what is dharma?
what is dharma?
India has many concepts that have been made so complex and
complicated that it is been very difficult to understand these concepts and to
implement them in our lives. One such concept is Dharma. In
Indian tradition there is no exact word for an English term ‘Religion’ but
‘Dharma’ is used to depict that. Dharma is quite different in Indic culture.
What is Dharma? That’s the question that may arise.
Dharma has multiple meanings but for sake of simplicity, it has two meanings on
philosophical and elemental (meaning by word) levels.
Dharma and Karma are the terms which are connected by each
other. The philosophical layer of Dharma refers to the
action that should be done ideally by the person according to the situations or
circumstances of life whereas Karma is the action that is being performed by
the person in the situations or circumstances of life. In karma, it doesn’t
matter whether the action is appropriate or not but in the case of dharma, it
only constitutes appropriate actions. So basically dharma is what should be
done ideally by the person according to the situation and karma is what a
person is doing to tackle the circumstances (it could be dharma or Adharma) but
dharma is the very right way (path) for an ideal human being to choose.
For instance, what is the dharma of a farmer it’s actually to
plough field, what is the dharma of a soldier – to protect the country, what is
the dharma of a doctor - to treat patients, and so on. It’s upon the job that
you have. The same had been described by Lord Krishna to Arjuna in Bhagwat
Geeta who was a warrior and his dharma was to fight against
inappropriate (Adharma).
The elemental layer of dharma is about the word, its meaning,
and origin. The word dharma is derived from root dhr which
means to hold, bind together and maintain. From this we can infer that dharma
is also working to bind us on a cultural level, it’s the binder of the society
for us. Generally, this simply builds the sense of unity in society and a
society cannot survive without the aspect of unity that shows the importance of
dharma in our culture and society.
Another word that is used very often in Hinduism with dharma
is Sanatana dharma which is the dharma which
never changes with time and if it does not change with time then it is of great
importance.
At last, it is upon us whether we want to make these concepts
complex or simple.
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1 comments
Another topic wonderfully explained ✌️
ReplyDeleteKeep going like this