Yesterday I was reading Deepak Chopra’s Path to Love and read interesting line about DHARMA.
Dharma is a Sanskrit word – Religious way to live your life. Each religion has some guidelines to live your life. But it depends highly on our personal and social vision that how we live our life.
According to me I think Dharma is – Working honestly towards your goals.
E.g. if I want to live my life honestly, I will follow the path of honesty.
Another way to look it as: If you goal is to become a fashion designer or cricketer you should do everything to achieve your goals and then it can be said you are on your Dharma.
Was it Dharma of Arjuna (Remember Geeta and Mahabhart) to fight against his brothers? I think no, but it was part of their goal to establish peace. So they were on Dharma.
Dharma of Thief is to steal
Dharma of a Soldier is to fight for it’s nation
Dharma of a Student is to learn
Dharma of a Teacher is to give good education
Dharma of a Driver is to drive carefully
Dharma of a Programmer is to write good code
Dharma of a man kind is to life satisfactory and happy life.
Lets see how we can set our own path of Dharma.
- Prepare a list of long term goals in your life.
- Break each goal into tasks/sub-goals which you want to achieve in order to achieve your ultimate Goal. (Remember some time it may take years or full life to achieve your goals)
- Now follow the path you have set for your self.
Dont worry if you forget it or can not follow it, but keep review your performance. Every week or month take one day to review what you have done so far? Do you need to change it? Why cannt you do the task/goal you set for your last week or month? Do you need to change anything or do you need to do your efforts differently in order to achieve your goals? Can you retry it? Lets give it another go.
Dharma is not easy. It gets boring some time. But you have to know its a discipline, it tells you to be focused. Teachers, Students, Doctors, Soldiers everyone in their life get bored at some point, but the key point is to enjoy it. When you feel like you cannt do it any more, just sit back, relax and think about what you have achieved so far? Were you ever capable to achieve what you have accomplished so far?
So in nut shell Dharma is way of living, path of life which you can set your self. No one can set Dharma for you. You are the one to set it for youself and stick to it.
Good Luck.