What Is the Meaning of Dharma?

Dharma is the Divine Force that moves, regulates, and sustains everything: the universal Balance, the sacred Law, the eternal Justice, the set of infallible Principles of Religion that govern the ethical, moral, political, social, and family life of every being. Dharma is the divine norm that rules creation and all creatures: from snakes to elephants, from the microbes we inhale with each breath to the great felines, from men to women, from children to the elderly, from kings to servants.

In the great wisdom texts of Indo-Vedic literature, Dharma is distinguished into Sanātana Dharma and Sva-dharma.
Sanātana Dharma is the eternal, perennial, and universal Dharma: the law beyond time and space, valid for every being, in every circumstance, everywhere and always.
Sva-dharma is instead the particular dharma of a given individual, situated in a specific historical period and geographical place, suited to a particular circumstance or context. The Sva-dharma of a king differs from that of a subject; that of a surgeon differs from that of a nurse; that of a father from that of a son, and so on.

For it to generate evolution, joy, foresight, awareness, and love—which in its purest essence is the highest of all human sentiments—Sva-dharma should be perfectly integrated with Sanātana Dharma: what is beneficial on an individual level is so only insofar as it is harmonized with the supreme divine norm that organizes the universe.

Sanātana Dharma and Sva-dharma should represent points of reconciliation between human joy and universal joy, between the inner order of the individual and the order of the world, between human intelligence and divine intelligence. Becoming aware of the importance of this harmonization and putting it into practice allows us to evolve toward happiness, enlightenment, self-realization, and love.

Marco Ferrini
(Matsya Avatar das)