What is Dharma?
A person without understanding is like a person on a ship at sea that can never reach shore. Eventually, the ship must sink. There is a life saver aboard. One of those round floatation devices.
If you jump in the water with it, you feel exposed and you miss the comforts and conveniences of the ship. But you also remember how you always knew ultimately it would sink.
Sometimes you question the decision, and you cling to the ship and its familiarity.
This life saver has a curious special property that it subtly drifts towards safety. It says so on its directions, but its very hard to trust, especially as you begin drifting away from the old ship. Most of the time, its movement is imperceptible.
As you get further away, you eventually lose sight of the ship entirely and you are surrounded by fog and feel utterly adrift. A certain desperation sets in, because turning back is no longer possible. This is only alleviated by a subtle sense of the pull of the life saver.
Then one day you feel something under a toe. It feels like land. Just for a fleeting moment. Afterwards, you quickly question whether it was even real.
But eventually, it returns. The tug of the life saver gradually ensures you continue to experience the ground under foot, then both feet and finally, you can stand for a time on it before being washed away by the tide again.
This goes on for some time, until one way to your amazement you are washed entirely ashore. Then the waves hit you. You are in a kind of half-in-half out condition. You might even be pulled back out to sea. But it’s different now, because you know the land is real.
Finally, you are able to sit at the shore and observe. You can see the ocean with all its vessels, some stately and impressive, looking almost eternal, some ragged and poor, ready to sink. You can see some people in their life savers, of all shapes and kinds, at varies distance from the land.
It comes on your awareness about the others on the beach with you. Some are like you, just becoming accustomed to it, but others are there, doing something.
They are making life savers.
Every single person has a very special life saver, made just for their exact composition, and it is structured out of many different elements. You can sense the being who made your life saver and you feel the most intense gratitude.
You decide you’ll learn how to make them as well and stay there in the surf getting wet, even though the plain truth is the land feels so much better and you can see it beckoning.
But they didn’t leave you out there to drown so you aren’t going to let the others down either.
Dharma is the life saver.
