#### This post is not about LOST — The hit US TV Series

Life is short. It doesn’t seem that way while we work long hours and run through our busy lives but it is. And having spent hours in waiting rooms of hospitals for the past few months, this belief of mine has become stronger. Life doesn’t care whether you are, an infant learning to walk, a kid learning to read, a teenager learning to love, a twentysomething learning to make sense of things, a parent learning to take care of his first born, or an old man learning to cope with the invertible truth. You need to make most out of life while you still have the chance. Make your moments count.

Another thing I learnt about life after getting out of the university was that life gives you no status reports. Sure, you have grading in schools and you get a report card at the end of the year. But that doesn’t quantify your life. A few 2-3 hour exams are just too few to judge how one did in a year. Once you walk into the real world and get a job and start your own journey, you don’t even get that report card at the end of the year. With no visible goals or reports how does one know whether you are on the right course or not. And given the complexity that everyone’s path is different; the problem becomes even more insurmountable. Enter Dharma.

Dharma was one of the 4 objectives of the soul according to the Hinduism philosophy before it turned into a religion. The exact meaning of Dharma cannot be expressed clearly in English but if one has to decipher it, it comes down to ‘the path to righteosness’.

Dharma and dharti (meaning earth) start with the same syllabi ‘dha’. The connection is not coincidental but much wider. Both help keep us grounded. One keeps our soul grounded and oncourse for our cosmic journey while the other helps keep us grounded in the physical world.

The path to righteousness starts at birth, which starts one’s duty as a son or a daughter. Providing happiness to parents becomes the first duty that one takes upon. As the journey progresses, one takes upon many more such roles and duties in harmony with divine injunctions (or cosmic entropy) while being guided by a sense of morality and justice.

I got interested in Dharma, after my fallout with Hinduism and other religions. (I was educated in a catholic school as a child). Religion is a very powerful and useful tool. It can start wars, but it can also give one comfort. Having nothing to believe in is frightening, ask your fellow atheist friend. Humans needed a sense of approval, and religion seems to have been born out of that requirement. Dharma helped me make sense of the world, and our part in it (without religion or gods at work). The world we see and believe is enveloped by the illusions of our human mind, and having something to believe in helps, helps in making our sense of morality.

I have been an atheist for as long as I can remember, but I believe in Dharma, its path and its consequences. Whatever, I do, I try to do it with conviction. Be it the act of being a friend or being an Engineer. I try to do justice to each of the roles. One cannot be perfect at this, but we can try.

Remember LOST — the hit TV series, it was an opportunity lost. Yeah I hated the end too! Don’t let your life be LOST. Believe in something, find your dharma, and use that to do something, something worthwhile.

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