Dharma is the best

There’s a chemistry of thought running through these childlike propositions 

Plus    and  Plus =    Plus 

Minus and  Minus = Minus 

Plus    and Minus =  Plus or Minus, depending on which is bigger 

Hydrogen gas and Oxygen = water 

The end product is either one of the combining elements (Plus or Minus) or something new that embeds the elements but not the properties of either .

Now this one .

Male  and Female = child

The child is a new life but endowed with some elements of physique and nature from either or both parents. (the Baap par gaya hai, Maa par gaya hai truism) 

Thus laws of the material world and the laws of living beings differ. Material laws are static, imperishable and predictable. There is an abiding sense of certainty and finality in the inanimate world. Do laws for humans carry the same feel of definiteness ? For lower forms of life , yes, for they are governed by matsya nyaya, the law of the jungle that makes survival of the fittest the enduring supreme truth. However, laws for the highest form of life and its salvation can’t be the same. 

Different religions, spiritual leaders and seers have sought to divine these laws but only come up with dissimilar prescriptions for righteous conduct, many in sharp conflict with each other. But there is a common substratum of rules of conduct running through each system of theological thought. We can name it revealed truth, universal ethics, morality or whatever ,but the Hindu conception of Dharma, to my mind ,comes closest to embracing the whole common area. 

Dharma includes all that is rightful conduct but also much more. It is flexible and a practical path to human salvation. Dharma would make it rightful for a starving rishi ,Viswakarma, to steal dog meat from a chandala when faced with a choice of death or theft . Preserving the divine gift of life overwhelms all ethics in this case. So must Duryodhana be killed by landing unethical blows, but die he must for his vanity has been the cause of mahabharat. So the manner of his slaying is inconsequential and his elimination a dharmic necessity.

The current strife between peoples of different religious denominations espousing the supremacy of their particular faiths seems so futile, unwarranted . Between religion defined sins and virtues and the universal ethics of rights and wrongs lies the dharmic course. Dharma meanders between the two boundaries, electing the action from within their bounds that which is most appropriate to a given situation, a given moment and a given place. It is the spiritual path to salvation- individual-centric and incorporating the best of religion and ethics. According supremacy to universal normatic rules of conduct rather than faith dictates will surely make the world a better and healthier place for its inhabitants .