The Dharma Dilemma: The Challenge of Competing Duties

I grew up in a traditional Indian household where lessons on integrity and duty were the norm. The word that encompassed those qualities was dharma. When I first encountered the word through the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita and understood its meaning, it seemed to be the quality that I most sought out in a hero. In my childhood war games I usually played the role of a captured prisoner who would be "tortured" but would not give away "the secret" to the "bad guys" even in the face of "death". At other times, I made up stories in my mind where I would play the role of a friend who would sacrifice his life for his dear companion. It was child's play, but in my mind it was what I wanted to become. As I grew up though, I began to realize that living with dharma meant more than just a romantic notion. Its meaning is in embracing a life of struggle.

Dharma is a topic that has been celebrated through books and talks by philosophers and academics, both from Indian origin and outside. It's meaning surfaces as one delves into the depth of the concept. In its simplest sense, dharma in Sanskrit means that which upholds. It is a concept of central importance in Hindu philosophy referring to a person's duties or obligations based on occupational and situational context tightly intertwined with relationships.

The idea of dharma as duty is found in India's ancient religious texts. It states that there is a divinely instituted natural order governing justice, harmony and happiness. This requires human beings to discern and live in an appropriate manner that fosters order and cordial living. As simple and as socially attractive as the concept may sound, living a life of dharma poses some complex questions for us as individuals living in a world that is in many ways disconnected from these fundamental concepts.

What exactly is my dharma? Is it my daily occupation or my sense of obligation to my family, society and humanity? To answer this question, one has to investigate into the deeper implication of dharma itself. A deeper understanding of dharma is "that which is inherent or essential to." For example, we can state that the dharma of sugar is sweetness. The "sweetening" is the duty of sugar. The sense of duty that is derived from dharma is the acting out of that essential property.

In ancient Hindu or Vedic culture, one's dharma was determined by one's psychophysical make up -- proclivities that stood out in and were inherent to an individual. That aptitude was determined at a young age and nurtured to serve the individual and society at large. This primarily became one's occupation. Other obligations were embedded based on different stages in one's life -- duty towards self, towards family (parents, spouse, kids, etc.) and towards different segments of society at large that also included animals. All of these duties were considered equally important on an absolute level.

The complexity of dharma becomes evident even in current times when our different obligations take mutually contradictory directions. I work as the president of a non-profit organization and recently I found myself in a situation where I was confronted with the decision to let go of a few employees. They are my personal friends, have great integrity and have made significant contributions in the past but for personal and situational reasons were not able to sustain their performance. The decision was a despairing one to make. As the president of the organization it is my primary responsibility to the stakeholders to ensure organizational efficiency. Bad decisions would not only be detrimental for the purpose of the organization, but would also cost me my job. At the same time, my decision would be humiliating and ungrateful to friends whom I truly value and are facing an hour of great need. What about "The friend in need is a friend indeed"?

It is in this type of emotionally ambiguous situation in which the Bhagavad Gita begins. Arjuna, the Pandava prince, facing a life-or-death battle against his unrighteous cousins. In the opposing army he also finds senior and revered members of his own family who raised him and his brothers when they had become fatherless at a very young age. His heart was only filled with gratitude for the stability, care and teachings that they had bestowed upon him. But according to his dharma, Arjuna has to fight in order to establish justice and that means he has to kill the very individuals whom he worships with all of his heart. The result is despair -- a situation where Arjuna feels like "damned if I do and damned if I don't." This sets the scene for a classic conversation on the concept of dharma.

As in any complex or paradoxical situation, there are at least two distinct alternatives -- the path of least resistance with enough justification that our "rational" intelligence and ego can provide, or the hard struggle to find deeper answers, clarity and grounding. It is easy for the head to justify one decision over another when the gut has already made the decision, but that may simply be our refusal to go through the pain of honest introspection. As the renowned Trappist monk Thomas Merton states in his book Thoughts in Solitude, "Laziness and cowardice are the most dangerous of all when marked as discretion." Many Nazis did, in fact, justify their acts against the Jews at the Nuremberg trials on the grounds that they were not acting on selfish grounds: they were doing their duty to their country.

Arjuna, at first, also justifies his gut decision to escape the battle with convincing arguments, but eventually musters up the courage to become vulnerable to the struggle and go deeper in his inquiry. And the deeper meaning of dharma manifests. Krishna, Arjuna's friend and confidante, unravels the profound meaning of dharma as going beyond the psychophysical nature of our existence and its corresponding duties and obligations. Instead Krishna encourages Arjuna to discover his true spiritual identity, for that alone can harmonize the conflicting and temporary responsibilities of this world. Referring back to the meaning of dharma as "that which is inherent or essential to", Krishna tells Arjuna that our essential identity is pure consciousness that is born from the spiritual soul, totally distinct from our psychophysical material nature that we so strongly identify with. Arjuna's ethical crisis transforms into a spiritual renaissance, where he realizes that his true dharma is that which aligns deeply with his spiritual and not his material identity.

Living with dharma can present paradoxical and despairing circumstances where our sense of goodness is severely tested. It has been humbling for me to realize that even with best possible intentions I cannot produce solutions that can satisfy everyone involved in a situation. The struggles have helped me to be less judgmental about other people's actions and understand that pure ethical living and idealism, although very admirable, also has its limitations. I realize that the primary aim for living the life of dharma is not only to ensure a society with high ethical conscience but also to go beyond the ethical into the realm of the spiritual. That is why the ancient Vedic texts encourage us to live by dharmic principles and furthermore struggle through despairing contradictions to seek deeper answers on responsibility, integrity and duty. This is where despair becomes a surpassing excellence and the movement from the ethical to the spiritual begins -- as the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard put it. This is where striving to live by dharma becomes our spiritual emancipation. It has awakened a deeper spiritual understanding into the real purpose of my existence, which I will highlight in my next article.

 

Comments

[navin1]

12:18 PM on 05/25/2011

The key distinction between the chirsto-islamic traditions and the rest of the world is the recognition that we are responsible for our choices. If we are saved because of the name by which we call god, then there is no sense in the ignorance that god propagated and the universe is simply a cruel game of a cruel creator. Also the need to be saved is a suggestion that the creator is fallible. But, once we get past a simplistic idea of God, if we are able to identify a rose by the properties not the name, then we can discuss that dharma is what connects the individual to the supreme. We have karma in our daily actions. As we identify with the daily actions and choices that karma accrues to us. Certainly if we are in state hospitals lying in bed vegetative, it is nonsensical to say we are choosing and thus the rules of karma are different than if we are kings, priests, business people or just average joes. But if we get past damnation and eternal judgments, we identify with the SatCitAnanda or Tat Sat and are thus uplifted. And the human mind sees it in those that do it well and sees that beauty within and thus tries to emulate those gurus. But it is hard. It is a daily process of using reason (gyana), faith (bhakti), to act daily (karma), as yogas (yoking us) to Moksha. Hard words, harder actualization. Hariaum

[researcher]

04:38 PM on 05/15/2011

"That is why the ancient Vedic texts encourage us to live by dharmic principles and furthermore struggle through despairing contradictions to seek deeper answers on responsibility, integrity and duty"

The reality of creation is that we are responsible for our actions because of the universal or spiritual principle of what we sow we reap (evolution process) but we cannot take responsibility for our unawareness, as we did not create ourselves as expressions of God (involution process). This appears to be terribly unfair and a form of injustice until we factor in the uniqueness of each soul ever created. The very foundation of life is this involution and evolution of consciousness process.

Note: A synonym for unawareness is ignorance.

It is vital that we come to learn the difference between being responsible and the term responsibility, which has its origin as "ability to respond". The term you must take personal responsibility has come to mean you are culpable and blameworthy. Culpable and blameworthy are of the ego not of God. The ego takes to guilt from this idea of culpable and blameworthiness like a duck takes to water. Self-confirmatory ego meaning look at me, I am a separate person and not an expression of the Infinite.

[thunk]

08:04 AM on 05/14/2011

The point is so well taken. And then there is the injection of the "spiritual". Conceptually we are caused biological mechanisms with implicit motivations that are beyond our conscious control. Like all life forms the organism competes with its own. The human organism is social and territorial. The motivation that serves the integrity of the group may conflict with the motivation that serves the replication of the individual organism. We experience that as the moral choice. But the experience of the choice renders the response neither conscious nor rational. Logic is "if x then y". It requires a premise, "x". In this case we have two "if x"s producing two conflicting "y"s. There is no third x, no third moral premise which can produce a "rational" response, and there is no way to consciously modify the "x"s. We are what we are. As Dharma confirms, the response has to be individual and non rational. I would say it also has to be subconsciously determined by the brain and not by the self, and so I am not sure about the term "spiritual". But I do find the approach far superior to the Catholic idea that we can look up the "right" response in a set of theological rules.

[sandalwood]

10:18 AM on 05/14/2011

Yes, ultimately the response is non-rational, but that is the best part about it. If it were merely rational, meaning 'the method of ratio''; that is, 'measurable' before the act of responding and thus predictable - then we would've discovered that we are machines, which we are not.

Intuition is non-rational. In-tuition, meaning self-knowledge discloses that we are moral agents, are capable of genuine choice, rather than be only 'rational' like machines. And since the moral sense is within the mind, within us, that means that the human condition is Buddha-like, not machine-like and neither slave-like.

[sandalwood]

10:48 AM on 05/14/2011

You see the problem lies with Western, scientific notions on epistemology, which seek to reduce mind to matter, because in its epistemology (theory of knowledge), the non-measurable, internal, personal is relegated to the 'unmeasurable' and hence not 'real' or fundamental. We are asked to believe that mind magically sprouts from a randomly arisen conglomeration of matter, without even offering a clue as to how this could occur... mumblings about 'emergence' and 'complexity' aside; without even a clue about how matter-space-time arise from 'nothing' because of being 'unmeasurable'.

Since QM and Relativity we know that space, time and matter are PHENOMENA, not noumenal, eternal essences. We understand the Big Bang to be the arising of space-time-matter-motion, but we fail to put 2 and 2 together and thus miss seeing that the Big Bang being an event which gives rise to phenomena is thus MIND itself, because it is within the purview of mind that phenomena arise.

We have tried to find a purely material reality (or a reality of any sort) outside MIND, but have with QM seen the folly of ever expecting such a thing. To reduce mind to the beepings in the brain is yet the same impossible task.

Lastly, how would the following group of people fit into any physicalist theory of mind?... http://flatrock.org.nz/topics/science/is_the_brain_really_necessary.htm

Keep in mind that the number of such persons worldwide would be enormous.

[Ambidextre]

01:08 AM on 05/18/2011

Excellent. Not that "atheists", "agnostics" or "materialists" would be convinced by your argument but this is one of the best written arguments I have read that is also brief, succinct and to the point.

[navin1]

12:32 PM on 05/25/2011

The european world was shaken with the fall of Greco-Roman thinking. The intellectual space became oppressed with the idea of a one and only epistemology (one book). Getting past the dark ages, upon being exposed to the rest of the world, Europeans began to question the one book / monoideology. But humans are kind to their traditions. The only way to question was to compartmentalize the empirical world from the church world. Thus matter and spirit were compartmentalized and segregated. Since then we have suffered the false dichotomy. Europe thought and christian theology have not recovered. Add into that the politics of christo-islamic colonialism and the incentive is to propagate divisive systems of thought - analytics and discrimination are validated but synthetic understanding is not. And the divine is now seen in matter (now that's a bang). But, we as humanity, can learn from each other to go deeper. QM, flat worlders, and TM :), etc may open a door for an individual in the process of dharmic realization. But the fact that there are 6+ billion paths all experiencing the Truth of Being on just this one earth defies monothinking books, space, time, matter, dark matter, demography, names, and all categories... And this synthesis cares not whether we call ourselves atheists, agnostics, materialists, vaishnavites, buddhists, or even nazis. hariaum

[Pratitya]

08:41 PM on 05/13/2011

"But you are my life," pleaded Loretta to her lover. "Don't leave me," she entreated David, "you know how mighty they are and few you are. Don't do it!" But David heard not her pleas and lectured her on the importance of duty of fighting the oppressors. " A man worth his salt is one who will abide by goodness and combat all forms of evil. If I do not go then I am not even half a man to you and my life will have no worth." He bade Loretta farewell and joined the brigade for the raid. Loretta wept in the dark knowing he will not return. Many days past and the war ended. The regime grew old in its own time and crumbled and was replaced with another rule just like it. And Loretta walked the avenues alone without David.

"Is life of so little worth that we throw it away on a trifle called duty?" Absalom pondered by the tomb of the unknown soldier.

This is inspired by the Aggadata of the Talmud: Rabbi Simon ben Yohai sat on the ground of his cave mourning the loss of his son. Disciples were aghast at his display of weakness. "Surely our teacher should be impervious to death even when it has gripped his son!'" They exclaimed. "Why do you mourn when this life is but a moment in the span of eternity?" The great tana replied, "Yet, still I weep for my son!"

[urownexperience]

07:38 PM on 05/13/2011

Chandogya Upanishad Part seven Chapter 1- 3. "But, venerable Sir, with all this I know words only; I do not know the Self“.

[enigmatic zero]

08:35 PM on 05/13/2011

Hinduism/Buddhism/Jainism (Dharmic religions) teach that the "self" cannot be taught or expressed in words, but can be only experienced by each individual. That is why the end goal of the Dharmic religions is called "self realization" and not "salvation". How can one "teach" Self realization? Human beings, being unique as they inevitably are, would naturally have different forms/experiences when it comes to self-realization/enlightenment. Thus it goes without saying that my self-realization would definitely be different from yours.

Consider the teaching of these three people

Shankara, the Advaida Vedantin says " Brahman is silence"
Lao Tzu of the Dao De Ching said "The Dao that can be named is not the True Dao"

Compare this to the similar event when the founder of Zen(Chan) Buddhism in China, Bodhidharma says to his four main disciples in his final teaching.

"patriarch Bodhidharma reviewed the discernment of all disciples. When it's his turn, patriarch Hui Ko just bowed three times, then left. Patriarch Bodhidharma said, "You have my marrow." When the ultimate stage is reached, there's no word to describe it. It's because words are the relative usage, therefore, it could not describe the absolute truth. From that point on, patriarch Hui Ko became the second patriarch of China."

Words ends when Enlightenment begins, because it transcends everything.
No amount of words can teach you enlightenment, you have to find it/work it out yourself! otherwise everyone will be an enlightened soul merely by books

[enigmatic zero]

11:56 PM on 05/13/2011

Hinduism/Buddhism/Jainism (Dharmic religions) teach that the "self" cannot be taught or expressed in words, but can be only experienced by each individual. That is why the end goal of the Dharmic religions is called "self realization" and not "salvation". How can one "teach" Self realization? Human beings, being unique as they inevitably are, would naturally have different forms/experiences when it comes to self-realization/enlightenment. Thus it goes without saying that my self-realization would definitely be different from yours.

Consider the teaching of these three people

Shankara, the Advaida Vedantin says " Brahman is silence"
Lao Tzu of the Dao De Ching said "The Dao that can be named is not the True Dao"

Compare this to the similar event when the founder of Zen(Chan) Buddhism in China, Bodhidharma says to his four main disciples in his final teaching.

"patriarch Bodhidharma reviewed the discernment of all disciples. When it's his turn, patriarch Hui Ko just bowed three times, then left. Patriarch Bodhidharma said, "You have my marrow." When the ultimate stage is reached, there's no word to describe it. It's because words are the relative usage, therefore, it could not describe the absolute truth. From that point on, patriarch Hui Ko became the second patriarch of China."

Words ends when Enlightenment begins, because it transcends everything.
No amount of words can teach you enlightenment, you have to find it/work it out yourself! otherwise everyone will be an enlightened soul merely by books

[Murugan Kumar]

06:24 PM on 05/13/2011

Actually Bhagvat Gita also took the path of least resistance. By trying to clarify the concept of Dharma they picked Arjuna's character who is "facing a life-or-death battle against his UNRIGHTEOUS cousins". The operative word here is unrighteous. What if we took Dhuriyodhan's point of view? Is it righteous or unrighteous? What about the army that is fighting on his behalf?
The author mentions the Nazi's excuse. Is that an excuse or do they live according to their perceived Dharma? Just as the conscientious objectors of Vietnam War as against the thousands of soldiers fighting for a cause they believed in.
The problem with Gita is that it is based on the principle of Karma and Reincarnation which are just concepts that sound good in theory. If we delve deep into reincarnation as stated in Chandogya Upanishad, it leads to really absurd conclusions that are untenable.
The point I am trying to make is we all live according to what we think is ‘right’. Therein lies the problem. This is what Sartre was trying to explain in his philosophy of existentialism. Of course Sartre knows there is no clear answer and he doesn’t pretend to have one, unlike Gita.
That I guess is the difference between honest philosophy and religion.

[enigmatic zero]

07:18 PM on 05/13/2011

You seem to be confused about the message of the Gita...because you claim that it only talks about Arjuna's Point of View.

Well Duh! cos its Arjun who is having trouble reconciling his Dharma with what he sees with is eyes..not Duriyodhan.

Should I remind you of Karna? who fought on the side of Duryodhan because of his own form of Dharma? out of his sense of loyalty to his friend? According to your claim, the Mahabharat should have demeaned Karna and castigated him for his choice...but it does just the opposite. he is forever hailed as honorable man, Dharma incarnate so much so that he was not able to be killed till he himself donates his life away (metaphorically). The Mahabharat/Gita are excellent examples of how Dhama differs from person to person based on their "own" definition of their self. You seem to forget the core ideal that Dharma is unique to every person and is not a cookie cutter notion. Stop thinking of 'good vs evil along the lines of Abrahamic religions. Stark black and white and Dharma are worlds apart.

btw Remember Hector vs Achilles?

A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring

[Milrepa]

09:55 AM on 05/14/2011

Actually, no. Dhuryodhani welched on the deal. Krishna rode in Arjuna's chariot for a reason. Think, Kumar, think.

[brooklyncitizen]

06:08 PM on 05/13/2011

I think it is a sign of spiritual maturity to frame challenges in this way.
As one ages you realize that all good is not exclusively good and all bad is not exclusively bad. The best we can do is live as beningly as possible intending no harm and accepting the consequences of our actions .
I've been in that Arjuna position; and indeed it was exceedingly difficut with no happily ever .

[Saijanai]

06:07 PM on 05/13/2011

Me ole "guru," Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, said that the highest dharma was doing something to become enlightened (that's from his translation of the Bhagavad Gita, BTW). For him, that meant that householders should be practicing TM.

His attitude was that once you attained the first stage of enlightenment -pure consciousness present 24 hours per day, every day- your relative dharma would fall into place spontaneously. Of course, as long as you're not enlightened, you need to use your intellectual capacity to guide your behavior towards doing the best you can do, but such endeavors are always going to be a partial success as long as you are not enlightened.

Fortunately, enlightenment isn't that hard, or even that uncommon these days. There's published physiological and psychological research on long-term TM practitioners who report having pure consciousness 24 hours a day, every day, for years at a time. A check of the National Institutes of Health scientific database online

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed
search string:
(meditation) AND travis f[Author]

yields some interesting results:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15134768
Psychological and physiological characteristics of a proposed object-referral/self-referral continuum of self-awareness.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12406612
Patterns of EEG coherence, power, and contingent negative variation characterize the integration of transcendental and waking states.

See also:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19883380
Higher psycho-physiological refinement in world-class Norwegian athletes: brain measures of performance capacity.

[Saidas]

04:42 PM on 05/15/2011

So you can verify or authenticate enlightenment in a lab? TM practitioners report having pure consciousness? Am I the only one who finds these statements rather ludicrous?

[Saijanai]

02:58 PM on 05/16/2011

Well, the studies I cited above are physiological and psychological studies of people who claim that they are having pure consciousness outside of their meditation period for very extended periods of time. That's not the same as being enlightened, or verifying that state, but its a start.

Pure consciousness DURING TM has been documented for up to one minute, with up to 60% of the meditation period (6 minutes out of 10) of one subject spent in that state:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9009807
Autonomic patterns during respiratory suspensions: possible markers of Transcendental Consciousness.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6377350
Electrophysiologic characteristics of respiratory suspension periods occurring during the practice of the Transcendental Meditation Program.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7045911
Breath suspension during the transcendental meditation technique.

[jf12]

05:02 PM on 05/13/2011

The concept of the "good soldier" is also familiar, and these unsung grunts make much more sacrifices because duty than all of the generals, princes, and presidents that have ever lived.

[urownexperience]

04:45 PM on 05/13/2011

Real truth seekers have always been counter-social, counter cultural, beginning with the original Rishis in the Indus River Civilization as far back as recent history (3,000 years) reveals. The Buddha never placed altruism or helping others before the quest for personal enlightenment. He valued those who work toward their own freedom, as he did, higher than those who work for the welfare of others. (Anguttara Nikaya 4.95).

[Saijanai]

06:14 PM on 05/13/2011

Well, Jesus also said that one must first seek the Kingdom of Heaven within.

However, none of the spiritual superstars (superfriends?) ever suggested that it was an either/or process.

[urownexperience]

09:07 PM on 05/13/2011

Thank you. Yes, of course, we can only (comfortably) go as far as our parami allows us to go, before things get dicey!