Dharma

Dharma is a word without direct translation, but implies 'religion,' 'duty,' and 'righteousness.' It derives from a Sanskrit root word meaning 'to uphold or sustain'. The concept behind Dharma is anything that upholds or sustains a positive order. For example, an individual, a family, a community, a nation and the universe all help uphold order.

Ever since I can remember, since I was a child  I had this strange behavior or rather a thought pattern –well I have a few, but this one came to mind today. Maybe I am just strange, or probably suffer from some estranged aberration or affliction; or maybe I am simply from an other galaxy having accidentally arrived on this planet-the latter statement is more or less a fiction of my imagination.

I am a person that has great reverence of all life- be that animal or vegetable.  Since I was conscious of my thoughts, I had this strange practice of putting myself into the mind of  be that anything that had a living vibration when I saw it or came into contact with it. By this I mean for example - that when I see a tiny, bug  like a cricket, I imagine that I am that small creature and try and see things and experience as I image he would- seeing through his tiny eyes. How it may feel, experience or perceive things around him. They all want to live-so I save all whom ever I can save.

A young monk and his teacher were in a river, and a scorpion fell into the water as it dropped from a tree trying to sting the monk. The monk took a leaf and gently picked the scorpion from the water and place him on the river bank. The young student was perplexed-, “Master why did you save the scorpion that was about to sting you ? “The monk responded, “The dharma of the scorpion is to sting- but my dharma is to save him”. –great lesson.

This is what native indigenous people call-walking in an other`s moccasins- which does not only mean walking in the human shoes. By doing this one can feel, or imagine what that creature may feel, experience and in a way think-which we often think of as instinct, but which may not be that at all-, for we know so little. But this is I feel is expressing  compassion towards all living things. I also have this with humans-when I see a situation, or someone driving I imagine myself to be them, and what perhaps they are thinking, at that moment, experiencing – it is almost like I  actually access them in a way where I feel and see with their eyes- It is a most strange feeling.

Now this happens to me up and down the scale- to the smallest to the largest in the animal kingdom; as well as humans. Strangely enough to the vegetable kingdom as well, that is often I have even a problem getting rid of a weed or picking a flower, I image what it may feel like, what it may experience and maybe even feel pain-loss or grief or sadness- I bless and say a few words of thanksgiving to it.  One then really feels the connections and sees them with a different eye- or rather heart.  This is the reason we never ever had a cut Christmas tree- always a live one which we planted later into the garden.

This really fall in line with Hinduism-and re-incarnation . All is a cycle and  perhaps it is true that we have to experience all forms of life, and we all have to experience all of creation personally, as we are all connected from the tiniest to the greatest-within the heart of God.-So I really try not to kill anything and live within harmony with all of life.