The Oxford dictionary defines religion as the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power. This fits in very well with the popularly conceived notion, “as many beliefs, as many paths”. Religion is “very personal”, and every person is entitled to hold his view of religion and to the type and extent of his belief. After all, it is a belief—with no scientific evidence for its veracity.
The Sanskrit equivalent which comes closest to the word religion, is dharma. Although the word dharma is generally translated and understood as religion, its definition as given in the Vedic scriptures is vastly different.
The true meaning of the word dharma is “that intrinsic quality of an entity which cannot be separated from it”. Thus, the dharma of water is to be liquid, dharma of sugar is to be sweet and dharma of chilli is to be pungent.
Whatever our belief, water cannot become a non liquid, sugar cannot lose its sweetness and chilli will not lose its pungency.
Whatever our belief, dharma cannot change.
If we go by this definition of dharma, then what is the dharma of a human being? What is it that is so intrinsic to every human being that doesn’t change, despite any belief— be it Hindu, Christian or any other, despite any nationality — may it be India, America or China, despite age and gender? With a bit of common sense and observation, we can see that despite all differences, everyone is engaged in service. Someone is serving his own body, someone is serving his family, someone is serving his community, someone is serving his nation and someone is serving humanity — but nobody is free from service.
Whether it is the poor beggar in the street or the President of the richest nation of the world, everyone is engaged in some service or the other. Thus we can conclude that the dharma of a human being is to serve.
But we see that although a person serves a subject of his choice throughout his life — sometimes selflessly and tirelessly— at the end of it, he remains dissatisfied and unhappy.
If the dharma of a human being is to serve, then why is he not happy doing it? The answer is given in the Chaitanya Charitamrita thus: Krishna bhuli sei jiva anadi bahirmukha, ata eva maya tare deya samsara duhkha.
“Forgetting Krishna, the living entity has been attracted by the external feature from time immemorial. Therefore the illusory energy (maya) gives him all kinds of misery in his material existence.” Our actual position is to serve Krishna, not the material body or anything related to it like the senses, family or nation. Today we are born in a particular nation and call ourselves Indian.
Tomorrow, when we die and take on a different body, we will call ourselves Americans. As such these bodily designations keep changing. Accordingly, the object of our service also changes.
And due to this, we never find happiness in such service.
However, a person in knowledge knows his true position to be: jivera svarupa haya — krishnera nitya dasa.
“It is the living entity’s constitutional position to be an eternal servant of Krishna”.
Thus we can attain the true happiness and satisfaction that we are searching for only when we invest our serving propensity in Krishna, the true master of all.
As the Srimad Bhagavatam mentions: yatha taror mulanishechanena, tripyanti tat-skandha bhujopashakhah, pranopaharacha yathendriyanam, tathaiva sarvarhanam achyutejya.
“By giving water to the root of a tree one satisfies its branches, twigs and leaves, and by supplying food to the stomach one satisfies all the senses of the body. Similarly, by engaging in the transcendental service of the supreme lord one automatically satisfies all the demigods and all other living entities.” Serving one’s family, society or nation is like pouring water to the leaves or twigs of the tree.
If we serve Krishna, it is like watering the root of the tree.
While service to family or society is recommended in the Vedas, we cannot forget that the highest dharma is to serve Lord Krishna.