SvaDharma: ' This above all: to thine own self be true...'

There is no single English word which embraces the concept of dharma. It is your essential nature, law, duty, path. The unifying dharma of all of us is the Atman, but each of us has an individual dharma because of our vasanas (unmanifestied desires). The tiger must hunt, the nightingale must sing, the cow must yield. Similarly, there are tigers among men, nightingales among men, cows among men. We must act according to our dharma if we are to have peace in this life. In the words of the Shakesperian character, Polonius, ' This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.' Self-realisation may be many lives away, but if we have been true to ourselves, to our own dharma, we wi die having advanced some way towards the Eternal Self." [Purport of BG 3.35 by Swami A. Parthasarathy, in The Essential Teachings of Hinduism, edited by Kerry Brown, 1988. Rider: London et al.]