Obey the natural law
By Taru Bahl

THE great epic Mahabharata is based on the belief that "where there is dharma there is victory". There may be no battles to be won today but for the individual to triumph over the trials and tribulations of his daily life, the concept of dharma has to permeate into his being — however modern and self-oriented he may be. It is a natural law which guides our actions.

The dharma of a debtor, for instance, is to repay his debts as soon as possible. The fact that hs is unable to do so must fill him with feelings of guilt and inadequacy. He experiences embarrassment and shame as he is unable to honour his financial obligations. He sincerely bids for grace time and works twice as hard to procure additional funds to clear both his borrowings and his name. He overhauls his lifestyle, cuts down expenses and frantically saves to clear his debt. The creditor’s dharma, on the other hand, dictates that he be sympathetic towards the debtor and grant him grace time, even allow minor concessions like waiving the hefty interest and reassuring him so that he does not feel too guilty. But for such an ideal scenario there has to be a great deal of sincerity and honesty of intent and purpose on both sides. A debtor who is not true to his dharma, or one who is adharmi, tries to find loopholes in the system whereby he can slink away from his commitments. When X bought a new car, taking a loan from a car finance company, he knew he was going to falter on the payment of the instalments and interest. After clearing his first instalment, he changed his job and residence. After two months, he again shifted house and city; confident that now the company would not be able to track him down and he would be richer by Rs 3 lakh. He experiences no remorse or shame as he publicly tom-toms his brilliant tactics. Obviously, X betrayed his conscience and his value system. He is a parasite who defies all norms of moral behaviour. He may have appeared to be successful, brash and street-smart, making those who slogged tirelessly, working double and triple shifts to pay whatever loans they had taken, seem foolish but in the ultimate analysis he can never reach moksha (salvation) and inner peace/happiness.

Dharma therefore exhorts us to perform our duties according to the varna (caste) and ashrama (stage of life) thereby recognising the plural nature of the physical and social order.

Among contemporary Indian philosophers, S Radhakrishnan has given the widest and truest definition of dharma which can be acceptable to each and every individual irrespective of his caste or creed, faith or nationality, status or sex. "Dharma, formed from the root, dhri, to hold, means that which holds a thing and maintains it in being. Dharma or virtue is conformity with the truth of things, adharma or vice is opposition to it. Moral evil is disharmony with the truth which encompasses and controls the world."

The concept of dharma in the Bhagavadgita emerges strongly in Kurukshetra, the battlefield, which Dhritarashtra feels is the field of dharma (duty). To him the duty of courting death is the highest duty for a kshatriya. Deviation from dharma, therefore, was regarded as the most heinous crime, both by Arjuna, the pupil, and Krishna, his preceptor, who was also the propounder of the philosophy of the Bhagavadgita. In the first chapter, Arjuna is perturbed because he sees that war leads to the massacre of men and the mass killing of men leads to the corruption of women which ultimately results in the destruction of all the ancient dharmas. While exhorting Arjuna to muster courage and to perform his duty of fighting against injustice, Krishna tells him that if he adopt asceticism and runs away from the battlefield, people would dub him a coward which would disgrace and defame him. This deviation from duty would be worse than even death. The importance of duty is stressed throughout the dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna in this great treatise on ethics and philosophy. The discourse, however, resolved Arjuna’s conflicts and dilemmas. The essence of the Bhagavadgita is that the ultimate stage of jivanmukti is unattainable without the performance of one’s duty which is in accordance with one’s profession and occupation.

Now relating this to our contemporary lives, we have to view ourselves as warriors and life itself as an eternal battle. We are thrown headlong into the battlefield from the day of our birth. We must be committed to winning the battle of life just as a warrior is focused on winning the duel. Of course, he has two options before him. One is to fight courageously with the single-minded determination to survive and win. The second choice is to let go, shed his defenses and in the process get defeated or killed. Just as the dharma of the warrior is to fight passionately till his last breath in the hope of conquering and vanquishing his enemies, each individual must confront his inner negativities and outer realities. It is the dharma of our lives to fight courageously and righteously and to acknowledge that competition for survival is the condition of life. For centuries the dharma of a true-blooded soldier has been to kill and be killed in the name of defending his nation.

According to Vedic philosophy, there are four values of life known as purusarthas or ideals for Man. These are artha or wealth; kama or satisfaction of desires; dharma or moral duty moksha or spiritual perfection or liberation. Dharma inspires and develops the intellect of the individual and at the same time gives an impetus to the administrative class of society on whose shoulders wrests the immense responsibility of administering and protecting its moral fabric. On one hand, the four ends of life correspond to the four aspects of individual and society namely body, mind, intellect and soul and, on the other hand, to the four stages of life or ashrama. Dharma here expresses the ethico-social organisation of society and a balanced ethico-social conduct for the individual. This brings about a synthesis on two levels — between the material and spiritual development and between the individual and his social well being.

If artha and kama are associated with the development of the body and mind, dharma or moral duty is concerned with the intellectual development of the individual and society. The concept of dharma is the oldest in Indian philosophy. It originated in the Vedic times in the form of rita, the eternal moral order upheld by the gods. Dharma is dictated not just by the Vedas but also the smriti texts (code of conduct). For it is through dharma and intellect that the individual rises above relativity so as to achieve absoluteness. Just as jnana (intuitive knowledge) and vijnana (science) are complementary and dependent upon one another, realisation of the natural form of the soul and the practice of dharma in all varied spheres of life are complementary to each other.