Dharma Incarnate – Part 1
The Bhagavad-Gita opens with the word dharma [right conduct]! In the Gita sage Yyasa gives the dialogue between the dispirited warrior, Arjuna and Lord Krishna, who is God incarnated to uphold dharma. The Bhagavad-Gita is the essence of the Upanishads, which are precious repositories of the best in Indian spiritual thought.
Dharma is the very life‑breath of this land and its culture. The Vedas laid down dharma; the Shastras elaborated it, while the Puranas and Itihasas illustrated it in story, legend, and biography. The Vedas are the authority for the moral codes [various scriptures] that are denoted by dharma.
Dharma is not the product of human intelligence or cleverness or inquiry. God has inspired the saints and sages to lay the mores and fix the limits, and they have revealed the message of the Lord in the Vedas. So the Vedas are the voice of God; the word of the Vedic hymns is our mother! The meaning of the word is our father. Those Divine parents prescribed regulations for their children (humanity), and their prescriptions are named collectively—dharma.
Dharma that has such divine origin and care can never suffer a fall; but it may fade off and on. It will have no haani [destruction], it may suffer glaani [decline], that is all. Lord Krishna has announced in the Bhagavad Gita that on such occasions, He will Himself incarnate to uphold dharma and render it as strong and sustaining as ever. In the Treta Age and in the Dwapara Age, He came among men as Rama and Krishna for this very purpose.
Why is the Lord so anxious to restore dharma to its pristine purity that He is willing even to inflict on Himself the limitation of the human form? If He does not so incarnate, what calamity will overtake mankind? Questions like these might arise. But, consider: Dharma is the body of God. When one’s body is harmed can one remain unconcerned? The universe is inextricably bound in dharma, the moral law. There is a cosmic dharma, which regulates all. When this law is broken or disregarded, the balance is upset, and man suffers with all beings. When dharma fades, man fails too. So, man has to welcome the restoration of dharma.
In fact the cosmos with all the worlds in it is the habitation of God. God is residing in the most gigantic globe as well as in the minutest cell and atom. So when His habitation is in disrepair and threatened with dilapidation, should He not engage Himself in making it safe, sound, and beautiful?
Again, consider how strong and strengthgiving is dharma! Our forefathers believed it to be so essential, valid, and vital, that they stuck to its path through the most terrific temptations and the most disastrous dangers. Rama decided to enter the forest as an exile to honor the promise made by his father. His mother, Kaushalya, had to agree though all her instincts rebelled against the step. When finally she had to part with him (and the exile was for 14 long years; he was sentenced to undergo the exile just when he was stepping toward the throne to be crowned emperor of the realm!) what were the words she blessed her son with? Listen!
“Rama! The dharma, the moral law, you are obeying, with such faith and tenacity, that itself will guard you and guide you!” Adhering to dharma is no mere matter of verbal profession; it is to take up arms against a host of foes and failures. Kaushalya was reminding Rama that it was his duty to stand up four‑square against all obstacles and maintain dharma in the face of fearful odds.
When her eldest son, Duryodhana, had declared an unjust war against his own dear cousins and refused to give them their share of the imperial power, his mother Gandhari recognized that it was against dharma. During the 18-day battle, Duryodhana used to fall at the feet of his mother every day before proceeding to the battlefield, praying for her blessings. On no day did she bless him, as he desired! On the other hand, she repeated every day the warning counseled, “Son! Why seek my blessings? Where there is dharma, there victory is secure!”
Note how tenacious was the hold that dharma had on our forefathers! Sri Rama and Sri Krishna came into the world to insist on this type of tenacious faith in dharma. Sri Rama is acclaimed as dharma Incarnate. Obedience to the father, reverence toward the mother, faithfulness to the wife, love toward brothers, compassion toward the weak, service to those who take refuge, fidelity to the word once given—these rules of moral right were practiced by Him and taught to others. When Rama obeyed his father and moved into exile in the forest, how many obstacles he had to overcome! Until He reached Chitrakuta Hill, and until He sent back His two brothers who had followed Him to persuade Him to return, how many trials he had to undergo! From the Ramakatharasavahini that our Lord is writing for our edification, we can all picture for ourselves the heroic determination of Rama to stick to dharma come what may.
He showed great reverence to Kaikeyi, the stepmother who was the very instrument to send him to exile; so His brothers had perforce to revere her themselves! When Vibhishana, the younger brother of Ravana, could not suffer any more at his brother’s court, he came to Rama and sought refuge. Sugriva and others in Rama’s Camp raised objections against his admission into the Presence, but Rama declared it as His dharma: “Whoever seeks refuge shall be protected, whether it is Vibhishana or even his brother, Ravana, against whom we are now leading this army.”
This day, we have our Lord, Sri Sathya Sai, proving once again that the incarnations of God are ever dharma-embodied. For the upholding of dharma that has now reached a far more critical stage of decline, Baba is adopting more significant and more pervasive means than were used in His careers as Rama and Krishna. Those days, the wicked were killed; today, this method will mean a cataclysm for mankind itself. Baba has said that man is like a tree whose roots are being eaten up by white ants. He is removing the whites ants and saving the tree. The wicked are weaned from evil ways and placed on the path of virtue through the strange new stratagem of love! Sri Rama taught by His own example; Sri Krishna sought to instruct and inspire; however, Sathya Sai has both precept and example as His means.
~S. V. Rama Sarma, Translated from Telugu
Source: Sanathana Sarathi, April 1973
