The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami by Radhanath Swami

Within this extraordinary memoir, Radhanath Swami weaves a colorful tapestry of adventure, mysticism, and love. Readers follow Richard Slavin from the suburbs of Chicago to the caves of the Himalayas as he transforms from young seeker to renowned spiritual guide.

The Journey Home is an intimate account of the steps to self awareness and a penetrating glimpse into the heart of mystic traditions and the challenges that all souls must face on the road to inner harmony and a union with the Divine. Through near-death encounters, apprenticeships with advanced yogis, and years of travel along the pilgrim’s path, Radhanath Swami eventually reaches the inner sanctum of India’s mystic culture and finds the love he has been seeking. It is a tale told with rare candor, immersing the reader in a journey that is at once engaging, humorous, and heartwarming.

H.H. Radhanath Swami has been a source of inspiration for several projects both in India and outside of it. Radhanath Swami is also a great source of inspiration for several thousands of people aspiring to seek spiritual enlightenment in the line of bhakti yoga. His efforts to help people in this field have been delivering positive results. Radhanath Swami’s students come from various walks of life, age groups, castes, races, and nationalities

The Journey Home by HH Radhanath Swami

At the age of 19, in 1970, Radhanath Swami started his journey of spiritual quest. After meeting several people and studying various paths of spiritual enlightenment along the way, he finally reached India. Radhanath Swami’s experiences through the journey enabled him to understand the truth from all cultural perspectives. The deep realizations that he gained in the process reflect in his teachings today.

The sufferings and exploitations he had to endure on this path made Radhanath Swami more determined and focused, it increased his faith and humility. Radhanath Swami’s uncompromising determination to find a guru who can provide answers for his questions made him reach the holy land of Vrndavan, India, the holy place of Radha and Krsna. Radhanath Swami

Radhanath Swami learned from many but accepted one guru. Radhanath Swami’s surrender and service to his spiritual master is a great source of inspiration to all his followers. Radhanath Swami’s lectures, kirtans, and yatras sustain the spiritual lives of many. Radhanath Swami’s explanation of complex topics of scriptures and the insight that he provides into apparently confusing philosophical topics is amazing.

H.H. Radhanath Swamy is an extremely rare personality that anyone would meet during the journey of his or her lifetime.
Stories From Journey Home-1 Book by HH Radhanath Swami

Stories From Journey Home Book – A Lecture by HH Radhanath Swami given at Anand Prakash Yoga Ashram in Hrishikesh in the year 2012.

Understanding Karma and Dharma

When individuals are facing challenging situations in their lives, nothing is less helpful than to try to rationalize with them the cause of their pain based on possible events that may have their roots anchored in a former life situation. This type of introspection, far from bringing relief and healing, may cause the adverse aspects of resentment, anger and denial, and can easily intensify the amount of pain of their life.

The Karma and the Dharma, at the same time the Cause and the Purpose of events in our lives, must be studied with care, and always with a stable state of mind, when the ability to analyze and understand is not impaired by pain and lower emotions. They are powerful concepts that may bring light into situations and how they weave themselves in the fabric of our lives.

One of the best influences from the eastern wisdom to our western minds is the notion of Karma as a chain of past events, people, and circumstances that are still present in our lives as challenges to be faced and overcome.

The word Karma is now a vernacular word incorporated in every single language and culture of our Western civilization, even for those that do not necessarily accept the concept as a philosophical reality of the Eastern thought process.This one-dimensional outlook accepts the concept as a simplified game of mathematical proportions, when in fact is much more than simple addition and subtraction: it is a complicated integral with a cluster of causes that interact with each other holographically, generating an effect.

The complete understanding of this concept is difficult because of how it is currently disseminated as a stand-alone concept. When it was originally taught, Karma was explained in context with other important concepts, such as its counterparts Dharma and Samskara.

For the beginning student, Dharma can easily turn out to be a much more complex concept than Karma. Its original meaning can be assumed to be something such as correct conduct, purpose, evolution, teaching, moral rectitude, spirituality and divine purpose. But still after all these definitions; the concept of Dharma is not easily definable, because all the translations are incomplete and partial in their meaningful descriptions.

As a complementary principal to the notion of Karma, Dharma could be well defined as a tendency or line of conduct we have to incorporate into our lives as a result of alignment with our Karma; the direction, or pathway we must trail during this lifetime.

In fact, our Karma is compounded by many different conflicts, diverse procedures and circumstances resultant of some harmonic and some dis-harmonic actions of our re-incarnation path. The tangent resulting of these multiple actions points towards a determined direction or course that is aligned with the Universal Divine Order and our lives. This is Dharma.Christianity regards Dharma as the “divine plan of our lives”.

Nevertheless, in order to achieve the Dharma in our lives, we need to first navigate the tormentous waters of the Karma until there is no longer dissonance and our internal world is aligned with our exterior world. When this alignment is achieved, there is no longer a difference between our Karma and our Dharma. The more we work towards a transmutation of the Karma, the more we manifest our Dharmic purpose in life.

When the complete strength of the Soul becomes awakened in the physical form, Karma and Dharma balance and they become the same.Even in the most painful moments of our lives, we are simultaneously working our Karma and our Dharma, because ultimately our Dharma is the entire purpose we came to unfold in this lifetime.

The comprehension of these two complementary concepts is the keystone for the building of a strong foundation of knowledge, which will facilitate the enduring of difficult situations in our existences. Both of these aggregate unknown and unseen casual forces that tend to shape our destinies, changing action by action, choice by choice, the overview of our lives through both nice and less than nice experiences. Pain and suffering seems to manifest a Dharmic purpose as well as the Karmic system of rewarding cause and effect.

Through human suffering lie the hard lessons or re-directive guidance that sows the seeds of tolerance, compassion, empathy and patience.

http://humanityhealing.net/

Do Buddhists Believe in God? ~ Lewis Richmond

In my upcoming book, Aging as a Spiritual Practice (Gotham Books, January 2012), I tell the following story:

Once, when I was on a live radio show being interviewed by a Christian talk show host, her first question to me was, “Do you Buddhists believe in God?”

I had only a few seconds to think of an answer.

“Yes,” I said.

“Good!” the host said. “And how do you pray?”

I said that we prayed in silence to reach our divine nature.

“I like that!” the host said.

When I have told this story in talks, some of my Buddhist listeners say, “Oh, that’s nice. It’s good to be polite.” But I wasn’t just being polite. I was raised in a Christian church and went to Christian Sunday school. My favorite song as a child was “God is Love.” After graduating from college, for a year I attended Christian seminary, with the idea of becoming a minister. I didn’t become a dedicated Buddhist until some time after that. I am comfortable with the word God.

It’s true that by saying “Yes” I was also making an effort to establish some common ground. It was live radio, our time slot was 20 minutes and I was there to discuss a just-released book. I didn’t want to spend the whole time trying to explain what Buddhists believe. Also, I felt that a more nuanced answer, however I couched it, would have come across as some version of “No.” I sensed the need to give a definitive answer. The answer I gave came closest to what was so for me — understanding that I was not trying to speak for the world’s 320 million Buddhists, but only for myself.

The host knew I was a Buddhist; I was on her show to discuss my book, Healing Lazarus: A Buddhist’s Journey from Near Death to New Life. I sensed from the way she posed her question that all she really wanted to know was whether I was a person of religious conviction and belief — a person of faith. And I am. I’m an ordained Buddhist priest — a religious professional. My daily religious practice is the center of my life. I lead meditation groups, I am training and ordaining other priests. In that context, “Yes” is the best answer.

However, even though most of the world’s Buddhists recite the name of Buddha or pray to Buddha, Buddha is not a deity or supreme being in the same way that the Christian God is. A lay minister of the Jodo Shinshu sect of Japanese Buddhism once told me that he tries to explain to his Christian friends that Amida Buddha is a principle, like universal love, rather than a god. Another point worth noting is that there is no word for “Buddhism” in Buddhism — that “-ism” was an invention of 19th century European translators. Gautama the Buddha called his teaching marga, or the Path.

In that sense, the host’s second question — about how I prayed — was the more interesting to me. For Buddhists, what and how you practice is more fundamental than what you believe. My teacher, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, used to say that people could practice Zen meditation and also believe in God; that was OK with him. My good friend, Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk, practiced meditation with us in the early days of Tassajara Zen monastery. Like many other Catholic priests and monks who have taken up, and even taught, Zen, Brother David did not feel a contradiction between his Catholic contemplative practice and Zen meditation. In fact, he felt that there was an affinity between the two. A Tibetan Buddhist teacher once said, when asked about God, “God and Buddha may appear to be different, but when we speak of the nature of God and the nature of Buddha there may be more closeness.” I learned in Christian seminary that St. Anselm’s definition of God was “that than which nothing greater can be conceived.” Shunryu Suzuki often spoke of the inconceivability of Buddha in similar language. In Zen meditation we seek to express and embody this inconceivability.

So when I said to the radio host, “We pray in silence to reach our divine nature,” I was not just making that up. I knew that there is a long history in Christianity of the “prayer of silence.” In the Eastern Orthodox tradition this is known as hesychasm, which is based on Christ’s injunction in the Book of Matthew to “go into your closet to pray.” A more modern version of this practice is the so-called “centering prayer,” whose ancient origins can be traced to the writings of St. John of the Cross and other early contemplatives.

My colleagues in Zen may object that it is a stretch to call Zen meditation “prayer,” or to describe its purpose as a method “to reach our divine nature.” I understand; I’m sure this post will receive many critical comments both from the Buddhist and Christian sides. My purpose here is not to defend what I said, as much as describe it, along with the thinking behind it. I think what is most important is that the host and I had a real dialogue. After the show was over, she told me that someone close to her had experienced a traumatic brain injury, as I had done, and she wanted to know more. That was a touching moment, a human connection that was more important, I think, than anything I said or she said on the show.

Interfaith dialogue can sometimes be superficial, but it can also go deep. Dialogue is the universal antidote to misunderstanding and prejudice, especially the religious kind, and I am all for it — even when it falls short, or seems unfruitful. This week’s headlines about Osama bin Laden reminds us all of the terrible cost of misunderstanding, prejudice and hatred. The hatred and the killing will not end — in fact, given our human propensity for demonizing those who do not believe as we do, such things may always be with us. But we must never stop trying to counter prejudice with efforts to find common ground. That was what I was trying to do on the radio show, and what I am trying to do here by writing about it.

A True Refuge ~ Sharon Salzberg

From the beginning of my meditation practice in 1971, I was very moved by a sense of the Buddha as an integrated being. Most of us can easily experience our lives as somehow fragmented, split apart. We might feel perfectly filled with complete loving kindness, strongly in touch with the radiant essence of our being when we’re alone, but as soon as we’re with people, it’s very difficult. Or we might feel fine when we’re with other people, but feel terrified when we are alone. We might feel one way at work, a different way in the context of our families.

Our lives can easily be experienced as split up into these little bundles, whereas for a being like the Buddha, it is seamless. There are no parts, there’s no division, there’s no fragmentation. His life is of one piece with threads of wisdom and compassion guiding his actions whether he’s alone or with others, whether he’s wandering through India or being still; whether he is teaching or meditating, it is at the root of his being. It is all of one piece. I found that tremendously inspiring. I felt so fragmented. I knew that integration was exactly what I wanted.

The Buddha said, “From time to time, the enlightened one is born into the world an arahat, fully awakened, abounding in wisdom and goodness, happy, with knowledge of the worlds unsurpassed as a guide to those willing to be taught, a blessed one, a Buddha. By themselves they thoroughly understand. They make this knowledge known to others. They proclaim the truth, both in the letter and in the spirit, “lovely in the beginning, lovely in the middle, lovely in the end,” abounding in wisdom and goodness, happy. What a wonderful sense of a possibility!

This Buddha, our Buddha you might say, arose in India in this world around 563 BC. He sat under a tree in Northern India and became enlightened. He came to birth as a human being, just as each of us has. This was perhaps accentuated for me by being in northern India, the land of the Buddha. I could take a short walk and be at the spot where, as bodhisattva, a being aspiring to enlightenment, the Buddha had the milk rice that fortified his body after so much extreme self-denial. And of course, day or night, I could go to the tree. The presence of the Buddha was intimate and everywhere, as though visiting the land of one’s ancestors.

As a human being, the Buddha’s questions, his very compelling questions, were about the nature of life. It’s as though he were asking, “What does it mean to be born into this human body, to be so vulnerable and dependent as an infant, to grow up, to grow older whether we like it or not, to die, unbelievably enough, even as we see all others die around us?” and “What does it mean to have this human mind which seems to veer constantly from one extreme to the other, always changing, so that we might wake up in the morning delighted to be alive, full of faith, really happy, and by the afternoon we’re freaked out, we’re frightened, we’re angry, we feel guilty, we question our very right to be happy. It seems incomprehensible to us. And then at night it’s something different again.”

What does it mean as a human being to look for happiness, peace, joy, that is not confined within the body, within that changing mind? Is there a quality of happiness, is there a kind of peace that is not a compounded thing subject to change, to destruction, as conditions change? He had questions in effect that are very similar to our own. As he phrased the call to awakening for himself, he said, “Why should I who am subject to birth, old age, sickness, death, sorrow, and suffering, seeing the danger in these things, why should I take refuge in that which is also subject to change, to death, to sorrow, to suffering? Let me find that which is changeless, which is deathless, which is without sorrow, which is unborn and undying, that is a true refuge.” And in fact this is what he found. He found a true refuge.

We say a human being sat under a tree 2600 years ago, motivated by compassion, brought there, moved there on a wave of moral force. There was no other place he could be. Throughout the night as he sat there, which was a full moon night, the full moon in May, he saw the conditioned nature of suffering, sorrow, grief, loss, and death. He traced it back. He traced it back until he came to ignorance. He saw his own and others’ countless past lives stretching back over many ages and eons of the world. He saw in effect the spectacle of the whole universe, beings being born and dying in accordance with the laws of nature. He saw the cyclic path of all beings, the unfortunate and the illustrious and the rich and the poor, all beings tossed about on these waves of birth and old age, sickness and death. As the night went on, he saw the means of liberation. He saw suffering, the cause of suffering, the end of suffering, and the path to the end of suffering. At the first light of dawn, just as the star Venus broke in the morning sky, he saw through the very last trace of ignorance in himself and was completely enlightened.

And, it is taught, we too can be enlightened, every one of us. We can be completely freed from the bonds of limitation and conditioned confusion through our own endeavor, inspiration, effort and development. There is a path, and we can traverse it.

Sharon Salzberg has been a student of Buddhism since 1971, and has led meditation classes and retreats worldwide since 1974. She teaches both intensive awareness practice (insight meditation) and the profound cultivation of lovingkindness and compassion in a non-sectarian, inclusive framework. She is a co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts and The Barre Center for Buddhist Studies.

Sharon’s newest book, Real Happiness, The Power of Meditation: A 28-Day Program, published by Workman Publishing in January 2011. She is also the author of The Force of Kindness, from Sounds True; Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience, from Riverhead Books; Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness and A Heart as Wide as the World, both from Shambhala Publications; and co-author with Joseph Goldstein of Insight Meditation, a Step-by-Step Course on How to Meditate

Leading Meditation and Spiritual Teacher, Author Sharon Salzberg, talks about her book “Real Happiness – The Power of Meditation,” and shares insight as to what Meditation IS and IS NOT and how it can benefit one’s life.

Dharma and Divine Justice

Those who live in accordance with these divine laws without complaining, firmly established in faith, are released from karma. Those who violate these laws, criticizing and complaining, are utterly deluded, and are the cause of their own suffering”
~ Bhagavad Gita

Karma and Dharma

On the pathways of Earth School that are many lessons to be learned by a soul. Among the plethora of experiences there are those of the two superior Universal Laws of Karma and Dharma that are needed to be understood in order to give us the proper knowledge in how to conduct ourselves harmoniously within the superior order of the universe.

Every action activates a reaction; good or bad there is always a consequence. There is no effect without cause or action without consequence. Every situation manifested in one’s life is an amazing opportunity for generating experience and knowledge that is an immeasurable resource for advancement of the soul, being both as a registry and expansion of consciousness, or Adhikara.

The Wheels of Dharma

Dharma is a Sanskrit word that means “Natural Law” or reality. Dharma is a basic philosophy and practice that had its origins in India and with the most remote form of Dharma being the Sanatana Dharma, meaning eternal Dharma.

In Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, Dharma also has an axial role. In these schools of wisdom, beings that live their lives in harmony with the Dharmic Universe can rapidly reach Moska, Dharma Yukam or Nirvana; in other words, to complete liberation in an efficient way from the Wheels of Samsara.

In Buddhist teachings, the flow of the Dharma can be compared to wheels that can travel from one country to another, according to the flow or movement of circumstances and conditions, such as the Karmic inclinations of each individual.

As a moral doctrine, Dharma presides over the duties and rights of the individual and it is usually references an activity or spiritual task. It can also refer to social order, rules of conduct, or simply virtuous living.

Dharma, as a spiritual law, is absolute in Divine Justice and may reside beyond most people’s comprehension due to their being in attachment to a finite and limited earthly reality. The “rains of purification” will keep falling until people are willing to break the Karmic cycles by healing the self.
The Divine Justice

The Dharmic Law has, at its fundamental base, the exercise of Justice (or adjustments) and Mercy. Justice without Mercy is tyranny. Mercy without Justice is complacency. The diagram of this Universal Law can be perceived through the existence of the two pillars of the Tree of Life: the Severity and Mercy, and summarized through the archetypical representation of Lady Justice’s Scale.

“The idea that the deceased could air his grievances about someone else in the hereafter, and also be called to account for his own actions, was known in Egypt from as early as the 4th Dynasty. In addition, the Pyramid Texts contain references to a judicial investigation into the king’s conduct (…) According to this concept, the instrument of justice is the weighing scales – the human heart is put into one side of the scales, after all, it knows everything about the actions of its owner, and weighed against a feather, the symbol of Maat[1]”.

The Judgment, or adjustment of the level of our consciousness, and the consequent deliberation of our new Karmic experiences, come from a council of supreme Consciousnesses completely expanded and awaken. Esoterically, this “body” of Consciousnesses is called the members of the Divine Justice Tribunal. This Tribunal has as a function the measurement of the level of awareness of each soul, weighting the activities, intentions, and effects as consequence of our actions.

On the walls of the pyramids and tombs of Egypt, there are many representations of this Divine Tribunal. Most of them present the god Anubis as the “Executive-Judge” and 42 other beings, the body of Consciousnesses previously mentioned, as the other judges. In the Egyptian pantheon, Anubis is the god with the duty to weight the hearts of the recently dead and to determine their fate.

Source: http://humanityhealing.net (http://s.tt/13JKV)

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar on the Bhagawad Gita

Terrorists are cowards. Whenever terror has struck in any part of the world, we have heard people say it is an act of cowardice. A coward runs away from action but harbours all negative feelings and does it surreptitiously.

This is exactly what happened to Arjuna. Arjuna was angry, upset, sad and wanted to run away. In the Bhagawad Gita, Lord Krishna said not to be a coward. So, it is an antidote to terrorism. Shri Krishna said bravery is the way – face the war when it is inevitable and do your duty.

A terrorist is stuck in his identity – he hides it, has no rationale and inflicts pain. Whereas Bhagawad Gita helps one to transcend one’s identity, encourages reason and infuses wisdom. In this sense, it could be called the antidote to terrorism.

The duty of a policeman, a soldier or a king is to be impartial for the sake of the nation, whether it is their mentors or relatives. Terrorists are never impartial. A soldier is brave and a terrorist is a coward. A soldier is protecting and preventing violence and a terrorist is inflicting pain and suffering. The Bhagawad Gita is the scripture of bravery in both realms of physical and metaphysical.

Terrorism is deeply steeped in hatred. An act without hatred is what Gita propounds. The Gita epitomizes the correct action – of righteousness, of upliftment of spirit and an action or duty that ought to be performed even in the most compelling situation.

In the last 5149 years of the existence of the Gita, there is no evidence of someone becoming a terrorist after reading it. In fact, Mahatma Gandhi wrote commentaries on the Bhagawad Gita and it was an inspiration for his non-violent movement. The Bhagawad Gita is a unique scripture which caters to the entire range of human evolution, comprising every level of this vast existence.

Gita stands for poise and equanimity and for performing one’s designated duty. Krishna does not encourage everyone to take the weapons and fight but a soldier cannot sell bananas in the market. He has to take his weapon to bring security to his people. If Bhagawad Gita is a terrorist scripture then all military academies in the world are nothing but terrorist organizations. Doesn’t this sound strange? Would the courts ban Lenin, Marx and Mao Tso-Tung, who to stay in power inflicted terror on millions?

A terrorist or a coward hides and inflicts pain on others whereas a soldier sacrifices his own life to bring security and peace to people. They both may take the gun but their intentions are poles apart.

Gita encourages reasoning and dialogue while terrorists are blind to any reasoning and are closed to any form of dialogue.

Interestingly, in any military training all over the world, the soldiers are asked to see the enemies as dangerous objects which need to be eliminated. The psychology behind indoctrination of such an idea is that when they think the enemy is a human being the soldiers are unable to raise their arms. There are many such survival tactics where the army men are desensitized.

A similar situation happened to Arjuna. Lord Krishna went step by step to deal with Arjuna’s emotions, ego, mindsets and concepts. He finally touched on the nature of his spiritual being; revealing him the highest knowledge and making him realize his eternal nature. This brought him enormous strength and then propelled him to perform his worldly duties. A doctor cannot be taken as a dacoit just because he opens up the stomach of the patient.

Krishna says, no sin begets him whose intellect is unattached and free from cravings and aversions, even if he kills the whole world. Now, the condition of an intellect free from cravings and aversions itself counters terrorism. Terrorism is done when the intellect is deeply attached and is hateful. The metaphors and the high standards of humanism exhibited in the Gita are unparalleled.

Jesus had said, “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.” In the Quran, there are many verses which talk about striking terror in the hearts of the infidels and cutting off their fingers. By these standards if you still call Gita a terrorist scripture then you have to precede such statements by Bible and Quran.

The fact is that it is not the scriptures that inflict terrorism; it is the mis-interpretation of an ignorant and stressed mind which justifies their actions quoting scriptures.

By Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

This article is to cater to the common man. This piece was written in December 2011, in the midst of a Russian court case against the Bhagawad Gita. The case ended with the Russian court rejecting the ban.

Towards a New Dharmic Vision of Humanity – Written by David Frawley (Pandit Vamadeva)

The Meaning of Dharma

Dharma is perhaps the key term for the great spiritual traditions of India and East Asia, Hindu and Buddhist, whether relative to their understanding of the outer world of nature or the inner realm of consciousness. It is the basis of India’s vast and diverse culture and its deep commitment to Yoga and meditation as tools of self-realization for all. A respect for Dharma is said to be more important even than a belief in God, because it implies certain values and a way of life that promotes truth, unity and respect for all life above ideas or emotions.

Dharma in Sanskrit comes from the root ‘dhri’ meaning ‘to uphold’ and is symbolized by a pillar. It refers to the spiritual, ethical and natural principles that uphold the entire universe. Dharma has always been linked to Veda or vidya, which refers to an inner capacity to perceive the nature of things. It reflects a higher awareness pervades and underlies all existence.

Dharma is a very difficult term to define and eventually must be understood in its own right. To provide a basis for this, we could say that Dharma indicates both the nature of reality at a universal level as well as the proper place for each thing in the universe according to its particular qualities and capacities. There is a specific dharma relative to each creature and every aspect of nature, as well as to the whole of existence. Dharma indicates the harmony both of the totality and the individual, which are complementary and interdependent. According to a dharmic view, the entire universe is present in each object and in every creature, which in some way embody or express the totality.

There is a dharma or natural way of working behind the great forces of nature, the five elements of earth, water, fire, air and ether, the seasons, the three worlds as earth, atmosphere and the heavens, and the different aspects of the cosmos as matter, energy, and light, which follow interrelated laws and patterns. There is a dharma or unique quality and energy in every plant and animal which serves to make it what it is. Everything has its place in the Dharma, which reflects its role in the cosmic order. And there is a special dharma or role on Earth for the human being, which is to seek to embody a higher truth and work to promote a higher consciousness in the world. The universe is an organically connected vibratory field in which all things are linked together into a greater network of harmony, beauty and vitality. This is the universal ‘web of dharma’.

There is dharma or way of right action relative to all aspects of human life and culture: a dharma of art, a dharma of business, a dharma of communication, a dharma of relationship, a dharma of science, a dharma of religion, and so on – each of which requires its own examination. What is done according to dharma is performed with grace, intelligence and respect for the natural order. Each different domain of our lives has certain principles and practices necessary to unfold its full potential, which constitute its dharma. If we follow the dharma in what we do, we will not only be successful, but will act so in a way that promotes the well-being of all.

We have our own individual or ‘svadharma’ that reflects our capacities and aspirations in life. Yet this is not something that divides us from others. Each person has similar potentials that we must honor.

The Social Dharma

Relative to society, the term Dharma is used in a special way as indicating the right way for society and its members to operate in harmony with their natures, with the environment and with the universe as a whole. This is what we could call the ‘social Dharma’. For social well being, there must be a proper understanding and implementation of Dharma on all levels.

In Vedic thought, human society is looked upon like the human body as a single organism with different limbs, organs and functions, which all serve the benefit of the whole. The social organism is one in essence, but the role of different individuals, communities or professions must vary in order to fulfill the diverse and specialized needs of the whole. Such social differences should not become a matter of high and low or good and bad, but an organic necessity in which each particular role is vital, just as each organ of the human body has an important and irreplaceable role in the well-being of the entire body. We cannot forget society’s connection with the Earth and nature, if we want society to be healthy, harmonious and without violence.

There are special principles of Dharma or right living for society, nations and communities, including special guidelines for men and women, the young and the old, for different professions and for different stages of life. There is an organic order to life, even at a social level, as there is in how our body functions.

However, Dharma also requires that our outer actions and life-styles change along with changing times and cultures. Dharma does not consist of rigid rules that can be blindly applied to all circumstances, but of guiding principles that require adaptation according to the differing needs of time, place and culture. The social Dharma cannot become rigid or the social organism will decline. This means that the vision of Dharma is more important than any specific formulation of dharma in a particular book or by a single person, though we should not discountenance the value of the dharmic wisdom from the past.

Today we need a new social dharma that can integrate what is best in science and technology while restoring our deeper connection with both Nature and the Spirit, such as the great seers of India maintained.

Dharma and Human Rights

Western political thought and modern democracies in general are based upon the idea of “human rights”, which are primarily defined on an individual basis, according to political ideals of freedom, equal opportunity, and justice for each person. These democratic principles have helped protect the individual, reducing oppression and discrimination on various levels within the society relative to race, ethnicity, gender, class, occupation, or other social affiliations.

Yet, on the negative side, an over fixation on “individual rights” encourages a mere outer freedom to do what one wants that can make people more aggressive and acquisitive, lacking an inner dimension of spiritual search. Outer freedom without a corresponding inner aspiration can become a license for the ego to do what it wishes, even if it causes eventual harm to others or to the environment. It often becomes a hectic pursuit of the material world, a running after the external allures of Maya.

The American Declaration of Independence is a very interesting document in this regard. It is based upon the three principles of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as the inalienable rights of man. Life and liberty are our inalienable rights to be sure, but the “pursuit of happiness” taken only at an outer level easily promotes an external seeking of enjoyment, pleasure and power. What you pursue or run after usually runs away from you! This pursuit of happiness or desire has given rise to the current commercial society that in many ways is becoming increasingly vulgar and destructive. Each individual tends to seek his or her rights, which easily lends itself to self-promotion over the greater good of all.

Dharma, on the other hand, teaches us that life, liberty and happiness are our inherent nature and can be found within ourselves, without the need for external seeking or accumulation of possessions. Dharma promotes freedom from any sort of outer dependency. This includes freedom from commercial exploitation and an inner orientation to life, which implies a spiritual search. Our role in life is not simply to gain what is due to us, as if the universe owed us a favor, but to help in the well-being of the world as a whole, which is part of our own greater nature. Our place in life is not simply to take, as if we existed in isolation, but to give, reflecting our relationship with the whole and the wholeness of who we really are.

Dharma and Duty

Dharma indicates duty, obligation, and responsibility as well as rights and freedom. Rights can never exist without corresponding duties and obligations. Unless rights and duties are balanced, the society itself will become imbalanced and disturbed. Each one of us no doubt has our individual place in the universe that must be honored and a destiny of our own to be fulfilled, but we must also respect the universe upon which we depend and realize that our well being can never be secured at the cost of that of others.

In this regard, Dharma is connected to the idea of giving, offering and sacrifice –what Vedic teachings call yajna. Yajna is symbolized by a fire sacrifice. Fire can only burn if given an offering of the proper fuel. Our place in life is to make the proper offering so that the universal fire of Dharma can illuminate both ourselves and the world around us. Ultimately, we must ourselves become an offering for all, rather than holding to our personal existence or private property as final.

Yajna says that our lives should consist of worship and honoring, including relative the Divine, our ancestors, other living creatures, all human beings, and the spiritual heritage of the entire human race. If each one of us acts for the good of all, we will all certainly flourish. If we act only for the good of ourselves, our family or our particular community, we will breed long term division, inequality and violence.

Broader Human and Universal Rights

According to the principles of Dharma, it is not only individuals that have rights but all aspects of the social organism and the world of nature as a whole. Families have rights, as do communities, including the right not to be interfered with or to be broken up. Cultures have rights not to be denigrated or exploited, even in the name of progress. Today in the name of individual human rights many traditional communities and cultures are being devalued and denigrated, if not eliminated, often paving the way for commercial exploitation.

The non-human world also has its rights. Animals have the right to live without human interference or exploitation and to have their natural space to move freely. Plants do so as well, as the plant also has consciousness and feeling. The world of nature does not exist solely for our own personal advantage as human beings. Each creature has its own existence that we must honor. Ecosystems also have a right to remain as they are and evolve according to their own energies, without being turned merely into human habitations or recreation sites.

When human rights do not respect the rights of other creatures, they invariably lead to conflict and problems in human society as well in the world of nature. The greater life organism of the biosphere gets damaged, which means that human beings will also not have a harmonious natural environment that can provide for health and well-being. This is what we are seeing today in which our environment has been damaged by making human needs, desires and profits predominate over the natural rights of other creatures and the sanctity of the Earth itself – in which we are failing in our duty to the universe in the blind pursuit of personal enjoyment.

Dharmic Pluralism

Dharma reflects a pluralistic view of life which honors unity in multiplicity. It recognizes that there is a diversity of human beings, with each individual being unique in one way or another. There cannot be one job all for all, one medicine for all, or even one religion or spiritual path for all.

Therefore, there should be a corresponding diversity in society in terms of culture, philosophy, art and spirituality so that each person or group has something that their particular Dharma can relate to and find fulfillment in. According to Dharma, unity lies not in uniformity of name, form or action but in the inner freedom that allows the individual to move through and beyond all outer forms to the inner essence that is one with all.

Dharma and Relativism

Dharma holds that we must look at each individual and circumstance according the particular situations, energies and capacities involved. For this reason, a Dharmic approach remains flexible and does not seek to impose any absolutes or rigid rules upon humanity. For example, if you are driving down a road you cannot follow a rigid set of rules or formulas; you have to actually see the movement of traffic moment by moment. Similarly, Dharma rests upon perception more so than any doctrine.

Yet Dharma is far removed from an ‘anything goes’ attitude or a mere moral relativism. Dharma says that there is a right and appropriate way to do each thing, whether it is right way to eat, a right way to breathe, or a right and respectful way to organize our societies, reflecting individual circumstances as well as the broader principles existence. This way of right action cannot be reduced to a fixed pattern but is not without enduring principles either. Dharma requires consciousness in its application and cannot be turned into a standardized creed or mechanical set of rules.

Dharma and Secularism

Dharma does not imply a rule of religion over life or society. Dharma and secularism, the idea that church and state should be separate, share certain attitudes, values and concerns. Dharma holds that a government should not be used to promote one religious belief or another. It holds to freedom of religion and says that the individual should have the freedom to pursue their own Dharma in life, free of control by the state or by any external institution.

Yet Dharma is different from secularism in certain ways as well. Dharma regards all life as sacred and so cannot accept a merely commercial view of life, which is the tendency of so-called modern secular cultures. Dharma says that we must respect the sacred aspect of human life and try to make our social actions into something respectful of the greater universe. Dharma can project a spiritual vision without violating the principle of individual freedom. This is because it sees the spiritual path as a matter of individual practice, an expression of freedom, not something enforced from the outside.

Dharma and Religion

Religion is often translated as Dharma in Indian thought today. This reflects another side of its meaning. Dharma like religion states that we should recognize the universal and the eternal and base our human culture on a spiritual goal or higher consciousness. However, Dharma cannot be reduced to one particular religion, book, teacher, revelation or another. Dharma is not based upon belief and does not seek to spread, much less impose, a single belief upon all humanity. Dharma accepts freedom of religion as well as a freedom of the individual not to follow any religion at all. Above all, it places individual spiritual practice over any overt religious institutionalism.

Dharma places the need to act for the good of all above any religious labels or differences. Dharma says it is what we do that matters, not what we call ourselves, and that truth ultimately transcends all names and boundaries. Dharma says that the supreme truth is impersonal, apaurusheya, and cannot be reduced to a human formulation or representative that all must follow, however helpful these may be for certain groups or individuals.

Yet a dharmic approach does recognize that different individuals, groups and communities may want to follow different spiritual and religious paths – which need not all be the same – and which may have their own respective practices, formulations and values. Dharma accepts pluralism in religion as in all of life, including the freedom of individuals to differ and disagree on matters of religion, as long as they do not turn these differences into a pretext for conflict and violence.

At a higher level, Dharma embraces Yoga as its Moksha Dharma or teaching about the liberation of the soul, which is a matter of sadhana or inner spiritual practice through the science and art of meditation.

Dharmic Values and Ethics

Dharma rests upon certain clearly defined universal values and ethics. These are not simply dictates, laws or commandments but a recognition of how life works and how we can attune ourselves to the consciousness of the greater universe. Such dharmic values are perhaps most simply defined in the basic principles behind Yoga practice of non-violence (ahimsa), truthfulness (satya), self-control (Brahmacharya), non-stealing (asteya) and non-acquisitiveness (aparigraha).

There is no living being that wants to be hurt. We ourselves do not want to be hurt, so honoring the universal dharma, the universal culture as it were, we do not seek to harm anyone. Similarly, we do not want to be deceived. There is no creature that wants to be deceived, so honoring the universal dharma we tell the truth. Dharmic ethics therefore are a matter of universal courtesy, as it were, not only towards others but also towards ourselves. Without such dharmic ethics we cannot have access to the cosmic mind or the greater civilization of the universe, which is one of consciousness, not merely of science and technology.

Towards a New Dharmic Movement

Today humanity is suffering from a global crisis, which is not simply a lack of resources but a crisis of values. Today we must learn to coexist and pluralism, not only at a political level but also at cultural and religious levels, is essential. We cannot survive as a planet by promoting national, cultural or religious boundaries as final, as that is to deny the greater unity and value of humanity as a whole. A new vision of Dharma can help us in this direction because Dharma does not divide human beings up into opposing camps. It says we are all of one family and must all eventually come to the same truth and self-realization, albeit according to our own path and in our own time and manner.

Great modern teachers from India like Sri Aurobindo, Mahatma Gandhi, Swami Dayananda (of the Arya Samaj) and Swami Vivekananda, and many others from all over the world have looked into and provided their insights about creating a new social order or Dharma. Many Buddhist teachers, like the Dalai Lama are also promoting a greater dharma for humanity.

Ultimately, there needs to be a new renaissance in dharmic thinking. This implies a great deal of questioning, deep thought and profound meditation – an endeavor that may take decades to come to real fruition. It must rest upon an uncompromising pursuit of truth, not simply an attempt at social accommodation, appeasement or pleasing everyone. A new dharmic order is not a simple matter of a new political party but an infusion of higher values into our social interactions, which means a new approach to politics that considers not only the outer human being but the inner essence of the soul.

Unfortunately, the political world today tends to rely upon slogans, vote banks and appeals to mass fears and desires, looking forward only to the next election. The personality of the political leader is made more important than any deeper vision for humanity. Political parties today are lacking in any real idealism and vision and quickly compromise in order to gain power or influence. Even modern education is imed at training a person more in a particular technical profession, rather than providing a well rounded education that includes an examination as to what is the ultimate meaning of life. Clearly Dharma must be brought back into education and into social service for it to affect society as a whole.

A new world order defined by Dharma – not simply by religion, politics, or commercial concerns – is crucial for our way forward as a species and can help promote and preserve the good in all. It is important that a regard for the universal Dharma is brought into both our personal lives and into our societies. Otherwise our civilization may continue to flounder and is unlikely to find peace or harmony with life. This is a matter first of all of upholding Dharmic principles and practices in how we live and think. The work begins with each one of us.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar on the Bhagawad Gita

Terrorists are cowards. Whenever terror has struck in any part of the world, we have heard people say it is an act of cowardice. A coward runs away from action but harbours all negative feelings and does it surreptitiously.

This is exactly what happened to Arjuna. Arjuna was angry, upset, sad and wanted to run away. In the Bhagawad Gita, Lord Krishna said not to be a coward. So, it is an antidote to terrorism. Shri Krishna said bravery is the way – face the war when it is inevitable and do your duty.

A terrorist is stuck in his identity – he hides it, has no rationale and inflicts pain. Whereas Bhagawad Gita helps one to transcend one’s identity, encourages reason and infuses wisdom. In this sense, it could be called the antidote to terrorism.

The duty of a policeman, a soldier or a king is to be impartial for the sake of the nation, whether it is their mentors or relatives. Terrorists are never impartial. A soldier is brave and a terrorist is a coward. A soldier is protecting and preventing violence and a terrorist is inflicting pain and suffering. The Bhagawad Gita is the scripture of bravery in both realms of physical and metaphysical.

Terrorism is deeply steeped in hatred. An act without hatred is what Gita propounds. The Gita epitomizes the correct action – of righteousness, of upliftment of spirit and an action or duty that ought to be performed even in the most compelling situation.

In the last 5149 years of the existence of the Gita, there is no evidence of someone becoming a terrorist after reading it. In fact, Mahatma Gandhi wrote commentaries on the Bhagawad Gita and it was an inspiration for his non-violent movement. The Bhagawad Gita is a unique scripture which caters to the entire range of human evolution, comprising every level of this vast existence.

Gita stands for poise and equanimity and for performing one’s designated duty. Krishna does not encourage everyone to take the weapons and fight but a soldier cannot sell bananas in the market. He has to take his weapon to bring security to his people. If Bhagawad Gita is a terrorist scripture then all military academies in the world are nothing but terrorist organizations. Doesn’t this sound strange? Would the courts ban Lenin, Marx and Mao Tso-Tung, who to stay in power inflicted terror on millions?

A terrorist or a coward hides and inflicts pain on others whereas a soldier sacrifices his own life to bring security and peace to people. They both may take the gun but their intentions are poles apart.

Gita encourages reasoning and dialogue while terrorists are blind to any reasoning and are closed to any form of dialogue.

Interestingly, in any military training all over the world, the soldiers are asked to see the enemies as dangerous objects which need to be eliminated. The psychology behind indoctrination of such an idea is that when they think the enemy is a human being the soldiers are unable to raise their arms. There are many such survival tactics where the army men are desensitized.

A similar situation happened to Arjuna. Lord Krishna went step by step to deal with Arjuna’s emotions, ego, mindsets and concepts. He finally touched on the nature of his spiritual being; revealing him the highest knowledge and making him realize his eternal nature. This brought him enormous strength and then propelled him to perform his worldly duties. A doctor cannot be taken as a dacoit just because he opens up the stomach of the patient.

Krishna says, no sin begets him whose intellect is unattached and free from cravings and aversions, even if he kills the whole world. Now, the condition of an intellect free from cravings and aversions itself counters terrorism. Terrorism is done when the intellect is deeply attached and is hateful. The metaphors and the high standards of humanism exhibited in the Gita are unparalleled.

Jesus had said, “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.” In the Quran, there are many verses which talk about striking terror in the hearts of the infidels and cutting off their fingers. By these standards if you still call Gita a terrorist scripture then you have to precede such statements by Bible and Quran.

The fact is that it is not the scriptures that inflict terrorism; it is the mis-interpretation of an ignorant and stressed mind which justifies their actions quoting scriptures.

By Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

This article is to cater to the common man. This piece was written in December 2011, in the midst of a Russian court case against the Bhagawad Gita. The case ended with the Russian court rejecting the ban.

Rubin Museum shows Bhagavad Gita film by Joshua Seftel (updated)

The film ‘Invitation to World Literature: the Bhagavad Gita’ (WGBH, Annenberg Media) will screen at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City on Wednesday, Jan. 25 at 1 p.m. The following is filmmaker Joshua Seftel’s interview with Hindu monk and Columbia University Chaplain Gadadhara Pandit Dasa, who appears in the film.

Joshua Seftel: When I was in college, I was walking through Washington Square Park, and a Hindu monk came up to me and handed me the Bhagavad Gita, and I remember I was too shy to know what to say so I just took it and I brought it home. But I didn’t open it for 20 years. The reason was I felt intimidated by it, and I felt it wouldn’t be relevant to me. It wasn’t until I worked on the film about the Bhagavad Gita that I realized it’s everywhere. It has influenced so many things I already knew about.

Gadadhara Pandit Dasa: The Bhagavad Gita did influence the lives of very prominent western people — not just Indian people like Ghandi — but Martin Luther King Jr., and Emerson, Thoreau, Oppenheimer.
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Seftel: If you had to tweet what Bhagavad Gita is about, what would you say?

Pandit: (laughs) OK, what Bhagavad Gita is about (pause), “The guide to overcoming life’s biggest obstacles, which are caused by the mind and understanding the difference between the body and soul.”

Seftel: Would you say the main character, Arjuna, is having a nervous breakdown?

Pandit: Well, here is what Arjuna says: “My hair is standing on end. My skin is burning. My mind is whirling; my bow is slipping from my hand. I can no longer stand here any longer.” I would say that if you can’t stand on your own feet and things that you are holding are slipping from your hand, then that would qualify as a nervous breakdown.

Seftel: Arjuna, and his chariot driver, Krishna, have a relationship that is timeless and relatable. There’s a little “Tony Soprano and Dr. Melfi” or “Tiger Woods and his caddy” here.

Pandit: I don’t know if you saw the movie “The Legend of Bagger Vance” with Will Smith and Matt Damon? That’s based on Bhagavad Gita actually, because Matt Damon’s golfer character is named Rannulph Junuh. So that’s Arjuna. And Will Smith, his caddy, is named Bagger Vance. If you take Bag and Vance, that’s Baggavan which means “god” (laughs). And there’s some Karate Kid here too. You know they’ve got Mr. Miyagi and Danielson (laughs). So Danielson, when he wants to learn he goes to Mr. Miyagi and asks him about karate and Mr. Miyagi then becomes a teacher. I think you can find this relationship everywhere in contemporary life.

Seftel: What about “The Matrix”?

Pandit: There’s definitely a good amount of the Gita in The Matrix. Neo is very much like Arjuna because in the movie you see that Neo is looking for something. He sits on his computer. He knows that the world he sees around him isn’t everything. He knows that there is something more out there. He just can’t figure out what it is. When he finally meets Morpheus, his guru or teacher, Morpheus says, “You know it’s out there, you just don’t know what it is. It’s kind of like a thorn. You have always felt it.”

Seftel: In our film, Amitav Kaul says that he had a breakthrough in understanding Hinduism and the Gita after seeing Star Wars.

Pandit: Yes, the scene where Obi Wan tells Luke about “the force.” That’s why in Hinduism many say “Happiness is found within,” because the divine is there. We are not able to access it because we are so busy doing so many things and progressing materially that we are not able to access that divine. So I think that is what he was referring to. The force is the divine.

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Seftel: How does the story of the Bhagavad Gita end?

Pandit: It ends in a really beautiful way. One of my favorite passages in the Gita is where Krishna says to Arjuna that I’ve told you everything that I want to tell you, deliberate on it fully. And now, you do as you wish to do. I think that is so wonderful from a spiritual point of view that God is detached from our life to some degree. He’s interested in educating us, but ultimately he says: You make your own decisions.

Seftel: I went to a bar mitzvah a few months ago, and I met a boy named Arjuna. Do you think Arjuna is going to become a popular name in the States?

Pandit: Well, it all depends on how well this documentary does (laughs). I think that is largely in your hands (laughs).

Seftel and Pandit will speak after the January 25th screening of the film at the Rubin Museum of Art.
If you missed the show, you can watch Joshua Seftel’s 26 minute film on-line.
Click here watch and view the transcript of the video clip on the top right hand column.