I've been thinking a lot about dharma lately. It's a relatively new concept for me, we talked about it a little in yoga training, and recently we've been discussing it to great lengths in my Ancient Indian Literature class. Basically dharma is a term originating in India which literally means "that which upholds" but in a larger sense means "one's life purpose". Dharma is why you were created, it's what you're here for, it's your divine purpose, oh, and everyone has one. It's a beautiful idea actually, and I completely believe it. But lately I have been obsessing about it, I feel this urgency to figure out what I really truly want to do with my life, because in a year, bam, it's here. I was lucky enough to have parents who always told me I could be whatever I wanted to be when I grew up, but this idea of having a limitless number of paths in life now seems daunting. Not to mention that fact that whatever path I choose better make me enough money to live and pay off student loans. I keep thinking about how ancient Indians had it easy, their dharma was simply determined by their age, social class, and gender. But mine? It's not quite that simple.
Well last night I was sitting in my Indian Lit class, talking about the importance of dharma in the Bagavadgita (and incredible book, by the way) when I decided to google something. I've been thinking if I could do anything with my life, and take it as far as I wanted what would I do, and I 'd like to teach yoga in hospitals, particularly to patients suffering from severe depression and anxiety. So I typed into google "yoga in hospitals". What came up were articles about this brilliant institute called NIMHANS- National Institute of Mental Health and Neuroscience, which has started offering yoga as a form of alternative medicine in government hospitals everywhere, particularly for patients with depression. I saw this and I thought, "great! this is exactly what I want to do! I need to find this institute and go there to help!". Turns out, it's in India. So right then and there I decided, someone has to help bring something like this to America...what about me?
