life from others. Maybe it feels boring to take advice from others, or it hurts our ego, or we think that we know what’s best for our own self and that we don’t need to listen to others for it.

Or maybe it’s just difficult for some people to learn only from what they hear or read. That’s why these people don’t want someone who can preach sermons to them. Instead, what they learn the best from is by seeing actual actions and by seeing a person practicing the dharma way of life right in front of them.

So, rather than your words that makes others interested in learning the dharma way of life, it’s you yourself, and how you live your life every day, that gets people interested in the dharma.

Be the source of dharma yourself, and let dharma be represented by your everyday actions: by the way you talk, by the way you sit, by the way you walk, by the calmness on your face when you meditate, by the happiness and feeling of gratitude in your actions when you bow your head to pray, by the kindness in your face when you water the plants or feed the animals, by the peace in your face when others are angry around you, by the softness and politeness in your voice when others are harsh, by your hard work when others don’t act out of laziness, by your selflessness when others act greedily around you, by the contentment on your face even when you have nothing. By all these things, and by many more such actions and events that are part of your everyday life, let your dharma spread to others.

Let others see and experience firsthand how peaceful, how happy, how content, how blessed you feel in all things that you do, and how you are a living example of dharma itself.

Practice dharma so much, and make it a complete part of your life so that you yourself become one with dharma, and the dharma becomes one with you. Once that happens, every thing that you do is dharma, and even the breath that you take is one with dharma.

When you practice the dharma, everyone else around you, the whole world around you, the whole universe around you, gets affected by it. Through you, dharma shines in all directions, and no one can remain unaffected by it.

That’s the beauty of practicing dharma. It not only lightens you from within, but that light also spreads everywhere you go, and its rays engulfs every living being that comes into contact with you.

Then whoever comes near you – be it a family member, a friend, or a stranger – the dharma from you spreads to them as well.

No matter what state of mind they were in before they met you, after meeting you they feel more peaceful, more content, more kind, more selfless, than before. That’s the power of dharma.

I gave up eating meat 19 years ago. And in all these years I’ve told many people to be compassionate to other living beings, and not to kill them to eat. But all such advice barely brings a change in others. However, when they see how I am not tempted the least to eat any meat, even when everyone else around me is eating it, and when they see I’d rather eat any leftover veg food from the day before, or stay hungry if needed, than even take a bite of meat, it makes them think about giving up meat too.

And sometimes these people do give up eating meat, even if it’s just for a few months until they fall back to their temptations again. These senses and their desire prove to be too strong for some, and so they come back to eating meat again after a few weeks or months. Occasionally, someone does end up giving up meat for a year or more, which is always good to see.

So what I can’t achieve by preaching to others, what I can’t achieve by logic or reasoning, I achieve simply by practicing the dharma way of life. They say action speaks louder than words, and I guess they are right, at least in those cases when others look up to your actions, rather than what you say, to follow your lead.

That’s just one example. There are plenty of others. When they notice how peaceful your face looks when you meditate, how calm your state of mind must be in that state of meditation, it makes others too to try meditation. When they see you water plants every day, and they see the beautiful flowers and plants and the birds and butterflies that roam around it, it makes them want too to have a few plants and flowers in their own garden. When they see you sit quietly and read the Gita, or whatever spiritual book that you read, it makes them want too to read such books.

When they see you do all your household chores by taking a walk, instead of using a car, it makes them want too to take a walk for doing their chores instead of using their car. When they see you offer water to Tulsi(Holy basil), or Shivalinga, or Sun, or doing whatever spiritual/religious routine activities that you do every day, it makes them too to practice the same. When they see you wear simple ordinary clothes every day; when they see you eat the same simple, boring and healthy food every day; when they see that you possess so few things in life; it makes them too to do the same.

Let dharma speak through your actions, let dharma speak through your posture. Even by being silent then, the dharma is speaking loudly via you. What a beautiful way to live our life in such a way.

Why do you think people continue to have Buddha, Ram, Krishna, Shiva as their heroes, as their idols, as their Gods, long after these beings left this planet? Was it just their teachings that influenced humanity back then and which continues to influence humanity even now? No.

It was the way they themselves lived their lives that makes us bow down to them even today. They didn’t just taught dharma to others, but they themselves were the very source of dharma. Everything that they did was dharma. They lived with dharma every moment of their life. They lived with dharma even when others around them acted with non-dharma. Their face radiated dharma all the time. The gentleness and kindness in their voice spread dharma all the time. Even when they said nothing, or did nothing, people felt blessed to be just around them. Whoever met them didn’t want to leave them, because they were the perfect beings in themselves. For these great beings there was nothing else left to achieve, nothing else left to become, and yet they continued to live for the benefit of humanity, to spread dharma to the humanity, because of the infinite compassion in their hearts for ignorant and foolish beings like me and you.

And while you and I may be nothing at all, absolutely nothing at all, not even a tiny speck of dust in front of these great universal beings, we can still try to live with the dharma way to as much extent as we can. We can still try to become those little sources of dharma within our small circle of people around us.

While you and I may never become as great as the Ocean, we can be that little drop that lives with dharma all the time. And we can make this dharma spread to the other drops around us who come in contact with us. And together may be we all can become the stream of dharma, the river of dharma, the sea of dharma, the ocean of dharma, some day. Now, what a beautiful picture that would make.