Dharma
AYP's simplest sense of dharma: activity we do which supports our spiritual unfoldment. It doesn't require formal sitting — any engaged activity done from within stillness counts.
Definition
Lesson 178 defines dharma as activity that supports spiritual unfoldment, whether or not it looks like conventional "spiritual practice." A painter who finds inner silence while painting; a gardener who enters stillness while digging; a programmer who loses the sense of separate self while solving a problem — each is experiencing dharma, even without sitting to meditate formally.
Not everyone's dharma looks the same, and that's the point: "it is for you to follow your heart and do the things that bring you joy."
How it relates to other practices
- Dharma activity and sitting practices reinforce each other through the nervous system, via the AYP principle of connectedness: "All yoga practices connect through our nervous system, producing a leveraging effect, taking us ever higher." Painting meditation helps sitting meditation and vice versa; breathing methods connect with both.
- This is why AYP doesn't separate "spiritual life" from "ordinary life" — engaged daily activity is practice when done from within silence. See stillness in action, the broader topic this page was split from.
- See family and relationships for the related question of householder vs. monk dharma.