Doing Your Dharma

In this context, dharma means doing that which you were meant to do, doing it ethically, and doing it to the best of your capacity. Generally it refers to one's career. One person's dharma may be manufacture tires. Another person's dharma could be to sing professionally, or lay foundations, or practice medicine.

In Hindu culture, often your dharma was determined by the family and clan you were born into. If you were born in a family of stone masons, your fulfilment in life would come from working with stone. If your mother was a washerwoman, you would probably be a washerwomen, too. Though for most women, the primary dharma was being a housewife and mother.