What is Dharma?

Dharma is one of the most misunderstood concepts in the modern world. It is often equated with religion, sect, or tradition, but its actual meaning goes far beyond rules, rituals, and beliefs. Dharma has many aspects, and the major ones are listed below.

• Duty.
• Righteousness.
• Property or Characteristic.

We can’t walk on the dharma-path unless we understand the correct meaning of each of them and put the correct logic in our decision-making. Let’s understand these three aspects of Dharma one by one.

Duty aspect of Dharma

Almost everyone understands what duty means, but they don’t know which duty is the priority. Dharma means duty too, but it means one’s prior duty as a Human, not any random one. There are three types of duty as listed below.

• Temporary Duty.
• Semi-Permanent Duty.
• Permanent or Absolute Duty.

Temporary Duty

Temporary duty is your duty for a short span of time, such as hours, days, months, or years. It may be your duty as an employee, your duty as a watchman, or any other such tasks you are accountable for. It could be the duty of a teacher, a politician, a soldier, a social worker, a society chief, etc. These are temporary duties because they hold you responsible only until you hold that position. The moment you are relieved from that position, you are not responsible for the tasks of that position.

Semi-Permanent Duty

Semi-Permanent Duty is your duty for probably a lifetime. It includes your duty towards a relationship, towards your varna, your clan-based duty, and towards any identity that defines you. Digging more will suggest the following.

• Your duty towards your parents, family, children, and other family members is your semi-permanent duty.
• Your duty as a hermit, Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra, etc., is also your semi-permanent duty.
• Your duty as a great donor, as a kind being, as a peaceful person, and any other such character-based identity is also your semi-permanent duty.

These are a few examples to understand what kind of duties fall into the semi-permanent category.

Permanent or Absolute Duty

Permanent or absolute duty is your duty as a human or as the son/daughter of God. It includes your duty, which you must perform as a human being. It includes your duty to protect those who are smaller or weaker than you. It includes your duty to seek the welfare of all living beings. It also includes your duty to make the earth a great place to live for all living beings. These and many other such duties, which don’t need you to hold any position or any identity, are examples of Permanent or absolute duty.

Which duty is the priority to follow dharma?

Based on the aforementioned description, it becomes clear that humans should prioritize their permanent duty to be on the dharma path. However, you should follow your semi-permanent and temporary duties too. The only thing you need to ensure is that you don’t overlook your permanent duty while performing semi-permanent duty. Similarly, you should not overlook your semi-permanent and permanent duties while performing your temporary duty. In all the cases, keep in mind that your temporary duty is the least important and your permanent duty is the most important. Let’s understand it with an example.

Suppose you are employed in a food processing company, and you are responsible for bringing in the raw material. This is your temporary duty. Now, suppose your family needs you, as you are accountable for their well-being – it is your semi-permanent duty. In this case, if your duty in the company stops you from fulfilling your duty towards your family, you should skip the former. Why? Since your family is your semi-permanent duty, and the company is your temporary duty, semi-permanent has priority over temporary.

Another case could be one of the following:

1. Your company wants to start non-veg food-processing and employs you to bring in animals to be killed.
2. Your son rapes a woman, and wants you to protect him and fight against the Victim.

In case 1, your temporary duty forces you to go against your duty as a human, which is your permanent duty. (Protecting all living beings is our duty as humans.) In this case, your priority should be to protect innocent animals by not killing them, as that is your permanent duty.

In case 2, your semi-permanent duty as a father wants you to go against your duty as a human – your permanent duty. (Raping a woman is violating the duty of humans, and protecting a rapist is the same thing.) In this case, your priority should be to fight against your son because protecting and supporting the rape victim is your permanent duty. Ensuring punishment for the rapist is also a human’s permanent duty. To perform this, you can sacrifice your semi-permanent duty as a father if you have to. 

Let’s now talk about the second aspect of Dharma – the Righteousness.

Righteousness aspect of Dharma

Righteousness is the essence of truth, morality, justice, and the universal good. It means examining all the aspects of the situation and doing only what is right in all conditions. The aforementioned example of an employee at a food-processing company is an example of righteousness. He did not stick to his duty as an employee or father, but looked at his duty towards innocent animals and the woman, too. That’s how you take care of your universal responsibility – by having a multidimensional approach and performing what is absolutely right.

So, the essence of righteousness is not to limit yourself to any religion, breed, caste, family, etc., but to keep your mind open to think for the universal well-being, and then perform the action accordingly.

Property or characteristic aspect of Dharma

The property of anything is the character of its original being, and that is known as the Dharma of that being/thing. A few examples of this are as follows:

• The dharma of uranium is to be radioactive.
• The dharma of a female body is to produce the next generation.
• The dharma of a male body is to provide seed to the woman to produce the next generation.
• The dharma of water is to quench the thirst of living beings.
• The dharma of earth is to attract everything towards its centre.

These are a few examples of property or characteristic aspects of dharma, and they don’t need things and beings to put any effort into them. This aspect of dharma happens by itself; you cannot change the dharma of a body/thing unless you pollute it by one of the other means.

Which dharma should we follow as humans?

You don’t need to do anything to perform the property aspect of dharma, as this doesn’t need your decision-making. You only need to focus on the duty and righteousness aspect of dharma wisely, so that you can take the decision for universal welfare without being biased towards anything or anyone.

Performing Dharma is not about following quotes or rules blindly. Instead, it demands inner honesty, situational awareness, and deep wisdom. To truly follow Dharma:

• You must analyse the situation with neutrality.
• Speak to your inner self with honesty, not with bias or ego.
• Eliminate selfishness, personal benefit, emotional attachment, or prejudice toward any person or outcome.
• No work should be done motivated by emotional attachment or prejudice towards any person. Also, in the outcome of that work, one should keep in mind the welfare of everyone (humans and animals) rather than just seeking personal gain or selfishness.
• You should not do anything out of fear, greed, or partiality towards relationships, or by placing blind faith in written words or books.

Keeping these things in mind, you should establish clarity in your thoughts, give priority to your permanent duty, and act by taking universally just decisions. That’s how you can walk on the path of dharma.

Dharma means neither religion nor Madhab.

One of the most important clarifications we must make is this:

• Dharma is not religion.
• Dharma is not madhab.

Religion is often associated with a set of prescribed rules, beliefs, or community-based rituals. Dharma, on the other hand, has nothing to do with religious leaders or clerics, religious structure, or external practices. Dharma is not a rulebook but a living principle — something that must be realized through wisdom, truthfulness, and conscience.

Only when you make decisions with pure intent, fairness, and selflessness are you performing Dharma. No fixed set of rules can define what is right in every situation. The physical world is very complex, and identifying Dharma here requires contextual understanding. What might be right in one circumstance could be wrong in another. Thus, Dharma cannot be codified — it must be realized.

You must pause, think deeply, be truthful, and then act. This is how real righteousness works. Dharma is the Foundation of Truth and Divinity. In a world full of divisions based on religion, caste, politics, and belief systems, we must return to Dharma — the path of righteousness. It is not something that relates you to some religious or communal identity but rather it is something that identifies you as a human being and as intelligent.

If your actions, your beliefs, or the names whom you think are Gods are disconnected from universal righteousness (being fair to all humans and creatures), then they are disconnected from truth itself. Let Dharma be your compass, not religion, not rulebooks, not traditions. Seek the truth honestly, recognize the Dharma, and act accordingly – that is where the real God resides.

There is a lot to share about Dharma, and the Pages listed below might help illuminate Dharma within you. So, stay tuned!