What is Individual Dharma

This Blog is an excerpt from: 
Dharma for Awakening and Social Change

The type of service best suited to each person may differ. Every human being has their own unique, personalized path in life, determined by the karmic coverings of their mind and their disposition. Within the vast expanse of our shared human dharma,  Bhagavat Dharma, everyone is being moved in one direction towards Truth.

​Yet each individual, according to the configuration of time, place, and person, is a unique flower opening to the vistas of the sublime and each has a different and unique way. If you are here, now, and another is in a different time and place, and, of course, has a different personality, it may appear that you are moving in different directions. But, in fact, you are both moving toward the same center, which is Truth. You both are being drawn towards a unified purpose and, in reality, moving in the same direction.

Your unique path towards dharma requires dynamic movement of both rasa and seva and is influenced by the type of seva you perform. There is service in the physical sphere, service in the psychic sphere, and service in the spiritual sphere. According to your inclination of mind, you will be drawn to do service in different areas. Everyone may realize the greatness of their essential nature, or Truth, but through different means.

In the garden of this world, the Divine has created endless varieties of beautiful expressions. Each of you, like a beautiful flower, is unique and special, with your own qualities and characteristics, your own capacities, your own development, and your own specific potentiality.

The realization of your own unique potential constitutes your Svadharma, your personal expression in the world, and your unique path to enlightenment. It depends on the inclination of your mind, the development of your spiritual nature, and the samskaras (reactions to past experiences held in the subconscious) which have given you your specific manifestation. Just as each flower in the garden of the Great has its own singular loveliness and no two are alike, though they share the dharma of flower-hood, so you are unique in your Svadharma, though you share with all people the common bond of human dharma, of Bhagavat Dharma.

Bhagavat Dharma is the core flow for everyone. But how do you move in this Bhagavat Dharma? What does it look like for each of you? Is it the same exact movement? Do you move like soldiers, each one exactly the same, wearing the same uniform, arms moving up and down in unison, legs marching to the same tune?  No, that would be preposterous!

That is not at all the way of dharma, certainly not the chosen method of Parama Purusha, the Supreme Consciousness. The Divine loves variety. This entire creation is made of variety. No one can possibly imagine all of the variety that there is in the universe. In this variety, you are unique in your journey, unique and special. You have your own way to move, your Svadharma.

To maintain Vistara or vision, you need a consistent meditation practice, called sadhana, and to have rasa, the feel or taste of life. You also need seva. The seva that is right for you, is unique to you and will be different from the seva of others. How a rose grows from the ground and blooms in the sun is different from how a lotus flower grows in the mud of a pond and blooms in the sun.

​One is coming through the water, and one is in the air. and their leaves take different shapes, their buds are different, and their color and their fragrance are unique to each. Yet they both grow towards and open to the sun. In a similar way, your Svadharma is unique to you and yet in harmony with the collective movement of all beings to open to the deep Source of Being.  

Moving Into Harmony
When you move on the path of dharma, you move in harmony with your own nature and with the essential nature of all beings. Can you feel those moments when your thoughts, words, and deeds are in harmony with life? When you sense such harmony, such alignment, then you are truly following dharma.

When that harmony is entirely present, your thoughts, words, and deeds become surrendered to the Divine and you perceive the Sublime manifest in everything. When this happens, you begin to notice all the synchronicities, to see the great tapestry that is being woven in the universe, and, beholding the harmonious substantive nature of all manifestation, you feel the shower of unconditional love falling gently upon you and every other being.

Moving in harmony, the foot does not crush the ground beneath. Moving in harmony, all nature becomes one flow. Thoughts, words, and deeds express only the unconditional love of the Divine. The lotus growing in the mud and water brings forth buds that open to the sun. The rose winding around the trellis climbs upward and blossoms in the sun. Moving in harmony towards the Source, all beings have their place. Sun, moon, and stars have their place in the harmony of all things. There is a balance in this universe, finely maintained, sublimely intricate, yet simple. To be in this balance, to move in this harmony, to breathe with the rhythm of the stars, is the way of dharma.

For one immersed in dharma, the words they speak become truth, not because they have foretold the future, but because, being ensconced in dharma, they are in the rhythm of life. They live in truth. The words of one established in dharma are a balm to the heavy hearts of all beings, for true words are spoken from the heart of hearts, not from the mind or the desires.

Walk in silence. Be still in the wood. Be as wild as the breeze upon the prairie. Be as vast as the night sky. Fly with the eagle above the mountain tops. Soar on the night breeze. Dive to the depths of the ocean. Live in the rhythmic harmony of the universe. This is dharma.

Can you walk this path? Really, can you? All religions have attempted to teach people how to live and act in harmony and to define in words the path of right action. But the way for each person is unique. You cannot define it or put it in a box because of the way it moves outside of all boxes. To become whole, to learn to walk in the way of the universe, to move towards the essence of beatitude, to the depths of silence, follow dharma always. Stay connected to your innermost nature.

 If you would like to read more articles like this one, please go to www.yogama.info under Teachings. ​