Guilt is a driving force in our life choices, mostly without us realising it. We feel guilty within our most important relationships and responsibilities because something else is tugging at us: something our mind conceives of as bigger or more fulfilling than we allow ourselves to experience in everyday life.
And we also feel a deep pang of guilt that we are somehow not following our truest or highest calling. For whatever reason, we fear we are somehow betraying ourselves and not embracing the life we could have.
Guilt is a mental trap that keeps us dissatisfied because it is impossible to answer to all of these calls at once! Or is it?
Like most people, over the past year and a half I have felt this pushing and pulling in different directions very strongly as my family and I have had to adjust to the constantly evolving and often restrictive global situation. So many plans have been set aside or tossed in the air, to be replaced by what was more pressing or achievable in the moment.
Yet this adjustment reflects the true nature of living through one’s Dharma, which is a Sanskrit word that can be interpreted as life path or duty. Following one’s Dharma is not about railroading through whatever is happening to accommodate a pre-conceived vision of an over-arching life path. Rather, it is recognising that one’s life path or purpose is a quality that one brings to everything.
As Lord Krishna tells Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, do what is needed in each moment, without focusing on a particular outcome. This is very different from our contemporary tendency to focus on the results as our guiding vision!
karmaṇy-evādhikāras te mā phaleṣhu kadāchana
mā karma-phala-hetur bhūr mā te saṅgo ’stvakarmaṇi
You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions. Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities, nor be attached to inaction.
For example, if one’s Dharma has a quality of protecting and defending, there will be a way to express that in whatever arises. This could look like protecting the environment or defending the weak and disenfranchised – one could be a householder or a warrior, and the quality of intention would be the same.
Rather than focusing on the fruits, or results, of our actions, we live our Dharma through who we are and how we act in every moment.
I recall reading about an off-duty soldier who stepped up in his role – his Dharma – during the recent summer floods in the Belgian Ardennes. The sewage drains were constantly blocking in the heavy waters, and he was kneeling up to his neck in water to dig them out with his bare hands, because that was what the moment required. If he had narrowly interpreted his Dharma as being a warrior dressed in fatigues and showing up on the battlefield, he would never be able to fulfil his life path as one who protects others.
When we think of life mostly in terms of goals and plans, we will often feel that we have failed or missed the mark when we (inevitably) need to change or let go of them. But if we can think of life as a way of being while moving through all of it, we will always feel close to our Dharma and therefore less threatened by change.
Throughout life we are often afraid of change while simultaneously fearing things remaining as they are, largely because we put such emphasis on the outer (apparent) quality of life. It’s a terrible place from which to make decisions!
At which end of the spectrum do you find yourself today?
If you want some help figuring out your Dharma, or feeling your way through your current situation, get more insight and clarity by scheduling an Astrology reading or a Personal Guidance session with Susan today.
