This is the first part of a 12-part speech series by Swami Prakashanand Saraswati, where he unravels the profound wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita. In this opening session, he clarifies the distinction between dharm and sampraday, emphasizing how dharm, the true path of righteousness, leads to both inner peace and spiritual fulfillment.
Speech 1 by Swami Prakashanand Saraswati:
Dear souls: In the previous series of Gita, we learned about the philosophy of God realization in detail. There are many religions in the world, also in India, and Gita is supposed to be the origin of all the religions. How is it, we are going to learn in this series.
Religion is an English word. We have two words in Sanskrit or Hindi: “dharm”, and “sampraday”. Actually, sampraday is translated as religion, not dharm. Dharm and sampraday. Sampraday means religion. What is the meaning of the word dharm? A very common description or definition (Sanskrit quote). Everyone knows. All the preachers or teachers who come from India. It’s a very common definition. But seldom someone explains the meaning of this.
Literal meaning is, you can say in one sentence, “the way of happiness”. Dharm: the way of happiness, or the path of happiness. But the meaning of that phrase is (Sanskrit). Abhudaya means worldly happiness. Nishreyas means Divine happiness by which both are attained. That path is dharm. So nishreyas means spiritual happiness. That’s all right, we understand, means bliss of God or God realization if we follow the path of dharm. But how one could be happy in the world if he follows the path of that dharm? Happiness of the world we consider as being wealthy, having good friends, having fun, enjoying the world, good health. That’s all.
So, is it possible to follow any kind of dharm and be, in a worldly sense, called prosperous? Is it possible? If it is possible, everybody can follow that dharm and become prosperous in the world. But it’s very illogical, Absolutely illogical. But the meaning is same – abhudaya. Abhudaya. We go deeper in the meaning. How (do) the Scriptures say abhudaya? By following dharm. Abhudaya actually means abai biday. Means you rise. You rise. “You” means what? “You” means your consciousness. Your good consciousness rises. That’s it. Abhudaya.
If we go in detail, means there are two kinds of dharm, par and upar. Par dharm for God realization and apar dharm for this first term, abhudaya. And apar dharm, according to our Vedas is also explained in great detail. You can understand it’s like being good, doing good, doing rituals, doing formalities of the Vedas – all those good things to do is apar dharm. So, by following those rules and regulations of the Vedas, how one could be happy in a worldly sense? The idea is that if you follow that dharm, you develop a kind of good consciousness, being good to others. Suppose someone harms you in any form, insults you, gives you monetary loss, any damage to your personality, money, property, defames you… any kind of harm a person gives to you, you don’t like it. So, whatever you don’t like others to do for you, don’t do the same thing for others. A simple explanation. You want everyone should be honest with you? Then you try to be honest with others. Simple form of dharm. Simple. Whatever you like to be or to receive from others, do it for others. That’s generosity.
So this has been explained in our Scriptures in detail, especially in the Vedas. A person is protecting his family, respecting others, helping his neighbors and society, not breaking laws of the government, giving some charity (10% of his income according to manu smriti), doing some form of worship to God, following rituals of the Vedas like just worshipping Supreme God three times a day and celebrating through Vedic hymns with a feeling of God consciousness. Experiencing various occasions of life like birth and death and marriage and all that, but having God consciousness.
These are simple explanations of Vedic dharm; they are in great detail. But that’s enough for you to understand. Means doing all the good things to form a good society. That’s it. And also having God in your mind at every step of any kind of function or worship or celebration. In India throughout the year, we have hundreds of such religious celebrations – eleventh moon night, full moon night, eighth moon night, sometimes Janmashtmi, Ramashtmi, Ram Naumi, Durgashtmi, Shiva Ratri, thirteenth moon night – there’s so many. They’re all religious, means like following apar dharm, the first part of dharm.
So, will it make you happy? Will this give you money and prosperity and other things? No. It won’t give you any worldly prosperity. Then how could you be happy? If we try to learn what is happiness and who experiences happiness. Suppose you are enjoying a delicious meal sent by some friend to your house. Is your mouth feeling happy? No. Mouth is mouth. Mind, mind feels happy. Your mind. Mind is not working? Suppose somebody is sleeping fast and the same nice morsel kept into your mouth. Will you enjoy? No. Mouth cannot enjoy. Eyes cannot enjoy the scene. Soft touch can’t be enjoyed through touching by hand. Mind is the enjoyer. Mind. Not the physical body, not the physical senses. Only mind can enjoy. Only mind. Physical body is the means of transferring some information. That’s it. And that positive information is received by the mind, and it says “Oh yes, it’s good, this happiness, it’s great.” So, they transfer the information, your senses, of enjoyment. Your physical senses cannot enjoy anything. Only mind enjoys. Mind.
Suppose the same meal you were enjoying a lot, and your son comes and tells that “Dad, this was sent by that person, your ex-business partner”. You were eating something; you dropped it. “That nasty ex-business partner? He cheated on me.” Enjoy the meal? No. You can’t enjoy because your mind has now secured information that this delicious food was sent by someone you don’t like; you hate that person. With this new information, the same food, you’d like to throw it away. So, the happiness of your mind is happiness of your mind. Physical things cannot make you happy or unhappy. Your decision of the mind, information you receive, accordingly, your mind acts.
So, one thing is importan: worldly luxuries, they don’t make you happy. If your mind is happy, everything is good. If mind is unhappy, everything is useless, bad. Suppose you have plenty of money, millions and billions of dollars, but no one really loves you. You feel discarded, disheartened, dejected, devoid of everything in the mind. “Oh, it’s all useless.” Means your mind, not the physical wealth, not the worldly luxuries, your mind is either happy or unhappy.
And suppose in a very small family, poor family or 3 or 4 people, and they are earning their hard-earned wages, simple-hearted people, living happily. They are happy. Their boss where they are working might be very unhappy. So in general, your mind receives happiness of this world also. So, by doing this apar dharm, it’s called seemit dharm or apar dharm, means the secondary part of dharm, doing good, being good in the society. So by following this part of apar dharm, a person develops pure pious consciousness, pious. This kind of sattvic consciousness: sattvic. So someone in sattvic consciousness, normally his mind is peaceful.
There are three kinds of consciousness: sattvic, rajas, tamas. Tamas consciousness = devilish. Rajas consciousness = selfish consciousness, and sattvic consciousness means a pious consciousness. So pious consciousness, sattvic consciousness, always keeps your mind in a peaceful state. So you are happy. Simple. Simple answer, you are happy. So how to receive happiness in this world? Keep your mind happy.
Now one more cause of unhappiness, just like extreme poverty when you have nothing much to eat, physical bad sickness, very big disaster in your family, or somebody defames you to a great extent. All these things are really hurting. So it’s like being born in a very, very poor family, very weak health, deformed from childhood. These kind of things, they are really a real misery you can say. So if somebody is following this proper dharm, what will happen to him? In a future life, he will be born as a normal person. As a normal person. Normally good person, and normal living. Not a very wealthy living so you forget God and everybody in the pride of your own wealth.
So this dharm, following the apar dharm, or the secondary dharm, a person in this lifetime enjoys the peacefulness of mind, and in next lifetime, he’s born in a normal family where he’s earning his money in a honest business, honest service, probably, and again following the same dharm. So abhudaya means the peacefulness of the mind, that’s it. Not God realization. Peacefulness of the mind. So by following dharm, you receive abhudaya, means worldly happiness. What is worldly happiness? Peacefulness of the mind. That’s it. And also you receive Divine enlightenment, God realization, both. Means worldly happiness in the form of mental peacefulness by being good and by doing good, and also by following par dharm, realizing God and experiencing His bliss.
So there are two kinds of dharmas; one following the mental peace and the second for God realization. So the first one is apar. Apar means lower or secondary, and the other one is par, means primary or the absolute or the final dharm. So final dharm for God realization, and apar dharm (secondary, lower dharm) for mental peacefulness. Having a peaceful life in the world, and that is the happiness of this world, it’s called abhudaya.
These both dharmas, par and apar, lower and upper, primary and secondary, both dharmas, who introduced? No one. They were never introduced. They are both eternal, so they are called sanatan dharm. Sanatan means eternal, never started, so they will never finish. Never started. Eternally they are there – both. For worldly peace and happiness while living in the world and for God realization. And both dharmas are very explicitly explained in great, great detail in Vedas and most smritigranthas. In great detail. Both dharmas. So they are sanatan dharm, eternal dharm, or Vedic dharm coming from the Vedas – whatever you may say, because Vedas are also eternal. So, we have two eternal dharmas.
So eternal dharm, how they were introduced in this world? Yes. That could be a question. How they were introduced in this world? So in this world, when human civilization started trillions of years ago, in the very very beginning of human civilization in this planetery system. At that time the Vedas (were introduced), through those great saints of that time who had received the knowledge of Vedas from Brahm directly, like from inside to inside transfer of knowledge. Not by vocal communication. Not through any speech. Not through any writing. Just transfer of knowledge from heart to heart, from mind to mind. They were all Divine, so they received the Divine message, and then there were quite a few generations of saints.
That time was called Brahm kalp, when Brahm created this planetary system, the very first day of his life. He had lived already fifty years of his life, and that was very first day. That was “kalp”, means Brahm’s day, Brahm kalp. In that Brahm kalp there were only Saints on this earth planet, in a part of this globe, not all over. There was also India, means Bharatvarsh at that time. In Bharatvarsh, somewhere on this globe, there were thousands and thousands of Saints. Only Saints. And how they came into being? Just Brahm produced them. He thought “a thousand Saints be produced”, and they were there. They were all Divine. Then a few thousand more Brahm produced. They were there. And those Saints were absorbed in God consciousness of the Divine status. So their hearts were impregnated with the Vedic knowledge, knowledge of the Vedas. So, they kept on transferring. Brahm transferred his knowledge from his mind to those first Saints. Then those second Saints who came again after that, they transferred to them. They transferred to them for quite a few generations – 3, 4, 5 generations, and all those generations were just the Saints; this knowledge was transferred. So the knowledge was called shruti at that time. It was transferred to them from Brahm. Then they transferred into the heart of other Saints, then some time they spoke and transferred, that’s called shruti. Just by listening, they received the whole knowledge of the Vedas. So from then on, in the Vedas, both kinds of dharms, par and apar, secondary apar, and par primary for God realization, both dharms were introduced in this world.
Conclusion:
Swami Prakashanand Saraswati highlights that true happiness does not stem from material wealth but from a peaceful and pure mind. By following dharm, one cultivates sattvic consciousness, ensuring both inner contentment and spiritual progress. Further ahead, in Part 2 of this series, Swamiji will explain deeper insights into dharm and its impact on life.