Equanimity~Samatvam

The concept of duty is explored exhaustively in the Gita as Svadharma and Svakarma. Bhagavan Krishna exhorts Arjuna and tells him that it is better to die doing your dharma than to commit a life to somebodyelse’s dharma. In our parlance these days, I see this as living a life that is true to oneself, reflected in service, compassio, love and finally good humor.

Emerson reflected deeply on life and its purpose. This is a quotation from his essay on ‘Worship’. We see the connection to Svadharma.

“I look on that man as happy, who, when there is question of success, looks into his work for a reply, not into the market, not into opinion, not into patronage. In every variety of human employment, in the mechanical and in the fine arts, in navigation, in farming, in legislating, there are, among the numbers who do their task perfunctorily, as we say, or just to pass, and as badly as they dare,- there are the working men, on whom the burden of the business falls; those who love work, and love to see it rightly done; who finish their task for its own sake;  and the state and the world is happy that has the most of such finishers. The world will always do justice at last to such finishers; it cannot be otherwisw. …. Work is victory. Wherever work is done, victory is obtained. There is no chance and no blanks. “