“every one of us has a responsibility to defend dharma.”

there are two premises that this statement rests on:
1.) we know WHAT dharma is
2.) we know WHY we have to defend dharma

that seems simple enough, but it is easier said than done.

to understand what dharma is, you must know your religion — not just the rituals & daily behaviors your parents tell you to do, but *why* you do these things & what the personal significance is to YOU.

if your parents didnt ask/remind you to be religious, would you still be?

understanding dharmic faiths is a murky affair because the bedrock of western society is abrahamic in nature. this, coupled w/ the crushing force of secularization, renders less effective the ‘blind faith’ approach of previous generations. we need to be able to answer kids’ whys.

in simpler words, faith is simply ‘not cool’ anymore, and it feels like a mysterious, othering burden that you have to carry for no good reason.

but we’ve learned for ourselves that that’s not true - so we need to communicate these ‘good reasons’ and make them apparent to others

to make them apparent, we should preempt these whys - not just wait to answer them. abrahamic concepts are baked into our consciousnesses & can take decades to unlearn & instead come from a dharmic perspective. we need to understand dharmic ideas AND why these ideas are unique.

2nd, to not just practice dharma, but to defend it, we need to know our history. we must feel connected to our ancestors — their rich histories fraught w/ pains of invasions & genocides. we need to make links between past & present forces, even if the forces look different today.

beyond just history, look to the present day: there is so much religious persecution that our people face around the world. are you paying attention to this? do you understand that today, to some degree, you are so lucky to have your faith without any fear?

we (who are not persecuted today) need to be constantly aware that we are practicing our faith today because our ancestors braved innumerable battles and won against them. we are here today because of them. will you continue their legacy by standing up to the adharma around you?