How to fulfil Dharma – the life purpose | Mohanji
Discipline and Determination
Two things are needed – essential, super essential – discipline and determination. When there is no discipline, even if you have determination, it won’t work and when there is determination, and there is no discipline, it will not work. They are married to each other. Discipline simply means being consistent in your activity, in your practice, in your connection, whatever you do, be consistent. In other words, integrity.
We will have many reasons not to do something that kills the mind or takes us beyond the mind. There’ll be many reasons. One of the main reasons is our habits, relations, ownerships, the ‘me and mine’ things, they’re all binding factors, and they tell you it’s okay – somebody has said there is dharma, so dharma has to be fulfilled, all those excuses.
Dharma – Righteous duty
I’ll tell you how dharma should be fulfilled very shortly. Dharma is the righteous duty, something which you cannot avoid. So how do you handle dharma without upsetting your evolution or higher elevation? Add that as part of your sadhana practice.
What is our major dharma? It is towards our children, our dependents, parents, and whoever is connected to us, who depends on us. We have to take care of them. That’s our primary dharma; that should be a part of our practice. We should include that as our meditation, our practice. That means you are not separating any important aspects of your life from your practice. Anybody and everybody dependent on you is your responsibility.
Consistency
Dharma simply means performing your responsibility with consistency. Dharma is essential; you can’t avoid it. Plus, your practice is essential; you can’t avoid it. That means, what does that mean? No escapism, no running away. Stay where you are, do what you have to do and raise your awareness to the highest possible.
Whatever duty we have towards our parents, towards our children, towards all our dependents, including our cat, dog, everything has to be fulfilled as dharma. We cannot run away; we are not supposed to run away. Why do I say I’m insisting that we cannot run away? That we cannot avoid it? Because it becomes a pending matter, postponement, we have to come back and do it again.
Escapism
Liberation is not possible by avoiding it. Is that part clear? Because in order to find yourself, you must have discipline, second determination and third, no escapism. You can’t run away; you cannot run away. What you have to do, you must do. Otherwise, it’s a postponement, no progress. Postponement is not progress; there’s no conclusion there. It’s only postponing to another time, so this is not a very good idea. Complete and move on so there are no loose ends.
Attitude
The fourth point I would like to tell you is attitude. What is the right attitude? A positive attitude. A positive attitude is very essential; you should entertain optimism, not pessimism.
But what do you get from the world mostly? Pessimism. Especially now, if you open the television news, everybody is talking about deaths. You know, if you look at the news now, we see that the first headlines will be that so many people died. But so many people recovered from COVID that they will not say. They hardly say about how many people recovered. 75000 people recovered, but 50 people died – they will highlight that 50 people died. 75000 people recovered, but that will not be there.
So we must understand what you get to buy from the world is usually negative news. That’s why I’m insisting on a positive attitude; if you do not have a positive attitude. If you do not have that fire which you have to nurture inside, transcending from the binding of the earth is difficult.
Love & respect
Finally, one more thing; love and respect. Love and respect should start with you towards you, first. If you do not cultivate it inside, you cannot deliver it outside.
When you disrespect yourself when you do not love yourself when you do not care for yourself, how do you care for the world? How do you love the world? How do you respect the world? Only that which you nurture inside, you can deliver outside. Please remember.
If you do not consciously nurture, cultivate this inside, you can’t deliver it outside. If you are interacting with the world, don’t blame the world. Look within. What are you farming inside? You have space inside; what are you cultivating? If you’re cultivating respect, you will deliver respect. If you are cultivating love, you will deliver love. If you cultivate acceptance, you will deliver acceptance. This is a simple technique that you must consider extremely important.
Projections
Now I will tell you a few other pointers, so that will be a good conclusion, I believe. When we live our life, how many times are we blaming something outside for our situation inside, which means what you’re experiencing inside? Please remember, it’s right the opposite; what you see outside is what you’re projecting from the inside, not the other way around. There’s no way that the outside can influence you if you do not allow it. In other words, nobody can touch you if you do not permit it.
If you are considering a lot of problems outside or if you are experiencing a lot of problems outside, ask yourself, what is attracting that to you? And how you’re attracting it? What you’re attracting is what you’re experiencing, very simple.
How you are attracting is how you are projecting it to the world outside. If you’re projecting confusion, you’re attracting confusion. If you’re projecting love, you’re attracting love; if you project respect, you attract respect. So exactly as you are projecting, you’re attracting that reality into you.
If we keep saying nothing is good, nothing is right, that person is not good, this person is not right, then understand, this is exactly what you’re projecting. You must project something different for a change to happen in your life.
Now, one other side. Sometimes we project certain things to protect ourselves. Sometimes we project indifference or a serious face so that nobody comes near us. Sometimes we project something to get attention. This you can see in plenty. People create a lot of drama in life to attract attention. What does it mean? Inherent insecurity.
Stability
When you are fully stable and secure, you don’t need any drama in life. You will be very happy with what you have. You will be very happy with life, and you will only project love when you are fully secure and stable.
What does stability smell like?
Stability smells like security. You’re secured inside. Whatever happens around you, you are still stable. No storms can uproot you. People may love you, or people may hate you. Both are fine. In that context, please remember that our commitment and responsibility are towards the people who love us and care for us.
Also, ask how much time do we spend to make somebody who does not care to love us? And for that sake, how much do we compromise? Please remember, when you compromise, you are weak. When you complement, you’re strong. So, you can complement any life but not compromise to make somebody like you. That’s wasting a lot of time like that.
If somebody decides to dislike you, they will. How can you live then, without them liking you? You live your truth; you live your frequency. You live your stability. That’s the best message; that’s the best gift you can give to yourself.
So, these are a few of the things which you should remember when you are becoming or when you’re trying to become yourself fully.
Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt
Proofread by Rekha Murali