Defining Dharma

Thank you, Uday Desai for introducing Ruby and I to the Bhagavad Gita. We are reading it now. At the start of Chapter 4, Wisdom in Action, dharma is mentioned again. This time it was referred to as the divine law.  I vaguely recalled a similar definition I learned in teacher training: Dharma is the law that upholds, supports or maintains the regulatory order of the universe.In training and after reading the beginning of Chapter 4 I realized my understanding of dharma was not clear . And so, I decided to backtrack through Chapters 1-3 of the Gita and take note of how it describes dharma for clarity.

Page 24:

The law that expresses and maintains the unity of creation.

Page 31:

The word dharma means many things, but its underlying sense is “that which supports,” from the root dhri, to support, hold up, or bear. Generally, dharma implies support from within: the essense of a thing, its virtue, that which makes it what it is.

Page 31-32:

Dharma means the essential order of things, an integrity and harmony in the universe and the affairs of life that cannot be disturbed without courting chaos. Thus it means rightness, justice, goodness, purpose rather than chance.

Page 66: Dharmakshetra?

Page 75 It is the dharma, the moral duty of the soldiers to fight in a good cause, though never for evil leaders.

Page 92, 2:31 Considering your dharma, you should not vacillate. For a warrior, nothing is higher than a war against evil.

Page 112- divine law (dharma)

Page 117. 4:7-8 Whenever dharma declines and the purpose of man is forgotten, I manifest myself on earth. I am born in every age to protect the goal, to destroy evil, and to reestablish dharma.

-Kerrie