Acharya Prashant explains that some things in the world are fundamentally very simple, but they become complicated because of the immense noise and pollution surrounding them. He uses the word 'love' (prem) as an example, stating it is an ordinary phenomenon, yet the word is surrounded by a vast atmosphere of noise. When he utters the word 'love', a thousand different images emerge in the listener's mind, which have no relation to what he intended to convey. Similarly, when the word 'Dharma' is spoken, a thousand images appear in the mind. For a Hindu, a temple bell might ring; for a Muslim, the call to prayer (Azaan) might be heard. The speaker clarifies that he did not ring a bell or give a call to prayer; he simply said the word 'Dharma'. The word itself does not inherently contain these images, sounds, or figures like Jesus, Allah, or Lakshmi-Ganesh; these are the pollutions associated with it. The speaker elaborates on the mind's mechanism of random association. He illustrates how the mind jumps from one concept to another in a crooked, associative chain, starting from 'weather' and ending up at 'Pepsi's sister'. This is how the mind works. He then defines Dharma as the simple, unbelievable act of being attentive and aware ('hosh') in the present moment. People find this hard to believe because they associate Dharma with festivals, moral acts, ethics, codes of conduct, reverence for a particular book, or visiting a temple or mosque. He asserts that all these preconceived notions are not Dharma. Furthermore, Acharya Prashant clarifies that Dharma is not a continuous state. Being religious is not a constant identity; it exists only in the moment of awareness. Whenever you are in a state of attention and awareness, you are religious. The moment that awareness is lost, Dharma is also lost. He challenges the notion that helping others is always Dharma, questioning how one can be sure their action is truly 'help' without proper awareness. He points out that a drunkard's idea of help would be to offer alcohol. Therefore, Dharma is not relative to one's personal opinions or conditioning; it is an absolute state of being that arises from pure attention.
