The Bhagavad Gita: Dharma

Summary of the Book The Bhagavad Gita is a sacred Hindu text and is part of the larger Hindu epic, The Mahabharata. The story is about the great Pandava warrior Arjuna, who grows disenchanted with fighting against his relatives of the Kaurava clan. His charioteer, Krishna, begins a conversation with Arjuna, giving him advice and encouragement in relation to Hindu philosophy and his role in the universe. Krishna reveals himself as more than a friend or a teacher to Arjuna - Krishna is an awesome deity, the creator and the destroyer of all there is

What is Dharma? Dharma is defined in Oxford English dictionary as the eternal law of the cosmos, inherent in the very nature of things. Our acts are grounded in Dharma it is universal.+ This is the problem for Arjuna as he needs to fulfil his duty as a warrior as well as a family man. Dharma gives rise to the question of How do I fulfil my duty so that I contribute to the overall harmony and right order of the universe? If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.

Dharma within the Gita Dharma is first mentioned in the first few lines of the first discourse. The blind old king asks his secretary, Sanjaya, about the battle that was to take place at the field of dharma. Setting the tone for the importance of Dharma During the first Discourse, Arjuna is questioning the need to fight his relatives and friends in the Kaurava clan. He argues for nonviolence by assuming that to attack and kill so many leading men,

nearly all of whom are fathers and husbands will destabilize the important families and communities for which these men are responsible.
In the destruction of family, the eternal Dharma Of family perishes; its absence also conquers The whole family.- Gita 1.40 Krishnas role within the Gita is to help Arjuna realise his Dharma in his role as a warrior Krishna says [And] as you discern your own dharma, you should not waver. For the warrior, there can be found nothing greater than battle for the sake of dharma. This means that in order to keep the healthy balance of society and the cosmos Arjuna must accept his role in the world as a warrior without indecision or question

Now if you do not execute this battle, then having given up your personal dharma and reputation, you shall incur sin. Arjuna previously argued that if he and Krishna were to fight the Battle of Kurukshetra, they would be destroying dharma and incurring sin. Now Lord Krishna tells Arjuna that the truth is just the contrary. By not fighting, Arjuna would be rejecting dharmain fact, his personal dharmaand thus incurring sin. Krishna also states that it is better for one to do their own dharma than anyone elses regardless of its effectiveness Better is ones own duty, though devoid of merit, than the duty of another well discharged. Better is death in ones own duty; the duty of another is fraught with fear. Arjuna can neither protect dharma nor keep himself on the spiritual platform if he abandons the duties born of his nature. In the fourth chapter Lord Krishna reveals that He appears in this world to protect the principles of dharma and curtail the destructive influence of adharma Krishna says Son of Bharata whenever there is a decline in dharma and the absence of dharma increase, I create myself (Avatara). I come into being from age to age with the purpose of fixing dharma as a refuge for those who do good and doom for those who do evil. The eighteenth and final chapter of the Bhagavad- gita summarizes the entire text. In this chapter Lord Krishna refers three times to dharma, the first being a reaffirmation of His earlier admonition to perform ones own, and not anothers, dharma: Ones own dharma, however badly done, is a higher good than anothers dharma, however well done; if one performs action as set down by ones own nature, one does not create fault. (Bg. 18.47) But beyond this, we have seen that the Bhagavad- gita begins where ordinary Vedic dharma leaves off. Lord Krishna has indicated this in various ways. Here, at the end of His teaching, the Lord most dramatically declares that full surrender to the Supreme Lord stands above the entire range of sacred duties known generally as dharma: Letting go of all dharmas, take me alone as your place of rest, and do not grieve, because I will free you from all evils.(Bg. 18.66) Thus, surrender to Krishna, as declared in the ninth chapter, is the highest duty of the soul and therefore the supreme dharma. All other dharmas are preliminary duties, meant to bring one to the highest spiritual understanding of Krishna consciousness. Such conventional dharmas are useful until one comes to the point of utter surrender to God. So there is nothing incoherent when the Lord finally declares that the entire Bhagavad-gita is conducive to dharma, in all its aspects: And my thought is this: one who learns and recites this conversation of ours so filled with dharma would sacrifice to me with the sacrifice of knowledge. (Bg. 18.70)