What is Dharma and its relevance in all religion.
Once George bernard Shaw said that common sence isnot common in common people. Today I feel that how true this dictum is.Time andagain I have to remind my readers the extent to which we have denigraded ourown selves as humans. we are ashamed to say that we are the most intelligentanimals on the face of the earth.We are just animals now, or rather worse thanan animal.Mindless killing of innocents in the name of religion,excessive useof our natural resource,Cutting of trees and clearing of the forests only tofeed someones elses greed,all these has brought us to a threshold of extinction.But had we looked a little deeper into our selves we would have found theanswers of living a harmonius,happy,and a healthier life.The heaven would havebeen here on earth itself. The main essence of all these is DHARMA AND ITSPRESENCE IN ALL MAJOR RELIGION OF THE WORLD. So what is dharma???
Dharma isderived from the Sanskrit root "dhr" meaning to hold up, to carry, tobear, to sustain. The word dharma refers to that which upholds or sustains theuniverse. Human society, for example, is sustained and upheld by the dharmaperformed by its members.
(dhar, "uphold"). Rules of order, custom,and ethics, adherence to which is necessary to maintain order in society. Inthe Upanishads, dharma is primarily knowledge of the way to attain Brahman.
Vedic scriptures describes dharma as the naturaluniversal laws whose observance enables humans to be contented and happy, andto save himself from degradation and suffering. Dharma is the moral lawcombined with spiritual discipline that guides one's life. The Atharva Vedadescribes dharma symbolically: Prithivim dharmana dhritam, that is, "thisworld is upheld by dharma anything that helps human being to reach god isdharma and anything that hinders human being from reaching god is adharma.According to the Bhagavat Purana, righteous living or life on a dharmic pathhas four aspects: austerity (tap), purity (shauch), compassion (daya) andtruthfulness (satya); and adharmic or unrighteous life has three vices: pride(ahankar), contact (sangh), and intoxication (madya).
Manusmriti written by the ancient sage Manu,prescribes 10 essential rules for the observance of dharma: Patience (dhriti),forgiveness (kshama), piety or self control (dama), honesty (asteya), sanctity(shauch), control of senses (indraiya-nigrah), reason (dhi), knowledge orlearning (vidya), truthfulness (satya) and absence of anger (krodha). Manufurther writes, "Non-violence, truth, non-coveting, purity of body andmind, control of senses are the essence of dharma". Therefore dharmic lawsgovern not only the individual but all in society. Does any other religion sayanything different than these?
the purpose of dharma is not only to attain a unionof the soul with the supreme reality, it also suggests a code of conduct thatis intended to secure both worldly joys and supreme happiness. Rishi Kanda hasdefined dharma in Vaisesika as "that confers worldly joys and leads tosupreme happiness".
Dharma is an Eastern term whose Western equivalentsmight include morality, ethics, virtue, righteousness and purity. Sadly, mostof those terms are distinctly unfashionable in our modern culture. Yet it isDharma by which the seeker of truth can achieve happiness that he is lookingfor.
When Moses brought down the 10 commandments from Mt.Sinai he taught the Israelites that Dharma was the divine law by which they(who loved truth) aspired could free themselves from their Egyptian slavemasters (the base desires) and reach the promised land (spiritual liberation).
Although Mohammed led his followers into a bloody andterrible war to defend the law of Islam (Dharma) from the child-murdering andmysoginistic idolaters, he described that physical war as the 'lesserjihad'.The 'greater Jihad' is the infinitely more difficult war which theseekers fight within themselves for moral purification, death of the ego andvictory over desire, attachment and conditioning.
Christ taught us that forgiveness frees us from ourown petty ego (and its qualities such as pride, vengeance, aggression, grudgebearing) so that we can stay on the path of Dharma. Christ's message isencapsulated in statements such as 'He who looks at a woman with lust hasalready committed adultery' ‹ in other words an external morality or ethic isinsufficient, for true Dharma is purity of heart and mind.
Even before the advent of Lord Krishna when there wasno existence of Bhagavad Gita, even before Jesus Christ there was no existenceof the bible and christianity, even before Mohammed there was no existence ofAllah and Islam BUT the Humanity survived on the basis of the Dharma,TheNatural laws. And this Dharma forms the core of Hinduism. Ever since HumanBeings came into existence... existed Sanatana Dharma... the ever-existingDharma since Times Immemorial. The word Sanatana means something without a beginning...in other words existing since Times Immemorial.
Hinduism in other words is defined as SanatanaDharma... it is not a Religion... it is not the preaching... Hinduism existsfor the existence of Life itself. In the times of Rama who came much beforeLord Krishna existed Dharma and only Dharma. There was no Religion in existenceat that time. The society survived because of the ingrained Dharma in everyliving being. Even before the word Hindu got coined by the followers of IslamicDharma... India existed as Bharatvarsha. The word Bharatvarsha was derived fromthe King Bharat who reigned over the region where prevailed the SanatanaDharma.
The region beyond the Indus River which divides theterritory between the present India and Pakistan, everything beyond the sindhterritory (now in Pakistan) lived the followers of Sanatana Dharma who werepronounced as Hindus (which stood for the people who lived beyond the sindh andas sindh was pronounced as Hind by the followers of Islamic Dharma... the immigrantsof the Hind region came to be known as Hindus. The territory came to be knownas Hind territory and finally Hindustan and the following Hinduism.My idea isnot to hurt anybody in any way but to wake up the conciousness of one and all.what all of us are doing in the name of religion and all of us doing in thename of getting more profits and prosperity,in fact we are pushing this onlyplace that we have to live, in oblivion.
No religion in the world teaches us to wage waragainst our own people.No religion teaches us to disrespect nature in any way,Every religion in the world teaches us to respect and love nature and love ourfellow human beings. So why don't we all do some introspection? and Why can wenot take the actual preaching of the religion that each one of us arefollowing?