Connecting With You Dharma
Answers these questions from your heart.
Don’t try to be artificially humble or modest. This is an inventory of your personal traits and interests, an exploration that will connect your God given nature, abilities and inclinations in a way that that uniquely inspires you to serve.
Write what spontaneously comes up. There are no right or wrong answers, no judgments to be made, or no conclusions assumed in writing your answers. And if an answer doesn’t easily come go to the next question.
(Note the questions are purposefully similar or even redundant.)
- My personal strengths or characteristics are:
- The things that come easily to me and which I have always had a knack for are:
- I am skilled at doing …
- Others think I am good at or expert in …
- The talents I have that I may or may not be using are …
- If I had to teach something, I could teach
- Someone could call me and get my assistance or opinion on …
- My unique abilities or my niche is …
- My favorite things to do in the past before I got too busy or caught up with life were…
- My favorite things to do now are …
- My hobbies in my free time are …
- My favorite topics of conversation are …
- My favorite books or the books I would like to read are …
- The activities that make my heart sing, give me a true feeling of joy whenever I am engaged in them and raise my spirit are..
- With the following activities I lose track of time:
- My favorite activities as a child were:
- What I dreamed of doing or being as a child (before anyone else’s opinion mattered).
- The movies/books that inspired or moved me the most are …
- The people whose lives I would most like to live are …
- The things I do that make me feel great about myself are …
- What problem in the world have I been created to solve?
- What change in the world have I been designed to make?
- Which group of people have I been sent to serve?
- The parts of my past that have been the most meaningful are …
- How do you want to be remembered?
- What do you want to be known for?
- If you could do anything for Srila Prabhupada and Krsna, what would it be?
- If Prabhupada came to your home to take an inventory of the service you have done in this life, what have you not yet done that would you love to tell him you are doing or will soon start doing?
- In the answers to these questions, what tendencies, desires, inclinations, interests, etc. keep coming up?
Discuss with your partner what sense, or clarity, you are getting as to your nature, what inspires you, and how you could manifest this in service (it doesn’t have to be a service that currently exists. You may have to develop it from scratch.) Do not limit yourself to one service. Consider more than one, if you are so inclined, and then through this and the following exercises, gain clarity on which of these services is most in tune with who you are.
At this point, this might take the form of a general idea (I always wanted to be a teacher, I always wanted to protect cows, live off the land, be a writer, etc.) or a specific goal such as I want to develop a project to protect cows and provide ahimsa milk for all the temples in North American and produce ahimsa mridungas.
Write down whatever realizations, clarity, ideas, intuitions, etc. about your dharma that was generated during your discussion with your partner.