All World
Gayatri Pariwar

An Insight into Swadharma

In short, rajasik and tamasik actions are to be renounced without exception and sattvik actions that come to us in the natural course should be done, even if they have some flaws in them. Let them be defective. If you try to avoid their defects, other defects will overtake you. If your nose is crooked, let it be so. If you attempt to cut it to make it beautiful, it will look more frightful. You should be what you are; trying to do something unnatural would invite trouble. Sattvik actions may be defective, but as they come to us in the natural course, they should be done; only their fruit should be renounced.

There is one more thing to say. You must not take up the karma that has not come to you in the natural course, even if you feel that you could do it quite excellently. Do only what has come to you in the natural course. Do not go out of the way to take on new tasks which are not naturally yours. Avoid the work which needs a lot of deliberate efforts to build it up, even though it appears attractive. Do not be tempted by it; for, renunciation of fruit is possible only in the case of the karma that comes to you in the natural course. If a man begins to run after each and every karma, imagining that ‘this is good and that also is good’, renunciation of fruit is inconceivable. This will result in nothing but making a mess of one’s life. It is with the desire of having its fruit that one will do the karma that one is not duty- bound to do, and still the fruit will elude him. Life will then always be unsteady and unsettled. The mind will get attached to that karma. Even if sattvik karma is found tempting, one should keep away from that temptation. If you try to pursue a variety of sattvik karma, rajas and tamas will creep into them. You must therefore restrict yourself to the sattvik karma which comes to you as your natural swadharma.

Swadharma is comprised of swadeshi [1]dharma, swajateeya dharma (duties arising out of one’s being a part of a particular community) and swakaleen dharma (duties appropriate for the time). These three together constitute swadharma. While deciding about one’s swadharma, one is required to take into account what is appropriate to one’s nature and tendencies and what the duties that have fallen to him are. You have something in you which makes you what you are. That is why you are different from others. Everybody has something that is distinctively his own. A goat can develop itself as a goat; if it aspires to be a cow, it is impossible. It can never give up its ‘goatness’. To give up the ‘goatness’ it will have to give up its body; it will have to die to take a new body and acquire a new dharma. In the present birth, that ‘goatness’ alone is sacred for it. You must be knowing the story of the bull and the frog. There is a limit beyond which a frog cannot inflate its body. It will die if it tries to become as big as a bull. It is not right to imitate others. That is why it is said that taking up another’s dharma is disastrous.

Swadharma consists of two parts; one changes while the other does not. I am not today what I was yesterday, nor shall I be tomorrow what I am today. I am changing continually. A child’s swadharma is to seek all-round development. A young man’s swadharma is to use his abundant energy for the service of society. Swadharma of a mature adult man is to give others the benefit of his wisdom. A part of swadharma thus changes, but the other part remains unchanged. To use the language of the scriptures, we may say that a man has varnadharma (duties that follow from being in a particular varna) as well as ashram- dharma [2] (duties that follow from being in a particular ashram); and that varnadharma does not change while ashramdharma changes.

‘Ashramdharma changes’ - What does this mean? When we successfully pass the stage of brahmacharyashram, we enter the next stage— become a grihasth (the householder)—, then enter vanaprasthashram and finally become a sannyasi. But varnadharma does not change. I can never go beyond my natural limits. Any attempt to do so will be foolish. You cannot overlook your distinctive attributes and personality. The scheme of varnadharma is based on this idea. The concept of varnadharma is quite appealing. Is varnadharma absolutely unchangeable? Is belonging to a varna akin to belonging to a species? Is it that just as a goat will always be a goat, a Brahmin will always be a Brahmin? I concede that it is not so; one should take a balanced view. When varnadharma is used as an ingenuous arrangement for social order, exceptions are inevitable. The Gita has acknowledged this.

The key point is that one should understand these two types of dharma and keep away from any other dharma, even if it appears beautiful and alluring.

The full Meaning of the Renunciation of Fruit

From the elaboration of the idea of the renunciation of fruit of actions the following points emerge:

1. Rajasik and tamasik karma should be completely given up.
2. The fruit of the action of that renunciation should also be renounced. There must not be any pride or vanity about it.
3. Sattvik karma should not itself be renounced, but its fruit should be renounced.
4. Sattvik karma, whose fruit is to be renounced, should be done even if it has some impurities in it.
5. When such karma is done continually, the mind will get purified. Activity will go on becoming gentler and subtler, and will cease completely in the end.
6. Activity will disappear; but actions for the sake of loksamgraha—to bring the people together and show them the path of righteousness—will continue.
7. Only that sattvik karma should be done which comes to us in the natural course. One should keep away from other karma, howsoever good it may appear. One should not be tempted by it.
8. Swadharma that comes to us naturally consists of two parts. One is subject to change and the other is not. Varnadharma does not change, while the ashramdharma keeps changing. The part of swadharma that is subject to change must change. That will ensure purity and avoid stagnation.

If a stream stops flowing and water stagnates, it begins to stink. Similar is the case with ashramdharma. A man first accepts family life. He submits to the restraints of family for the sake of his growth. There he gets different experiences. But if he remains bound there permanently, it will spell his doom. The family-life, which was his dharma at one stage, becomes adharma (irreligion) at a later stage, as it then becomes binding. If the changing part of the dharma is not given up in time because of attachment, the result is disastrous. There should not be attachment even to a good thing. Attachment inevitably leads to terrible consequences. Germs of tuberculosis may enter the lungs unawares, but they will nevertheless eat away the whole of our life. If, through our carelessness, the germs of attachment enter into sattvik karma, that will then result in the rotting of swadharma. The sattvik swadharma will then degenerate into rajas and tamas. The part of swadharma that ought to change must be left behind at the appropriate time. This is true for the dharma about family as well as the dharma about nation. If attachment creeps into patriotism, it will degenerate into dangerous chauvinism. That will halt development. Attachment will corrupt the mind and cause degeneration.

Fulfillment is nothing but the culmination of Sadhana

In short, if you aspire for the fulfillment of your life, you should seek and catch hold of the principle of the renunciation of fruit of actions which will free you from all worries. It would show you the right path. This principle also tells us the bounds within which to act. When we have this guiding light with us, we shall know what to do, what to discard, what to change and when, and so on. But now let us consider something different. Should the spiritual seeker have his attention riveted on the ultimate state marked by the complete cessation of activities?

Ajnani continues to act without doing any activity. Should a seeker have this aim in mind? No. Here too, the principle of renunciation of the fruit should be applied. Our life is so wonderfully fashioned that we would get what we want even without paying any attention to it. Moksha (the state of oneness with the Supreme) is the highest fulfillment of life. But one must not be greedy even for moksha, or the state of akarma. That state would be reached without one being aware of it. Sannyasa is not something that can happen at some particular moment. It is not something mechanical. You will not even notice how it grows in your life. Let us not therefore worry about moksha.

A bhakta always says to the Lord, ”Bhakti is enough for me. I do not have desire for moksha, the ultimate fruit of sadhana.” After all, moksha too is a kind of fruit—something that is to be enjoyed—and it too must be renounced. But when we renounce moksha, it will not move away from us; rather, attainment of moksha will become more certain. When you give up the hope of attaining moksha, you will advance towards it without your being aware of it. Let sadhana be done with such single- minded dedication that there is no thought of moksha in the mind; then moksha itself will seek you on its own accord. Let the seeker be totally immersed in his sadhana. The Lord had already said, ‘Ma te sangostvakarmani’ (‘You should not covet the state of akarma, or moksha’). Now He is again saying in the end, ‘Aham tva sarvapapebhyo mokshishyami ma shuchah’ (‘I shall release you from all sins; be not grieved.’) [3] —‘I, the bestower of moksha is here; forget about moksha and be concerned about your sadhana.’ Sadhana will attain perfection when you forget moksha, and then moksha will itself be attracted to you. Moksha-Lakshmi garlands him who is not concerned about her and is fully absorbed in his sadhana without any thought of moksha in his mind. [4] When sadhana reaches its zenith, the moment of fulfillment comes. If a man in a forest wants to reach home, but just keeps sitting under a tree in the forest, chanting ‘home, home’ all the while, the home will remain away. If he succumbs to the temptation of rest, he will miss the ultimate rest. He should keep on walking; eventually he will find his home right in front of him. If I lose myself in dreaming about moksha and relax, slacken my sadhana, moksha will remain distant. The surest way to attain moksha is to fling away any aspiration for it and concentrate on sadhana. One must not hanker after the ultimate rest, after the state of akarma. Be fully absorbed in your sadhana, stick to it with love and then moksha will be yours without fail. You cannot solve a problem by shouting for the answer; you should rather stick to the correct method and that will step by step lead you to the answer. How can you reach the end before the completion of the process? How can you have an answer without following the method fully? How can you attain the state of liberation when you are still a seeker? When one is struggling for life in a flooded river, will it do if he thinks of the pleasures awaiting him on the other bank? At that time, all the attention should be riveted on swimming, all the strength should be applied to inch towards the other bank. Sadhana should be carried to the end; the river should be crossed, and you will find moksha there waiting for you.