What is dharma, especially for householders?
Answer Podcast
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Do you need that? You can just take my audio. So what is dharma? What is the principle of dharma, especially for somebody who is a householder in this world? See, the word dharma, essentially it has many meanings.
One of the meanings is it refers to nature, inherent nature. So whatever is our inherent nature, that is actually our dharma. And at our deepest core, we are souls.
And the soul’s nature is to love and serve. And we try to fulfill this nature to love and serve by relating with different people, forming different relationships, having a family, having a spouse, having children. We try to have a loving-serving relationship and get some satisfaction.
Now, these relationships, they can bring some fulfillment but at the same time they are temporary. So we need a vertical relationship with God, with Krishna. And the process of bhakti is such that, bhakti is actually inclusive.
That means we devote, our dharma is at one level to practice bhakti, wholeheartedly. So we chant the holy name, that is yuga dharma, we come in satsang, like we have come now, or we come and take darshan of the deities. These are directly devotional activities.
This is paradharma, this is transcendental dharma. Along with that, there is aparadharma. Aparadharma is our worldly duties.
Now worldly duties, they can also be done in a mood of service to Krishna. So for example, if I see my family members, not as my family members, I see them as, they are also Krishna’s and Krishna has entrusted them in my care. And therefore, let me try to serve them and express my affection of them in a spiritual God-centered way.
So broadly speaking, the dharma is holistic. That if whatever is position we are in our life, we connect ourselves with Krishna. And we connect ourselves with Krishna directly through direct devotional activities and indirectly through the service attitude that we bring in our various worldly activities.
So we see that okay, I am in this worldly position, in this family, in this job and ultimately this is the arrangement of Krishna. So let me serve Krishna over here. So if we develop this service attitude, then we can live dharmically in all aspects of our life.
But to develop this service attitude authentically, we need to give adequate time for direct devotional activities. Now that means chanting the holy names, coming to the temple. When we do these direct devotional activities, then Krishna enters into our heart.
And once Krishna enters into our heart, then actually we can contribute, then we can take that Krishna who is in our heart and infuse a mood of service in all our other activities also. So it is said that we want to, in the process of bhakti, which is the highest dharma, that is meant to we want to bring Krishna in our heart. We want to give our heart to Krishna.
But our heart is presently given to so many other things. For example, our heart is caught with a lot of thoughts about money. So the idea is, if I can’t give my heart to Krishna, then I give what is in my heart to Krishna.
If I can’t give my heart to Krishna, then I give what is in my heart to Krishna. So for example, a primary attachment is to money, artha. And the Bhagavatam describes that the artha is purified by dana.
Money is purified by charity. So when we do our work, and when we give a part of the fruits of our work to Krishna in charity, then what is happening is, because that money is dear to us, when we give it to Krishna, we give a part of our heart to Krishna through that. And then Krishna gets a place in our heart.
So broadly, by direct devotional activities and by indirectly cultivating a devotional mood and offering the fruits of our result to Krishna, we can actually practice dharma in the householder life also.