Posted by: Surendra Shakya March 6, 2022
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Today's excerpt:
Those who hold the physical objective world as the all of life and the body as the Self lead wasted lives, live as meaningless as making God into stone. Making the stone into God is the holier, more wholesome task. So too, seeing divine duty (Atma-dharma) in an act transforms it into an act of worship, elevates it, and removes its binding characteristic. Performing the duties of worldly life with no regard to genuine practice of the law of truth (sathyadharma) is as unholy as treating God as stone.
To answer some questions you have raised, to understand dharma better, we have to understand that there are three characters (gunas) that define the levels of a soul. The Satwik guna is the pure, and lives in dharmic behaviour, while the rajasik and tamasik quality gunas are living in delusion of the material world, attached and bonded. You should be able to think for yourself whether you are doing something in Atmic consciousness or not. Any act in itself cannot be dharmic or not. For instance, if you are a satwik soul dedicated to fight for Dharma against asura forces, Like Rama killing Ravana was a dharma because it was in the larger benefit of the world.
So are you eating meat for your sensual pleasure or maybe you killed a menacing tiger and also eating its meat? Eating of meat signifies suffering to animals killed if it was for your own happiness. That is why the first advice given to anyone who wants to choose a spiritual path is to become vegetarian.
About driving a car, again is it good for the world or only for your convenience. Do you absolutely need to drive your own car or maybe public transportation could be used. Given the climate change and the danger it is causing to the life on Earth, are you helping to solve the problem or contributing to it?
Donating money, visiting a temple or donating money to any cause does not in itself constitute dharma. it is in the intension and the reason you are doing them. If you connect to your Atma, then visiting temple is not necessary, and when you act without understanding and embracing divine consciousness nothing can be called dharma, let alone killing a deer to have fun with your friends. When the soul is elevated, the whole world becomes your family, and you see divine presence in everything, animals or any object. The whole of creation of divine so you will feel oneness with everyone, and like the shastra teaches, बशुधैब कुटुम्बकम् the world is your family, and you pray for happiness or all the beings: समस्त लोकः सुखिनो भवन्तु।