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00:00Dharm cannot be a plurality, dharm cannot be many and if there are many
00:27dharmas, then they have to be all dropped. Yes, this has to be understood.
00:39There is only one dharm and that is to attain liberation or peace, to gain
00:53freedom from your bondages, to gain freedom from your inner chaos and noise,
01:01to gain freedom from your inner falseness. Gaining freedom from inner
01:08falseness is more commonly known as truth realization. It is a euphemism, a
01:31very decorated euphemism. It's not really truth that is realized, it is falseness
01:40that is dropped. We cover ourselves with a thousand duties and responsibilities,
01:56ascribing to each of them the word dharm. That which you take upon yourself
02:09becomes your dharm. Dharm is very closely related to the word dharana.
02:19You appreciate dharana, that which you take upon yourself, that which you wear.
02:37So whatever you accept upon yourself becomes your dharma. Whatever you accept upon yourself
02:47becomes your dharma. Rishi is saying whatever you have accepted upon yourself is a false
02:55dharma, it has to be dropped. There is only one real dharma which is freedom. Everything
03:02else is just bondage, donning the name of dharma. Get this very clear. Nobody wants
03:15to be irreligious. Nobody consciously wants to be on the wrong side of truth or liberation.
03:29Nobody wants to be an adharmi or vidharmi. Still there is so much suffering and violence
03:43and cruelty in the world. Where does that come from? That comes from wrong or misplaced
03:57dharma. That which you are thinking of as dharma is actually adharma and that's the
04:06reason why the Rishi is saying drop it. Your dharma is not dharma at all. Your dharma is
04:13the cause of all suffering and in fact what is being said here has been more popularly
04:29said in the Bhagavad Gita. Remember that? That's one of the most famous and oft quoted
04:38verses of the Gita. The same sentiment is being expressed here in almost the same words
04:50and that's the reason why the Gita is called another Upanishad and that's why the Gita
04:55has to be read in the light of the Upanishads. So what's the first thing about the sannyasi?
05:08He does not accept that which the world calls as dharma. You are born and the world comes
05:15rushing to you. Loading you with this and that and calling all those things as your
05:26responsibilities in piousness, in pity, in morality. Want to be a good boy? You should
05:40do all these things. Those things become your dharma. The fellow who is teaching you
05:47may not put it in so many words but he has actually indoctrinated you in some kind of
05:56dharma. Even if the dharma he is indoctrinating you in may carry no specific name yet you
06:07have now taken something upon yourself. If I am to be a good boy then I must do all these
06:14things. This is dharma. Rishi is saying drop all that. All that is sheer nonsense that
06:22your upbringing, your education, your surroundings have put upon you. Drop it. You are not obliged
06:31to fulfill any responsibilities. How do you know that those things you call as your
06:40responsibilities are your responsibilities at all? How do you know? And don't just say but
06:46that's how it happens. That's a very vacuous argument, isn't it? But I mean I have to do that.
06:58The moment you ask but why? The fellow says isn't that obvious? Isn't that commonsensical?
07:05No, your common sense is just common conditioning. It is not common sense. It is common conditioning,
07:13right? You know just as Darius here said, you go to someone and say hello sir, that there on your
07:26plate is what was the flesh of a living being till a few hours back. And the fellow says get
07:39away. You are putting me off my food. And isn't it obvious that a fellow has to eat? What will I
07:48eat if I don't take this? Is it commonsensical? Is it commonsensical at all? Had it been
07:57commonsensical then even a Jain would have found it commonsensical to have meat or beef. No, you
08:06are calling it commonsensical because your conditioning has permeated you very deeply.
08:16It has reached almost your core. Getting it? So what do we do? We start naming our conditioning
08:29as our dharma and that's why dharma has to be dropped. Haven't you wondered? I mean the Bhagavad
08:38Gita is the supreme document in dharmikta, right? And Shri Krishna is saying,
08:51A dharmic document, the supreme dharmic document is saying, drop all the religions. Actually,
09:09they are not saying drop all the religions. What he's saying is drop all your duties and
09:15responsibilities and it has to be understood that the word religion can have no plural. We
09:25said that a while back. The word religion can have no plural. You cannot have multiple religions.
09:32You can have multiple ways of getting conditioned. That is possible. You can choose to get conditioned
09:43via the Christian way, via the Islamic way, via the Hindu way, this way, that way. All that can
09:51be there. But religiosity is exclusively singular. What does it consist of? It consists of moving with
10:03a great determination and using the shortest path towards truth and peace. Irrespective of whether
10:12that path has been suggested or described by any book or any person or any society or any tradition.
10:24And your only responsibility is to move towards truth, which is to move towards continuous and
10:40gradual liberation from your limits, your bondages. That is religiosity. That alone is religion.
10:49Nothing else is. All this showmanship consisting of rituals, rites, miracles,
11:11traditions, pilgrimages, these do not constitute at all the core of religiosity. These things sit
11:32at best on the periphery. They can probably be helpful. But they are not necessarily helpful. If
11:44they are helpful, use them. If they are not helpful, remember the central thing. The central
11:51thing is liberation. Observation of a particular code of conduct or living as a devout person of a
12:09particular religious order. These things are not the core of religiosity. Are you getting it? What
12:20is the core of religiosity? The core of religiosity is freedom without limit, truth without boundaries.
12:34The books, the temples, all the places of worship, all the customs that have been created, all the
12:51traditions that have been handed over to us, we must know that they are mere appendages. Some of
13:07them are quite helpful at particular points in your journey. Use those things when they prove
13:26helpful and as long as they are proving helpful. But do not think of them as the goal or the main
13:38thing or the central point. They are not. And that's why the moment it is asked, who is the
13:48sanyasi? The Rishi responds with, sanyasi is the one who has dropped all the dharmas. He could have
14:03said something else, think of it. But it seems that this is one non-negotiable condition. This is
14:14probably the first and most important thing. There is a lot more that the Rishi has to say, but this
14:22thing he puts above everything else. Are you getting it? Don't get the whole thing wrong. Is the Rishi
14:37saying drop dharma? Obviously not. Obviously not. When Krishna tells Arjuna sarva dharman parityajya
14:48mamekam sharanam vraja. And what is he saying? He is saying drop all the falseness in the name of
14:56religion and come to me for I am religion itself. Krishna as Brahm, Krishna as truth, not Krishna as
15:11person, not Krishna as the son of Yashoda or Devaki. Krishna as Brahm and that is religion in the words
15:25of Krishna, by the teachings of Krishna. To go to Brahm itself directly, ignoring and dropping
15:33everything else that comes your way. No duty, no responsibility, no dharma is bigger than Brahm
15:41attainment. That's your only responsibility. If somebody comes to you, lecturing you on your
15:48other responsibilities, shoo them away. You have no responsibility. The more you understand
15:57yourself, the more you'll realize how petty at the same time, how incarcerating this game of
16:07responsibilities is. And you have to also see that your responsibilities depend on what you
16:24take yourself to be. If you take yourself a body, you'll have to give great importance to all the
16:36duties that come to the body and through the body. If you take yourself a scholar or a person
16:46belonging to a religious order, then you'll have to give great importance to all the
16:51responsibilities that come with being a scholar or religious person. If you take yourself as a
17:01woman, you'll have to give great importance to all the responsibilities that come with being a
17:08wife or a mother or a daughter. Those responsibilities are false because your first and basic identity
17:19statement itself is false and that's the horrible issue with defining yourself wrongly. Define
17:30yourself wrongly and you'll find yourself encumbered with all the wrong roles and responsibilities.
17:38Once you are a man, it'll be difficult to avoid being a husband. Once you're a husband,
17:52it will be almost impossible to avoid fulfilling all the responsibilities that come with being a
18:00husband. Therefore, define yourself rightly. All the wrong dharmas go to the wrong one. If the
18:17question who am I is rightly answered, then wrong responsibilities cannot come to you and if you
18:25find yourself shrouded with wrong responsibilities, then your first mistake is that you have not
18:34bothered to rightly answer who am I. That's your central blunder. Are you getting it? How will you
18:52say that my first identity is that I am a son and then disobey the wishes of your father? Is it
19:08possible? Somebody asks you who are you and your first identity is I am a son and there are so
19:18many people who live purely as sons, dependent on fathers for name, for money, for emotional
19:30security, more than name for the surname. If you live as a son, then your foremost dharma will be
19:43to take your carnal father as God. Now, you do not need the truth. You already have the truth in
19:54the form of your papa ji and the mortal father will not allow you to know your real father.
20:06Jesus can wait. Jesus can keep shouting. Papa darling will not allow you to go to the real
20:31father. Will you let this sink in? Liberation is first of all being liberated from these false
20:53identities and roles and the responsibilities they entail. Isn't it quite relieving? Think of
21:04what these roles have done to you. See how suffocated your consciousness has been under
21:18the weight of your identities. See how often you have been made to feel guilty because you
21:28have not been perfect in meeting your responsibilities and see how frequently you
21:45have been trying to absolve yourself of that guilt by paying disproportionate prices as apology, as
22:03compensation. Now, being relieved of false dharmas is not merely an unburdening.
22:32It comes with real responsibility. If false responsibility is to be dropped, that comes
22:53with an acceptance, acknowledgement of real responsibility and what is real responsibility?
23:02And therefore, these two have been talked of in the same breath. Drop all your false
23:08responsibilities and accept your real responsibility. Your real responsibility,
23:13your only responsibility is to come to me. All else is hogwash.