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                                "Dharma"

                                      By

                              Alan Schneider

                        –––––––– A Gift –––––––––

                                   What is the Truth?
                                        – Dharma –

                                        Where am I?
                                         – Karma –

                                         What am I?
                                          – Maya –

                                         Who am I?
                                          – Atma –

                                         What am I?
                                        – Brahma –

                                        Where am I?
                                        – Krishna –

                                    What is the Truth?
                                          – Yoga –

              Dharma is devotional service to God, including personal sacrifice, good works, and all forms of yoga, prayer, and meditation. Dharma is inherently rewarding – this action burns, or releases, Karma and also develops a relationship with the Divine Consciousness. For this reason, Dharma is to be performed without the consideration of either punishment or additional reward, but is simply offered in the awareness of a higher purpose in life – the Truth. My gift of these words is Dharma.

            Karma is God manifesting in the multiplicity of forms which we experience with our senses as the physical universe of matter, energy, and action. Karma exists at every level from the most minutely personal – a subatomic particle – to the most universal – the known cosmos itself. Karma is generated by willful action, or desire, and released through Dharma and non attachment to the material forms of the world around us. Karma is a condition of temporary, separate manifestation that establishes where we are in our spiritual development.

            Maya is the human sensory experience of Karma. Because Karma is a manifestation of God in multiplicity, or many separate forms, it cannot be known as the ultimate Truth of God by anything which is itself separate – including the human physical form. Our senses can only show us reflected images of the Truth. We learn through culture and experience to assemble these images into a model of existence which we accept as reality. Maya is an illusion created by the senses – this is what we are without Enlightenment. Maya is driven by Karma and generates desire and attachment to that extensive and complex interaction of the senses which is the ego. We frequently believe that this ego is who we are, but this is simply another, more deceptive illusion occurring in Maya.

            Atma is the Soul. This is the spiritual core or essence of God found in all the separate forms manifest in Karma. The Atma radiates from, and is part of, the Divine Consciousness. In this sense, even a common pebble has a Soul, or spiritual consciousness. The human form is a special creation, and has Atma which is very close to God, close enough to generate total self awareness. Much of the time, this awareness is distracted by the attachment to Maya, but can be turned inward, away from the senses, through meditation. This process ultimately leads to the discovery of the Soul as a level of transcendental existence beyond the senses, originating in God. This is who we are.

            Brahma is the Collective Soul, the sum total of all Atma manifestations. Brahma is the source of all Creation at every level of manifestation, including Karma and Maya. Brahma is the Divine Idea radiating from, and within, the Divine Consciousness. As the process of meditation draws the personal human awareness into the Soul, a powerful and profound bond is established between the two which enables the direct knowledge of Brahma through the Atma. The senses are what we are in the separate Karmic reflection of Maya. Brahma is what we are as the collective Creation of God.

            Krishna means “Christlike”, or “Pure in Form”, referring to a condition which is not diluted by any type of separation, specifically from Divine Consciousness through the expression of Karma. Brahma radiates from Krishna – the Personality, or Mind, of God – the literal Divine Consciousness. This Supreme Absolute Truth is actually manifested in transcendental form as Krsna, and is not knowable in Maya. The addition of the “i” and “h” symbolically renders God’s Identity into a form which the human ego can describe. Krsna is the ultimate reality and unified condition of everything. Through Brahma, Krsna manifests in the multiplicity of Karma, and the individuality of Atma. This duality establishes the dynamic relationship the ancient Chinese mystics called the Dao – the Divine Union of universal Female and Male manifestation which creates all of the known forms of existence. The Female form of the Dao is called Yin, and is an expression of the Atma. The Male form is Yang, and is a complementary expression of Karma. The Yin is passive – the Atma exists in Divine Form, but resides in the background of human awareness, and must be sought out by that awareness. The Yang is active – the influence of Karma is immediate as dynamic action and literally generates Maya as a reflection in the foreground of awareness. However, Maya nonexists in the form of a separated (if persistent) sensory illusion. Krsna achieves the Creation of human awareness in this way as the ultimate Gift of Love in Free Will. The Dao establishes precisely the condition of balanced forces required to enable our awareness to both seek and ignore the Truth on an independent personal basis. Krsna is total, complete, and unconditional Love and Acceptance, an infinitely powerful single Consciousness that also manifests the ultimate challenge to consciousness – Karma! Just as Karma is where we are as an expression of separation, so it is that Krsna is where we are in reunification with the Supreme Absolute Truth.

            Yoga literally means “yoke”, and is a reference to an ox yoke, used to harness one or more oxen to a cart. The spiritual meaning of Yoga is “union”, specifically, the union of human awareness with the Atma, thence Brahma, and ultimately Krsna. The use of the term “yoke” is very insightful. Like human beings, the ox is an expression of the separate condition of Karma, and it would seem that it would be in an ideal condition in a wild and unrestrained state. The paradox (pair-of-ox? paired-ox?) of Karma is that this separate condition is really the least satisfying state, creating a sensory manifestation that requires endless gratification as the price of temporary survival. In fact, the oxen and human beings are both being guided in a better direction through Yoga. In the service of the carter, the ox is afforded a measure of care and protection not found in the wild. In the service of the Atma, the awareness is directed away from the doomed temporary manifestations of Karma and Maya, through Yoga as the vehicle of Enlightenment and higher consciousness. Our awareness is reincarnated through the agency of Karma at the level, and under the circumstances, required to regain the highest level of consciousness attained in the previous incarnation – the death of awareness is not inevitable with the death of the body and physical sensation as Maya would seem to indicate.

            Yoga begins with the simple practice of Asana, or physical postures, and then advances through successively more refined techniques, including Dharma. Yoga dispels the attachment to the illusion of Maya through this ongoing Enlightenment process. When we have achieved the advanced state of Enlightenment in which Krsna is experienced everywhere as Life in Divine Manifestation, and all Karma and attachment have been released, we have come home to the Truth.

            All suffering is the result of attachment to Maya, although this cannot be known from that perspective. The great challenge of Dharma is to live in Enlightenment through Yoga, and without forming attachment to the senses and subsequently directing our actions through the motive of desire. The essence of desire is the illusion of gratification through manipulation of the senses. This approach to living may seem to be successful for a period of time, but only generates more Karma by reinforcing the illusion that we are separate from the objects of our desires, and in a separated condition, when we are all ultimately united in Love by God. I give you this Gift.


                                                ------ from Alan with Love ------