What I’d like to propose today is a set of new Three Rs that can train the other part of your being, so that you may more than just function in society, but live splendidly in eternity. In other words, these Three Rs train you to live an outstanding life, an awakened life. The trio of new Rs are: Respond, Right Action and Speech, and Realization.
By Respond, I’m referring to the ability to do what needs to be done. But I’m expanding the definition of respond to include not just being a responsible person – who can be counted on to do what’s needed in your family, at your job, and in your relationships – but also the ability to hear your inner voice, your calling, and to do what it invites you to do. The yogis of India have a word for this: Dharma. Our English translation: your path, your yellow brick road, if you will, that yields the support of the Universe when you heed it.
Right Action and Right Speech are two limbs of the Buddha’s Eightfold Path to Nirvana. Both recognize the power of Karma (Sanskrit for action), and how right action and speech return positive influences from the Universe, while wrong action and speech bring about negative or unfavorable obstacles. The choice, of course, is always yours, but Nature is unyielding in that it will always yield positive or negative reactions to your individual action.
Realization is the state of awakening. The Sanskrit word Buddha, the name given to the great teacher, means the Awakened One. Realization, as I’m using the term in this piece, means the recognition of your higher Self as your true identity. It means going from the individual ego – which is how most people view themselves – to the eternal Being within, as the essence of who you are. It means expanding your sense of your self as a limited, isolated ego encased in a bag of flesh, to the unlimited higher Self at the transcendental level of your mind. Walt Whitman described this unbounded Self in his epic poem, “Song of Myself,” when he wrote: “I am not contained between my hat and boots.”
Dharma
Dharma, which translates as “that which upholds evolution,” has meanings on the individual, societal and cosmic levels. On the individual level, doing your dharma means performing those actions that are in tune with your nature. For Luciano Pavarotti, that meant singing opera. For Michael Jordan, it meant playing basketball. For William Shakespeare, it meant writing plays. Doing those activities came most naturally to each of them, and made them feel great in the process. On a social level, it also enabled them to make maximum contributions to the worlds in which they lived. Cosmically, it brought Spirit most beautifully into their worlds, because the talents they expressed in their lives were gifts from Spirit, and thus brought Spirit most into the world, enabling the unmanifested Cosmic Being to be made further manifest in life. When you do what you are here to do, the Universe evolves.
Another way of saying it is that you are here for two major reasons: to share your God-given talents with your brothers and sisters on the planet to enrich the world, and to gain the state of Realization I referred to earlier. In fact, the primary reason you and everyone around you are in human bodies in the first place is to gain this state of Enlightenment. The yogis of India, and wise people in many spiritual traditions, teach that not gaining that state causes your soul to reincarnate into another human body until you finally do. Gaining that state of Realization insures living a life of peace and serenity, supported maximally by the Universe, as you bring Spirit into the world around you.
How you go about gaining that state of Enlightenment is up to you. Meditation is the way I’m most familiar with, having practiced it since I was 17, and teaching it since I was 20. There are many others. Find the way that most works for you. The performance of that way in a daily manner is also the highest dharma you can practice.