Dharma is as Much a Speculation as Share Market

Dharma is the most common term in all Indian religions which is often defined as ‘the eternal law of the cosmos, inherent in the very nature of things’. The word dharma comes from the root ‘dhṛ’ meaning— (the law) "to hold, maintain, keep" (the cosmos). In Hinduism, dharma signifies behaviors that are considered to be in accord with ‘rta’, the order that makes life and universe possible, and includes duties, rights, laws, conduct, virtues and ‘‘right way of living’’.

However, unlike any other laws of science or mathematics (Newton’s law, Gravitation Law,  Phythogorous Theorem),  Dharma has no universal definition. The laws of science and mathematics are same for any part of the world and do not change with time, space, culture, faith and religion. However, the laws of ‘Dharma’ are quite subjective and not same even for two people of the same family or even for the same person at different time.

The spiritual leaders have tried to give many laws of dharma-often called moral and ethics in Western world, but none seems to have any universal application. For every law of dharma, you can find just the opposite law, which is also claimed to be an equally good dharma, often in the same religion and even the same Scripture.

The Illusion of the laws of Dharma

One of the most popular laws of dharma in Hinduism is “Ahimsa Paramo Dharma” (Nonviolence is the Greatest Religion/Dharma). This law is quite popular all over the world, thanks of Gandhi. But we also find equally opposite law of violence in Hinduism as all Incarnations of God on this world had been there to kill the people who followed the path of so called Adharma.  Who does not know the following sloka of Gita— ‘Whenever there is decay of righteousness, O Bharata and there is exaltation of unrighteousness, then I Myself come forth for the protection of the good, for the destruction of evil-doers. For the sake of firmly establishing righteousness, I am born from age to age’.

You also don’t know if nonviolence is applicable only for human beings of violence against all animals are prohibited.  Even the greatest votaries of nonviolence like Jesus Christ and Buddha did not prohibit killing of animals and meat eating.

Dharma can mean different thing to different people. One on side, you have the laws of Karma, which stipulates that you can make your own destiny by doing the good or evil karma without any interference from God. However, on the other side there are millions of people visiting temples of Tirupati, Sai Baba, Vashno Devi or taking bath in holy rivers in the hope that they can please God and overcome their evil karma by these rituals and prayers. If millions of Hindus and Buddhism perform Idol worship, it is a greatest sin in Judaism and Islam—punishable by death.  If God is One in Judaism and Islam, God is ‘Three’ is Christianity and there are 330 million in Hinduism.

What is right and who is wrong?

The result is that no one can really define what dharma is, as a universal concept or law. Yet the believer often believes that their dharma is universal and that everyone must follow the dharma. However, you can’t change the reality by assumptions and presumptions. If you only open your eyes to the wider reality, you are bound to notice that there is an equal and opposite law of dharma—which is considered to be equally universal by another group of believers. It is for this reason, religion has become the greatest source of conflict in the present world—because no one is willing to see the ‘other side’, and understand the futility of sticking to their dharma.

The Share Market Speculation

The reality is that for every law of dharma, there is just an opposite law of dharma. Let us try to understand why such opposite laws of dharma exists in the world by understanding the concept of share market.

Nowadays most major companies in the world are not owned by any individual but are owned by large number of people (shareholders), who hold ‘shares’ of the company. Unlike the value of currency, which is well defined, the value of share is quite speculative. The value of share depends not only on the profit of the company making now and giving dividend based on the current income, but also based on the future prospect of the company.  It is difficult to know the future of any company, but everyone has an opinion about the future prospect.

Since, most of us are not aware of the internal structure of a company; we are often dependent upon the so called market experts to know the future of the company.  There are so many experts in the share market, who all wish the share prices to rise so that all the share holders (including themselves) make good profit all the time. Hence, in order to motivate the investors to buy more, they always present a much rosier picture of the company, economy of the country and the world. 

However, when more people believe on the optimistic forecasts of the experts, there are less sellers and more buyers that increases the share prices to more and more leading to the ‘bull run’ till such point when you have less and less buyers left in the market. This level is much higher than the actual value of the stock. 

However, the reality can’t be changed by wishful thinking and optimistic forecasts. When the illusion of optimism reduces and people start seeing the reality, they understand that they have purchased the shares at higher prices and then everyone wishes to get rid of the shares and the opposite trend , the ‘bear run’ starts and the shares start sliding. The bottom of this bear run is much lesser than the actual value of the stock.

Share Market and Dharma

People invest in share market, because they are not satisfied with the assured returns on their investments in the form of fixed deposits, and wish to multiply their money much more rapidly by investing in the share market. They wish to become rich very soon. There is virtually no advertisement for the fixed deposits while there are numerous business channels and millions of marketing executives working for investment bankers and mutual funds, who are there to convince you that investing in share is far more profitable. Of course, these marketing executives are not convincing you for charity or in your interest—but because they are paid enormous salary, commission and bonuses for making you invest in the shares instruments.  

Like the investment bankers, many clever people found it profitable to convince the people to follow a path which is convenient by promising them unrealistic benefits. It is only when people followed their advice, they found that the promises were not genuine and then they got totally disillusioned.

Let us accept that human beings are not divine but the spiritual Gurus try to convince the humanity to become divine by following what they called the path of dharma. When you follow the path of dharma, you start losing in the world and you are forced to follow the opposite path.

Take the case of nonviolence, which is often said to be the greatest of the dharma. Who can argue that we should resort to violence? But what do you do when you face violence by others. Jesus said, “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well”. However, we know that the next step of the evil person would be to throw you out of your house and take all your wealth, possession and even your wife and children.  If all member of a society or a nation follow complete nonviolence, they can be defeated and made slave by a small number of violent people. The history of India is full of such instances when a minuscule number of violent people conquered the entire country and ruled for hundreds of years.

What do you do when you are thrown out of your house and all your possessions taken? Can you still remain nonviolent? Can you still love your enemy?

In such situation, the opposite principle of Dharma—eye for eye and tooth for tooth, become the cry of the society.

We can see the illusion of all principles, rituals and theories which are considered to be sacrosanct and Gospel Truth. We have been told that God loves unconditionally and forgive all our sins. Yet we know that there are so much suffering, crime and evil in this world, which can’t be explained, if God is indeed all loving and forgiving. Hence we have to invent the principle of Karma and Justice of God to explain the pain and misery.

There is no Universal Dharma

There seems to be no universal law of dharma which can have universal applicability. Our actions depend on the action of others. All the concepts of dharma, virtues, ethics and moral, which try to artificially lift the humanity of man also causes the man to fall below subhuman level by doing inhuman acts.

Yet the average human behaviour is improving gradually but slowly over the years due to change of its values over time just as the average share prices are increasing the over a period of time as represented in this graph of share market NIFTY in the figure.

Just like a bear market is inbuilt in every bull market and universal bull market is impossible, the unrealistic standards of dharma are also impossible.  A bear market gives birth to bull market and a bull market gives birth to a bear market. When violence increases, the need of nonviolence become paramount and when nonviolence become intolerable, the time for violence has come.  Everyone is free to choose his own dharma for his own life based on his nature and need of time—without expecting everyone to follow the same dharma. What has worked for one person may not work for other person.