Mark of the False Dharma
Acharya Prashant: Dharma (religion) cannot be a plurality. Dharma cannot be many. And if there are many dharmas, then they have to all be dropped. This has to be understood.
There is only one Dharma. And that is to attain liberation or peace, to gain freedom from your bondages, to gain freedom from your inner chaos and noise, to gain freedom from your inner falseness. Gaining freedom from inner falseness is more commonly known as truth realization. It is a euphemism—a very decorated euphemism. It’s not really truth that is really realized; it is falseness that is dropped.
We cover ourselves with a thousand duties and responsibilities, ascribing to each of them the word – Dharma. That which you take upon yourself becomes your Dharma. Dharma is very closely related to the word ‘dhāraņa.' You appreciate dhāraņa, that which you take upon yourself, that which you wear.
So whatever you accept upon yourself becomes your Dharma – Whatever you accept upon yourself becomes your Dharma.
Rishi is saying, ‘Whatever you have accepted upon yourself is a false dharma; it has to be dropped.’ There is only one real Dharma, which is Freedom. Everything else is just bondage donning the name of Dharma.
Get this very clear – nobody wants to be irreligious. Nobody consciously wants to be on the wrong side of Truth or Liberation. Nobody wants to be an ‘adharmī'(against religion) or ‘vidharmī'(non-religious).
Still, there is so much suffering, violence, and cruelty in the world. Where does that come from? That comes from wrong or misplaced dharma. That which you are thinking of as dharma is actually adharmā. And that's the reason why the Rishi is saying, ‘Drop it.’
Your dharma is not dharma at all. Your dharma is the cause of all suffering. In fact, what is being said here has been more popularly said in the Bhagavad Gita. Remember that - that's one of the most famous and oft-quoted verses of the Gita. The same sentiment is being expressed here in almost the same words. That's the reason why the Gita is called another Upanishad. And that's why the Gita has to be read in the light of the Upanishads.
So what's the first thing about the sannyāsī? He does not accept what the world calls dharma.
You are born and the world comes rushing to you, loading you with this and that and calling all those things as your responsibilities in piousness, in pity, in morality. Want to be a good boy? – You should do all these things. Those things will become your dharma. The fellow who is teaching you may not put it in so many words, but he has actually indoctrinated you in some kind of dharma.
Even if the dharma he is indoctrinating you in may carry no specific name. Yet you have now taken something upon yourself – ‘If I am to be a good boy, then I must do all these things.’ – this is dharma! Rishi(sage) is saying: drop all that. All that is sheer nonsense that your upbringing, your education, and your surroundings have put upon you. Drop it! You are not obliged to fulfill any responsibilities.
How do you know that those things you call as your responsibilities are your responsibilities at all? How do you know? And don't just say, ‘But that's how it happens.’ No, no, no. That's a very vacuous argument. Isn't it? ‘But, I mean, I have to do that.’ The moment you ask, ‘but why?’
The fellow says, “Isn’t that obvious? Isn't that commonsensical?” No, your common sense is just common conditioning. It is not common sense; it is common conditioning. Right?
You know, just as Darius said, you go to someone and say, “Hello, sir, that there on your plate is what was the flesh of a living being till a few hours back.” And the fellow says, “Get away, you are putting me off my food, and isn't it obvious that a fellow has to eat? What will I eat if I don't take this?”
Is it commonsensical? Is it commonsensical at all? Had it been commonsensical, then even a Jain would have found it commonsensical to have meat or beef. No, you are calling it commonsensical because your conditioning has permeated you very deeply. It has reached almost your core. Getting it?
So what do you do? We start naming our conditioning as our dharma. And, that's why dharma has to be dropped.
Haven't you wondered? – I mean, the Bhagavad Gita is the supreme document in dhārmikatā (religiosity). Right? And Shri Krishna is saying: sarva-dharmān parityajya. A dhārmik document, the supreme dhārmik document says, ‘Drop all the religions.’ Actually, they are not saying, ‘Drop all the religions’; what he is saying is, ‘Drop all your duties and responsibilities.’
And it has to be understood that the word religion can have no plural. We said that a while back as well. The word Religion can have no plural. You cannot have multiple religions. You can have multiple ways of getting conditioned; that is possible. You can choose to get conditioned via the Christian way, via the Islamic way, via the Hindu way, this way, or that way. All that can be there. But religiosity is exclusively singular. What does it consist of? It consists of moving with great determination and using the shortest path towards Truth and Peace. Irrespective of whether that path has been suggested or described by any book any person any society, or any tradition.
And your only responsibility is to move towards Truth, which is to move towards continuous and gradual liberation from your limits, your bondages – that is, Religiosity. That alone is Religion; nothing else is. All this showmanship consists of rituals, rights, miracles, traditions, and pilgrimages; these do not constitute at all the core of religiosity. These things sit at best on the periphery. They can probably be helpful. But they are not necessarily helpful. If they are helpful, use them. If they are not helpful, remember the central thing. The central thing is Liberation.
Observation of a particular code of conduct or living as a devout person of a particular religious order – these things are not the core of religiosity. Are you getting it?
What is the core of Religiosity? The core of Religiosity is Freedom without limit – Truth without boundaries. The books, the temples, all the places of worship, all the customs that have been created, all the traditions that have been handed over to us, we must know that they are mere appendages. Some of them are quite helpful at particular points in your journey. Use those things when they prove helpful, and as long as they are proving helpful. But do not think of them as the goal or the main thing or the central point; they are not.
And that's why the moment it is asked, ‘Who is the sannyāsī?’ the rishi responds with, “Sannyāsī is the one who has dropped all the dharmas.” He could have said something else; think of it. But it seems that this is one non-negotiable condition. This is probably the first and most important thing. There's a lot more that the Rishi has to say, but this thing he puts above everything else. Are you getting it?
Don't get the whole thing wrong: is the Rishi saying, drop Dharma? Obviously not. Obviously not. When Krishna tells Arjun: sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṃ śaraṇaṃ vraja , then what is He saying? He is saying: Drop all the falseness in the name of religion and come to me, for ‘I am religion itself.’
Krishna who? Krishna – Brahm, Krishna as Brahm, Krishna as Truth, not Krishna as a person, not Krishna as the son of Yashoda or Devaki – Krishna as Brahm. And that is religion in the words of Krishna, by the teachings of Krishna – to go to Brahm itself directly ignoring and dropping everything else that comes your way; no duty, no responsibility, no dharma is bigger than Brahm attainment - that's your only responsibility.
If somebody comes to you lecturing you on your other responsibilities, shoo them away. You have no responsibility. The more you understand yourself, the more you will realize how petty and, at the same time, how incarcerating this game of responsibilities is. Are you getting it?
And you have to also see that your responsibilities depend on what you take yourself to be. If you take yourself a body, you'll have to give great importance to all the duties that come to the body and through the body.
If you consider yourself a scholar or a person belonging to a religious order, then you'll have to give great importance to all the responsibilities that come with being a scholar or religious person. If you take yourself as a woman, you’ll have to give great importance to all the responsibilities that come with being a wife or a mother, or a daughter. Those responsibilities are false because your first and basic identity statement itself is false, and that's the horrible issue with defining yourself wrongly.
Define yourself wrongly and you will find yourself encumbered with all the wrong roles and responsibilities. Once you are a man, it will be difficult to avoid being a husband. Once you are a husband, it will be almost impossible to avoid fulfilling all the responsibilities that come with being a husband. Therefore, define yourself rightly.
All the wrong dharmas go to the wrong one. If the question ‘Who am I?’ is rightly answered, then wrong responsibilities cannot come to you. And if you find yourself shrouded with wrong responsibilities, then your first mistake is that you have not bothered to rightly answer ‘Who am I?’ – that's your central blunder.
Are you getting it?
How will you say that my first identity is that I am a son? And, then, disobey the wishes of your father. Is it possible? Somebody asks you, “Who are you?” and your first identity is, “I am a son.” And there are so many people who live purely as sons, dependent on fathers for name, for money, for emotional security, more than a name for the surname.
If you live as a son, then your foremost dharma will be to take your carnal father as God. Now, you do not need the Truth; you already have the truth in the form of your papaji. And the mortal Father will not allow you to know your real Father; Jesus can wait. Jesus can keep shouting; Papa Darling will not allow you to go to the real Father. Will you let this sink in?
Liberation is, first of all, being liberated from these false identities, roles, and responsibilities they entail. Isn't it quite relieving? Think of what these roles have done to you. See how suffocated your consciousness has been under the weight of your identities. See how often you have been made to feel guilty because you have not been perfect in meeting your responsibilities. And see how frequently you have been trying to absolve yourself of that guilt by paying disproportionate prices as an apology, as compensation.
Now, being relieved of false dharmas is not merely an unburdening. It comes with real responsibility. If false responsibility is to be dropped, that comes with an acceptance, and acknowledgement of real responsibility, and what is real responsibility? – mām ekaṃ śaraṇaṃ vraja – and therefore, these two have been talked of in the same breath – drop all your false responsibilities and accept your real responsibility. Your real responsibility, your only responsibility, is to come to Me. All else is hogwash.
