Dharma is God – Eternal, Intelligent, and Non-distinguishing

galaxy.jpg

Buddham Sharnam Gachhami, Dharmam Sharnam Gachhami (Come to the Shelter of Buddha. Come to the Shelter of Dharma); .  Surrender to the Lord.  Tera bhaana meetha laage.  Arjun, surrender to me completely.

Niyam, Dharma, Law, Lord, Hukum, Cosmic Flow, Cosmic law – these are words used for just one thing.  That, which Stephen Hawkins wants us believe is the Law of Creation sans a Creator.  Just that those who articulated the above phrases called this law as the Creator!   For them, law was the Creator and Creator the law.  There is no difference between submission to the Hukum or Dharma and submission to the Akal Purukh or the Buddha (the Knower).  It is important to remember here that Buddha was not a person but a state that Gautama reached.

God, really speaking, is not some power establishing or running the law.  God IS the law.  The Law that is eternal, all pervading, that is everything, and that which spares nothing.  The nature – which is a physical manifestation visible to us and the way we have defined it – is a somewhat useful proxy we have chosen for the eternal law.

Nature works and has its own law and a portion of that flow is known.  We have decoded some of it and we claim, that now, since we know how the law is working..well, kind of… we can say the law is natural and obvious and inherently dumb.   The act of knowing which we are convinced is an act of our “intelligence” supercedes the occurence of the knowable.  The knowable that packs the intelligence we are trying to decode is lost to us.

That which works perfectly and that which we have tried to decode and still aren’t done after such a long search is, therefore taken to dumb and obvious.  And therefore evidence of no intelligence.  The property of being obvious is construed to be the evidence of lack of intelligence.  Because admission of “intelligence” that is inherent in the law is also the realization that “I am not everything”

The merits of this claim sit on the ego of the claimant.  Ego, which says just because “I know the pieces of the law.. well.. sorta” I need not assume its primacy.  The act of knowing by “me” is a triumph over the object of knowing.  The object that I am trying to understand is not important, but I am important because I have arrived at its knowledge.  And, the act of my arrival at that knowledge gives me enough evidence that property of the object which made it what it is, was of no significance to start with.  My very act of knowing is the evidence of lack of object’s inherent value.

What Buddha, Nanak, Krishna, and Jesus were trying to say was they realize that Law is there and no one created it, and that it is the only reality.  They found that our act of knowing and the progress to understand it takes us to a place, where we find that everything – the knowledge, the act of knowing, and the knower – were all manifestations and part of the law or the structure itself.  And that until one was claiming to know but not willing to flow,one was fighting the flow.  The more you fight the Dharma or the Lord or the Hukum, the more you get hurt.

Dharma is not there because you know it.  Dharma will not be gone because you don’t know it.  It will also not be affected because you twist its understanding.  It doesn’t “care”.  It is Eternal and it is complete.  It has no need to enforce and it has no need to stop or be revealed.  It is there.  It is what it is.  It is not for it to reveal to you.  It is for you to recognize it.

And those who do end up finding it, feel a sense of utter humility and even disdain for their ownself.  They realize how insufficient and nonsensical their entire story of the mind was up until that point.  All that they had conjured up and known was all wrong.  When one comes face to face with the Eternal law, the first reaction of a person is tears and utter humility.  One may not understand why one is crying out of sheer submission, but the consciousness does.  The mind suddenly sees that, which was the truth and knows its “game is up”.  The experiencing of one’s limitation and of one’s vastness is simultaneous.  The split second act of moving from limited existence to unlimited existence – that breaking of the ultimate “barrier” is the event of Nirvana.

The natural flow of Dharma is like the sunlight outside your window.  The opening of the window and you experiencing the warmth of sunlight is Gyan or real knowledge.

Gyan naturally leads to humility and humility to submission.  But Gyan is not in reinforcing the known on what is unknown as is the case with the religious and folks like Hawkins.  But leaving the known and experiencing the unknown in it is complete splendour!

The flowering of one from what one thinks one is to what one really is, is the act of enlightenment.

One finds then that existence of Dharma was not affected by its experiencing by someone.  It was there.  The experiencer gained bliss from the experience.  But then, the experiencer realizes that he is no different from the experience itself, for to experience the “me” had to die down.  And, that he was the experience all along, but the property of ego kept him from realizing it.  Realizing that, and the related humility which comes naturally and is not practiced, is all that the entire “game” was all about.

That is why, when Hindus, who had the sole goal of experiencing the Dharma or that Lord were asked what was their “religion” or pursuit for – they called it “Sanatan Dharma” – or the Eternal Law.  That is all, that this pursuit is about.

Great! You’ve successfully signed up.

Welcome back! You've successfully signed in.

You've successfully subscribed to Drishtikone - Online Magazine on Geopolitics and Culture from Indian Perspective.

Success! Check your email for magic link to sign-in.

Success! Your billing info has been updated.

Your billing was not updated.