What is Dharma and How to Live It?

Transcript

Hey Krishna, what is dharma? Dharma I like to describe with two words duty and essence. Duty because dharma is what you have to do. It's what's required of you at any given moment. But duty can be imposed. So that's not quite the right word because somebody can impose on you some duty and dharma is not about what somebody else is imposing on us because then comes the word essence. Duty is imposed but essence isn't imposed. Essence is who you are. So dharma is about who you are most of all. To live a dharmic life to follow your dharma really means just to be the best of you. What's the best you can do at every given moment? Who are you? And living who you are to its fullest at every moment. And of course, we're we have so many aspects to us, right? You may be your you have your relationships, you have your job, you have your vocation, you have your spiritual side, you have your community side, your universal aspect. So all these different aspects of us, these different facets of who we are now, all these create a dharma because for each aspect of us, a dharma is required. That's what it means. That's what dharma means. That it's whoever you are requires you to act somehow. And the beauty of it is that you will try to be yourself. And when you know who you are, then you will not take on the duties that are being imposed on you. You'll try to reject those and instead do what is you, what's required of you. JFK famously said, don't ask what America can do for you, but what you can do for America. Dharma is like that. What can you do? But not for America, for the world. What can you do for the world? What is your offering to reality and in the ultimate sense to God? What is your offering? What can you do for the world? Don't ask what things should be done for you, but what you should be doing for the world. That's what a dharmic yogic life means. A life that's based on service. What can you do? And by doing what you do, by doing your essence, by living who you are, you become very happy. It's like the basis of all happiness because it's being your true self. And the results of being your true self don't really matter. As long as you can be your true self, the best of you, not some crazy idea that came into your head, but the best of who you are, of your essence, then you'll be happy. That's the basis. That's the foundation of a spiritual life and a very happy life. So that's one of the first things I teach in the 3T path is to understand your dharma and to express it to live it out to its best. Dharma also means there also does a there's a morality and ethics. So included in this being the best of yourself included in that is the idea that you'll do your best. You won't be acting in an evil way, in an immoral way. You won't cheat, lie, steal. Because being the best of you automatically includes not being sinful and silly and lazy and irresponsible because it's obviously not the best of anyone. So that word it's a beautiful word dharma. It's very important concept and I'll be talking a lot more about that in this channel. Har Krishna.