Dharma

Adam Wes Hi, Ariella!

Ariella Okay.

Adam Wes We'd love to see you, Andy.

Andy Good to see you.

Adam Wes I'm not sure where everybody is, but we'll persevere according to plan. Today's discussion is dharma.

Where is everybody? Let me just make sure. All right. You ready, Mom? Looks like you're texting.

Colleen I'm reading up about dharma.

Adam Wes Oh, beautiful! You just made my night, Mom.

Dharma is a Sanskrit word. Its direct translation in English is not exactly correct. There is no English translation for this word that is fully encompassing of its meaning, and it's hard to know and grasp the esoteric nature of the meaning without meditation. Meditation helps you to understand what dharma means.

The best translation is perhaps truth or duty. Truth means the truth of what exists, the truth of what one is. Duty means, "To thine own self be true." One cannot truly move forward without being true to who they really are, and that actually is their duty.

Each of us has a unique predilection, a unique embodiment of existence. Some of us see the world as a choreographed ballet. Some of us see the world as mathematical perfection. Some of us see the world as structures and architecture. Some of us see the world as music and sound design. There are all kinds of ways that we naturally make sense of infinity, make sense of reality, and this is one aspect of dharma. It's your natural gift for making sense of life.

Sometimes we talk about sva dharma, which is your personal dharma. Sva dharma means, what is your art? What is your creative endeavor? Something you would do for the sake of doing it, just because you love doing it. When you do it, you're at home in yourself. You're not doing it for the results of your actions. You're fulfilled in the activity itself, and the activity itself tends to grow. It evolves into mastery.

You also return to the basics, which is mastery. You keep getting better. You keep challenging yourself. For me, creating mathematical animations and visualizations through computer programming, challenging myself to get better and better, that's my art. That's my dharma. That's my joy.

When you center your life on this, your dharma is multifaceted. It is also the way you engage with the world, the way you serve the world. It's the way you earn your livelihood. It's what your social interactions center on.

Dharma has a little bit more of an esoteric definition as well. When we don't talk about it in terms of sva dharma, but just general dharma, the general dharma is like the way the whole world fits together.

There's a nice word that I like: everything is a concurrence. There is no separate nature. We all are part of one concurrence of the moments evolving as one uniform transformation, and we all are a part of that.

Some of us are intrinsically designed in one way. Your soul is intrinsically in a particular state. It is as it is, and based on that suchness, one must move forward in a particular manner.

When you're doing your dharma, you're not frustrated. You're not bored. You are simply being existence, evolving blissfully through time.

How does it relate to meditation? When we're in a state of blissfulness and detachment, our dharma is a movement of love. It's a movement of freedom. It's what we naturally do. It's when we're pulled off of our dharma that we experience pain and strain, and all of those divisive qualities of existence.

But when we're in our dharma, we're Michael Jackson on stage. We're Bruce Lee in the film. We're Mother Teresa in the mud with the babies. We're Nelson Mandela, standing for dignity and forgiveness. We're Gandhi, standing for truth and patience. When we live our dharma, we're Steve Jobs, creating beautiful, artistic versions of technology that are intuitive.

You see, these individuals knew their dharma, and they lived it. It's never too late to find your dharma, because the moment you find it, your day will be better. We can find it by looking into our heart and saying, "What does my heart really want right now? Why is this moment not perfect as it is, fulfilling as it is?"

You can see how dharma is related to truth, what you are and what is, and duty, having to be true to who you are. When you're in a state of humility, utter humility, utter self-acceptance, divine love, then you can see your dharma. You can abide by it and follow it because you're not clouded by the impressions of society, by untruth.

Dharma requires a degree of clarity. Meditating on the third eye also helps as much as meditating on the heart, because the third eye helps you see with clarity. You need to get the cloud and fog out of the way so you can see what it is that you are.

The heart makes you become what you are. The third eye makes you know what you are. Then the will, the navel center, helps you follow what you are, be what you are, and not be pulled off of your center. It's the will to maintain being true to yourself.

Dharma is kind of like if you were to become completely without agency, choiceless awareness, absolutely spontaneous, completely aligned in every way, the perfect healthy mind. You would act in alignment with the concurrence of the universe as a part, part and parcel with the whole. You would be dharma.

Dharma is goodness. It's a Sanskrit word, a very central Sanskrit word.

What else can I tell you about dharma? Meditating on the dantian, which we've done, which is the third eye, the heart, and the navel center, helps you with dharma. But the light also helps you with dharma. The light will purify and clarify your being to a degree that you can merge with the dharma.

I'd like to talk about the energy technique for the week, which is mirror meditation. Sit in front of the mirror and gaze at yourself, looking in your eyes, but not concentrating. Let your visual perception rest on your eyes, but look broadly. Look at everything at once, and allow everything to melt into the Shakti, into the light.

This is another way to meditate. Instead of focusing on the chakras, which you can do too if you like, it can help you get into the light. The chakras actually do help you get into the light. Or you can go right into the light and let the chakras be there simultaneously, or not focus on them much at all. But the point is to hold everything in the light.

You sit in the mirror, you look broadly, gaze at everything, and see not with your eyes, but with your mind, with your attention. Attention can see everything at once. You can practice that. That's a part of the actual exercise, practicing learning to see everything at once while the mind is in abeyance, not thinking, listening, seeing.

When you sit in front of the mirror, you may begin to see the light manifest. The light will grow. You will keep vigil as the light grows and evolves within you, and it will wash you away. It'll wash you clean, so it will reveal dharma.

Dharma is challenging because you have to align your livelihood with your dharma. The more you become aligned with your dharma, the harder it is to veer from it. It becomes painful.

Your livelihood must integrate with your dharma, which means you must find like-minded individuals who value the same aspects of life that you do and be in service to them. This is one of the ways that we come together, and our dharmas overlap in a way, but each of us is very unique. We have a very unique dharma and gift, something really unique to us, a way that we see the world that we've known since we were children.

I knew math was in the stars when I was a child. When I was six, I knew it was there. I knew it, perhaps with more clarity than I retained for some time, until I recently regained it. Hopefully, I've regained most of that clarity, because we get clouded by society, by our sense of self.

Mindfulness is the principle for the week. Mindfulness is very closely related to the third eye, the navel, and the heart. I guess it's all three, really. You see, if you divide your attention, how can you maintain all of this?

It's like the audacity to think that you could walk a tightrope, juggle some balls and some pins, and write your thesis on quantum mechanics all at the same time. No, you can't. You have to be very mindful to stay connected with the dharma, and it becomes more natural for you.

Perhaps it'll become natural, but then you rest on your laurels. You won't be satisfied with becoming absent-minded. You will want to take it further until you will be mindfulness itself. Ultimately, in Sahaja Samadhi, we are mind.

Mindfulness essentially means, from the principles last week, this is one of the six principles, to give your full attention to what you're doing, but also to give attention with energetic awareness. Do things while feeling your heart chakra, while holding your third eye steady, while activating your navel. Give your full attention to what you're doing, and do it with intentionality.

Be gentle. Be kind. Be positive. Be independent. Be mindful. Be grateful. How can we do all those things with each activity, cutting the carrots, steaming the broccoli?

Principles are the way in which you do everything. When you wash yourself in the shower or the bath, are you washing with gentleness and kindness, with heart, with energy, with dharma?

Mindfulness is required, and mindfulness is something that requires you to keep your mind empty and still and listening. If you're constantly thinking about three things at once, if you're dividing your attention, you're not listening, and it's a morbid state.

One must be very on guard to the possibility of this, especially in a society that pulls and encourages it, because everybody is not valuing emptiness and silence, stillness. It's essential.

How do you go into a deep meditative state if you've been thinking all day? If you've been divided all day, you're going to sit, and it's going to take an hour just to begin meditating. I really don't like it when that happens to me. I have to sit for an hour just to start meditating if I haven't been practicing mindfulness throughout the day.

So there we have it: dharma, meditation in the mirror on the light, and mindfulness.

Shakespeare said, I don't know the full quote exactly, but, "To thine own self be true." A man can't be false to any man. I can't remember exactly. "And it follows, as the night the day." I forget exactly what the quote is, but essentially he's saying one must be true to themselves.

I think most people aren't true to themselves. It takes a lot of things to come into place to be true to yourself.

I'm really working hard to embody my dharma completely. It has been quite the crucible this week, in fact, trying to make sure that everything aligns, because it's the direction. The freeway goes one way, at least the one side of the freeway, and you're going, and you can't do a U-turn. You have to keep going, and that's the dharma.

I'm really disappointed to see that not everybody's here today. In fact, it challenges my dharma because I thought that we were working on something together. So thank you, Andy, for being here. I hope you find this valuable.

Andy Yeah, I do.

Adam Wes Nice. Beautiful. Because you and me, Andy, we're holding the wavelength of a somewhat common dharma. You actually care about this. Somebody who's going and drinking at the clubs or doing something, who knows what they're doing, that's unkosher. They don't necessarily care about this.

You can be a minority of one, but it's more challenging. You may end up an ascetic. You may end up like Gandhi in jail and all kinds of things. It's a challenging life. It's important to find like-minded, kindred spirits who will value these spiritual principles.

Dharma is very central to the great Indian books. If you ever want to read some serious stuff, I actually still haven't gotten through these two big books here. This is the Bhagavad Gita. There's a lot of stuff about dharma in this.

Let's see if I can find something just real quickly.

"The Cosmic Lord said: O sinless one, at the onset of creation, a twofold way of salvation was given by me to this world: for the wise, divine union through wisdom; for the yogis, divine union through active meditation."

Ironically, I feel like that has a lot to do with it. I just flipped over to this page, page 332. That's the Bhagavad Gita. It's the Indian Bible, basically.

Many of these authors that I pick on my shelf are either embodying dharma or talking about it, one of the two. If you're talking about it, you embody it.

Thank you. Any questions? Let's talk about it for a second. We have a couple of minutes.

Ariella, what do you think? I love that you're taking notes. Thank you for doing that.

Ariella It sounds incredible. It really resonates with me.

Adam Wes Wonderful. Oh, wonderful, wonderful!

You know, there are some hints. See, this is why we have to talk, because I haven't shared everything yet.

If you're looking for your dharma, there are many people who don't know what their dharma is. Everybody has a dharma. There's having your dharma, and there's living the dharma. But if I talk about having your dharma, what is it that you're supposed to do in this world? What are you?

Usually, you could say, "I'm a dancer. I'm a painter. I'm a poet. I'm a mathematician. I'm a sound engineer. I'm an entrepreneur. I'm an architect. I'm a physicist." It's usually a single word like that, and you can find it by simply looking and saying, "What were you continuously called back to throughout your life? Are you a social worker? Are you a humanitarian? What are you? An engineer?"

Usually, that's the first step. But not everybody who's a humanitarian or an engineer has the same dharma. The way they relate to it is very subtle and nuanced and infinitely unique.

Elon Musk has a very, very specific dharma. His dharma is engineering, as far as I can tell. It's engineering. That's what he does when he does business.

Steve Jobs is very, very different. Nikola Tesla's dharma was also engineering, but he was this guy who was very much not business-oriented. He said, "How can I harness the nature of electricity and magnetism to create devices for humanity?" He was almost magical.

For me, I'm a mathematician, but I do math in a very particular way, which is a sign of dharmic alignment. When you just do it, your heart tells you the way you should do it.

Usually, people who are very in line with their dharma are great contributors. They're very creative in the sense that there's a novel level of creation that comes through their being. It's as if the divine is coming through and being refracted in a prismatic uniqueness that gifts to the world the dharma of an individual who listened to their heart and had the courage to follow it.

When you look at somebody like Gandhi, I would say his dharma was that he was like a lawyer. He was like a lawyer, but he was so unique. What kind of lawyer is this guy? Well, he's a lawyer who is like dignified integrity, and he directs it through politics in noncooperation.

That's the movie of the week I've recommended, by the way. It's Gandhi, the 1982 film. You can learn a lot about Gandhi through that film. Maybe not exactly about the actuality of Gandhi, but pretty close, I think, some of it.

Ask yourself, what is the common thread? I think everybody here has a pretty good sense of their dharma. Andy is definitely an architect. But what's interesting with Andy, you could perhaps say, "Have I given myself creative freedom to completely engage in architecture in a way that is so true to my heart that it may just shake the ground? In what way have I perhaps been holding back my gifts of unique insight on the way architecture could manifest, not conforming to what has been done, not being limited to what others can envision, but listening to my own inspiration?"

That's a key word for dharma: inspiration.

This is an ongoing exercise. I have a little bit of an artistic crisis on a regular basis, and I say, "Wait a second. Am I just creating for others, or am I creating for myself? Am I doing it based on what I'm familiar with, or am I listening to that unique inspiration and voice in my own heart?"

I ask myself these questions, and I'm very concerned with it when I work. Am I just becoming a parrot, or am I being a channel of God? There's a whole spectrum there. These are the challenges of an artist, the challenges of one who has consecrated themselves to the dharma.

Andy That was perfect. That was exactly what I've been struggling with. It was like you were reading my mind.

Adam Wes Oh, I love it! Well, I think we can thank synchronicity for bringing us together. I think maybe you're the only one who was ready for this talk, Andy.

Andy Maybe. That was pretty big.

Adam Wes This is some pretty serious stuff. If you really accept this, you may find yourself having to change your life in ways that are challenging.

I was perfectly comfortable being a tutor and teaching K through 12, helping with homework and test prep, and I was very good at it. When I started to say, "Whoa, this is not enough," it was a challenge. I faced awful adversity financially. People didn't get what I wanted to share. It took ten years until anybody noticed me on Instagram.

It's horrible, but it was also not horrible, because I get to live with a radiant heart chakra, and I get to persevere and perhaps do something important, more important than just letting mathematics education drift in the same direction of corrupt mechanical memorization, which is essentially what it is.

Colleen Why does dharma only have to be about a profession? Can it not just be? I think my dharma is being a caregiver or a friend. Why can't it just be that?

Adam Wes Usually, it's a creative... Okay.

Colleen You don't have to answer, but I'm just thinking.

Adam Wes I feel that you are in line with your dharma, so I don't think that's not your dharma. I think that that's either an aspect of it or completely what it is. There is such a thing as the caregiver. But usually, dharma has an element of, and perhaps it's there, an element of mastery. It's like a study of some kind.

Colleen Okay.

Adam Wes What does it take to be a wonderful caregiver and a friend to people? I would say your dharma is actually choreography.

Colleen No, it's not.

Adam Wes Or dance. You don't think so?

Colleen No. I love it, but no, I don't think so.

Adam Wes But you are a ballet photographer. You taught ballet for 40 years. You did ballet when you were a teenager.

Colleen I love it. I love it. But I'm just wondering why it has to be something other than a quality that you feel you're best at.

Adam Wes Well, contemplate the word, because perhaps this is it. Dharma is also kind of like what you're supposed to be doing and what you should be doing right now, what you're best at, what you're naturally happy being.

I think what you just said is probably absolutely right. Perhaps it's not as simple. Maybe there's more complexity to it, in the sense that there are different aspects.

But if you think about dharma in terms of a definition, here's a definition: What would I be if I was complete humility, complete love, and completely true to the moment, acting on behalf of the totality as a true expression of myself? What would I be doing spontaneously, with complete trust and faith, without questioning?

I think if you found yourself being a caregiver and a friend, then that would be your dharma. You are that in the family, and in the way you are. I think you're channeling dharma very powerfully.

I would ask myself, though, is there something that you could do for yourself? A lot of times, what would you do if you were by yourself? Would you think about being a caregiver and a friend, and study it and look at the nuances? Perhaps that's it.

But I almost want to gift the possibility to you that if you were to give yourself an hour a day to enjoy your own activity...

Dad's right there. What I envisioned for Dad is, what if Dad got sound design software and started making music like he wanted to do when he was 20 years old, and spent an hour a day doing that like a child, playfully?

Perhaps I'm missing something personally, or maybe there's more nuance to it, but I would say, is there something that you would do for yourself? Because you're always giving. That's the thing. Even in this question, you're giving, giving, giving, giving, giving. What would you do if you were just enjoying your own activity?

Andy, could you sit up late at night just working on architecture by yourself, even if you never had a client? You just did it for yourself, joyfully.

Andy I do. Yeah.

Adam Wes I think it's important for a human being to do that. I think it revitalizes the spirit and the soul. If you only did that and you weren't ever giving, that would be a problem too. But the fact that you have something that you love to do...

I encounter people who are beginners sometimes. They're like, "I've always wanted to paint. I'm so scared. I never do it." Well, just start painting. Give yourself 30 minutes a day to paint. Draw a ridiculous picture that doesn't look good. You'll become so great at it because you're doing it for the love of doing it.

There's this word, autotelic. It means, "I do it for the love of doing it, and I completely challenge myself to go further and further because I just love it."

I think everybody should have something they do for themselves, with themselves.

Ariella, do you have something you do like that? Are you a writer?

Ariella I mean, I've written a booklet. I don't think of myself as a writer.

Adam Wes Here's the invitation for everybody. If you were to give yourself 30 minutes a day from now on to do something for you, where after ten years you would be really, really, really good at it, just because of the consistency, what would it be? Not out of pressure, but out of freedom.

For me, it was, "Really? I can sit down and code mathematics, study mathematical concepts that most people don't understand or care about, just for me?"

Yes, please. It awakens a power in you. More light comes through you when you do this.

Mom, only you would know. I invite you to ask these questions.

Colleen Yeah, I'm thinking about it. Of course, I would like to dance, but my body is not dancing anymore. I can do a teeny bit, but that's not it. I will tell you more another time when I see you.

Adam Wes You know what just happened to me? I love you so much, and some part of me hurts not to see you engaging in your dharma. You give of yourself 24/7.

Colleen But if I could visit somebody and help somebody out every day for an hour, that would be my dharma. I love doing that. For me, it's for them, but it gives me pleasure.

Adam Wes That is wonderful and amazing, and so true. When you love, when you make others the center and you help them, that's almost like another aspect of it. That's a separate thing.

If your dharma is architecture, what do you do? Well, you build a school. What if Andy gave and gave and gave of himself, and felt joy in giving, teaching as a professor of architecture, all kinds of things? Or just being with a friend, not talking about architecture at all, just being there.

Beautifully, you're such an archetypal example. To give of yourself and make others the center is a spiritual principle unto itself. I'm suggesting perhaps there's another spiritual principle, which is to enjoy the thing that you enjoy for yourself, to do both of them. I think both are important.

Sometimes you give in the context of the ballet. Sometimes you give just by listening to somebody talk and their problems. But I think the mastery of the dharma helps you, empowers you to do so.

Why do you like ballet photography so much? Because it connects you. I would imagine you feel like you're doing the ballet when you're watching the people doing it. You're a part of it. That's why you go for your walk, put on your classical music, and choreograph in your mind.

If you're an Olympic gymnast and you're 90 years old, it's harder to do your dharma in the way you did when you were 17, but that doesn't mean you stop doing it.

Colleen You're right.

Adam Wes It's amazing because your initial response was, "But I just like to make others the center." I think that's the shadow of your giving side. You have to also make yourself the center because you are also the others. Your joy needs to be attended to.

I don't know if I know anybody who gives as much as you do. I think that is your most beautiful quality. But it also concerns me that you're not having just five percent of your time, maybe ten percent, giving to your dharma, whatever that is.

Colleen I will think about it more. Thank you.

Adam Wes It brings peace.

Colleen I have too much time.

Adam Wes Yeah. Okay. All right, we have to meditate. Let's do it. Thank you, everybody.

Ariella Oh, yeah.

Adam Wes Ariella, please. Yes?

Ariella I have to leave, but it's so wonderful that I could be here talking about dharma with you.

Adam Wes You're welcome. Thank you. It's so nice to see you, Ariella.

Ariella Blessings.

Adam Wes Blessings. Love and blessings.

All right, let's meditate. Become still. Bring attention to the heart center. I'm not going to talk so much since I talked so much already. What about a 15-minute meditation?

When you're ready, come out of the meditation.

You have to fall in love with meditation. It should be your joy, your home inside yourself. The more you do it, the more it has the possibility of being that for you.

Mom, would you like to share a little bit? Then we'll stop soon.

Colleen It just feels really good. Thank you, Adam.

Adam Wes What feels good?

Colleen Meditation.

Adam Wes Oh, yeah, exactly. It's a massage from the universe, man. Free massages from the universe, directly.

Colleen Okay.

Adam Wes You're welcome. Can you describe your experience just for a moment?

Colleen I just went to it very quickly, very deeply. I saw some colors in the beginning, and then the 15 minutes went very fast.

Adam Wes Wonderful. What colors?

Colleen First red, and then the purply pink, and then the greens with purply pink.

Adam Wes I love you so much. Beautiful. Namaste, Mom. Thank you.

Amazing, beautiful light spectrum. You're seeing consistency too. You really connected with the red. Wow! I'd love to see that red. Transmit it to me. I know exactly what it feels like. I should meditate on the red sometime.

Namaste, Andy. How about you?

Andy It was a great kind of mind trip. I literally think I saw every single person in the world. It was crazy.

Adam Wes Amazing. Wow. Some amazing stuff can happen when you start going into light and stilling the mind. I wouldn't put it past you. That sounds incredible. Amazing.

Anything else to share about it?

Andy It was just little snippets of things and colors and motion and people. It literally was like watching every moment of every movie, but also making it at the same time while being there, and then just in all kinds of different spatial experiences.

Adam Wes I recommend you write about that before you interact with anybody or check your phone. Just write about it and see if you can integrate or bring greater lucidity to the experience. It'll help you get back to it and perhaps undergo a greater transformation as a result of it.

Andy Yeah, okay.

Adam Wes Wonderful. How about you, Daddy?

Colin You know that I don't comment.

Adam Wes Okay. Sounds good.

Colin Thank you for calling on me to comment, but no, thank you.

Adam Wes Okay, sure.

Colin Namaste, Adam.

Adam Wes Namaste.

We have somebody who just joined. We're actually just wrapping up. Nice to meet you, though. Nice to see your name. We start at 6 p.m., which was an hour ago.

All right, everybody. I'll see you next week. Thank you so much.

Colleen Thank you. Namaste.

Adam Wes Namaste.

Dharma is being true to what one is and allowing that truth to shape creative work, service, livelihood, and daily life.

• Dharma can be understood as truth and duty, being true to what one is.
• Sva dharma is a person’s natural gift, art, creative endeavor, service, and way of making sense of life.
• Dharma is not limited to profession. It may include caregiving, friendship, creative work, livelihood, and service.
• An activity aligned with dharma is done for the love of doing it. Fulfillment is found in the activity itself, and it evolves into mastery.
• General dharma is the concurrence of the whole, with no separate nature.
• Humility, self-acceptance, divine love, and clarity help reveal dharma.
• The heart helps one become what one is, the third eye helps one know what one is, and the navel center supports the will to remain true to oneself.
• Meditation in the light can purify and clarify the being so that dharma is revealed.
• Mindfulness means giving full, undivided attention with energetic awareness, while keeping the mind empty, still, and listening.
• Dharmic alignment may require livelihood, community, and creative work to become more faithful to one’s inspiration.
• Service to others and joyful activity done for oneself are both important.
• Meditation can become a joy and a home inside oneself.

Consider what you would freely give 30 minutes a day to doing for yourself, simply because you love it. Let it be something you can return to consistently, without pressure and without concern for results, allowing joy, inspiration, and mastery to grow through the activity.

• Giving full attention to one activity at a time, with the mind empty, still, and listening.
• Feeling the heart, holding the third eye steady, and activating the navel while engaged in ordinary activities.
• Noticing what you have been continuously called back to throughout your life.
• Making space for something done joyfully, for the love of doing it.
• Listening for unique inspiration rather than creating only from familiarity or the expectations of others.
• Bringing gentleness, kindness, positivity, independence, mindfulness, and gratitude into daily activities.
• Sitting before a mirror, gazing broadly, and holding everything in the light.
• Attending both to service and to personal joy.

• What has your heart called you back to throughout your life?
• What activity makes you feel at home in yourself?
• What would complete humility, complete love, and truth to this moment look like now?