Sri Aurobindo has not explained it just as a code of conduct but much more. To quote from Essays on the Gita, Sri Aurobindo writes.
‘Dharma in the Indian conception is not merely the good, the right, morality and justice, ethics; it is the whole government of all the relations of man with other beings, with Nature, with God, considered from the point of view of a divine principle working itself out in forms and laws of action, forms of the inner and the outer life, orderings of relations of every kind in the world. Dharma is both that which we hold to and that which holds together our inner and outer activities. In its primary sense it means a fundamental law of our nature which secretly conditions all our activities, and in this sense each being, type, species, individual, group has its own dharma. Secondly, there is the divine nature which has to develop and manifest in us, and in this sense dharma is the law of the inner workings by which that grows in our being. Thirdly, there is the law by which we govern our outgoing thought and action and our relations with each other so as to help best both our own growth and that of the human race towards the divine ideal.
Dharma is generally spoken of as something eternal and B.G.14.27 unchanging, and so it is in the fundamental principle, in the B.G.11.18 ideal, but in its forms it is continually changing and evolving, because man does not already possess the ideal or live in it, but aspires more or less perfectly towards it, is growing towards its knowledge and practice. And in this growth Dharma is all that helps us to grow into the divine purity, largeness, light, freedom, power, strength, joy, love, good, unity, beauty, and against it stands its shadow and denial, all that resists its growth and has not undergone its law, all that has not yielded up and does not will to yield up its secret of divine values, but presents a front of perversion and contradiction, of impurity, narrowness, bondage, darkness, weakness, vileness, discord and suffering and division, and the hideous and the crude, all that man has to leave behind in his progress. This is the adharma, not-Dharma, which strives with and seeks to overcome the Dharma, to draw backward and downward, the reactionary force which makes for evil, ignorance and darkness. Between the two there is perpetual battle and struggle, oscillation of victory and defeat in which sometimes the upward and sometimes the downward forces prevail. This has been typified in the Vedic image of the struggle between the divine and the Titanic powers, the sons of the Light and the undivided Infinity and the children of the Darkness and Division, in Zoroastrianism by Ahuramazda and Ahriman, and in later religions in the contest between God and his angels and Satan or Iblis and his demons for the possession of human life and the human soul.’
Sri Aurobindo: Essays on the Gita
Thus seen dharma indicates something much deeper than outer conduct. It includes the conduct but much more so the inner motives, the state of consciousness in which an action has been undertaken. Dharma is not based on any simplistic moral rule book of life but on discovering the inner Law unique to each one according to the stage of our development. It is not a standard formula universally applicable to all but the law of inner evolution towards the divinity we are meant to be and express. Finally dharma draws its light and power from the Divine Presence in our heart which is the stable basis of our individual and Universal existence. To refer everything to this Divine Presence in the heart and act according to Its divine Impulsion is highest truth of dharma in each one of us.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
Follow up question:
With respect to my above question of Dharma. If one is in the profession of a soldier or a lawyer and wants to follow Karmayoga which means he surrenders himself to God for everything he does. But if the situation arises that he is fighting for the wrong cause in his profession. Then what does Dharma say here? Should he leave his work and fight for the right cause or should he surrender himself to the divine and do the work selflessly.
Excellent question. It is about the choice involved in a particular action, whether one should continue doing whatever one has been doing with the right inner attitude or else change the work itself. It is obvious that as long as there is no inner conflict with regard to the work one is doing there is no problem to solve. The problem arises only if there is a change within that creates conflict with regard to the very field of action. Sri Aurobindo addresses it succinctly in Essays on the Gita.
‘Undoubtedly, the Gita does, like the Upanishads, teach the equality which rises above sin and virtue, beyond good and evil, but only as a part of the Brahmic consciousness and for the man who is on the path and advanced enough to fulfil the supreme rule. It does not preach indifference to good and evil for the ordinary life of man, where such a doctrine would have the most pernicious consequences. On the contrary it affirms that the B.G.7.15 doers of evil shall not attain to God. Therefore if Arjuna simply seeks to fulfil in the best way the ordinary law of man’s life, disinterested performance of what he feels to be a sin, a thing of Hell, will not help him, even though that sin be his duty as a soldier. He must refrain from what his conscience abhors though a thousand duties were shattered to pieces.
We must remember that duty is an idea which in practice rests upon social conceptions. We may extend the term beyond its proper connotation and talk of our duty to ourselves or we may, if we like, say in a transcendent sense that it was Buddha’s duty to abandon all, or even that it is the ascetic’s duty to sit motionless in a cave! But this is obviously to play with words. Duty is a relative term and depends upon our relation to others. It is a father’s duty, as a father, to nurture and educate his children; a lawyer’s to do his best for his client even if he knows him to be guilty and his defence to be a lie; a soldier’s to fight and shoot to order even if he kill his own kin and countrymen; a judge ‘s to send the guilty to prison and hang the murderer. And so long as these positions are accepted, the duty remains clear, a practical matter of course even when it is not a point of honour or affection, and overrides the absolute religious or moral law. But what if the inner view is changed, if the lawyer is awakened to the absolute sinfulness of falsehood, the judge becomes convinced that capital punishment is a crime against humanity, the man called upon to the battlefield feels, like the conscientious objector of today or as a Tolstoy would feel, that in no circumstances is it permissible to take human life any more than to eat human flesh? It is obvious that here the moral law which is above all relative duties must prevail; and that law depends on no social relation or conception of duty but on the awakened inner perception of man, the moral being.
There are in the world, in fact, two different laws of conduct each valid on its own plane, the rule principally dependent on external status and the rule independent of status and entirely dependent on the thought and conscience. The Gita does not teach us to subordinate the higher plane to the lower, it does not ask the awakened moral consciousness to slay itself on the altar of duty as a sacrifice and victim to the law of the social status. It calls us higher and not lower; from the conflict of the two planes it bids us ascend to a supreme poise above the mainly practical, above the purely ethical, to the Brahmic consciousness. It replaces the conception of social duty by a divine obligation. The subjection to external law gives place to a certain principle of inner self-determination of action proceeding by the soul’s freedom from the tangled law of works. And this, as we shall see,—the Brahmic consciousness, the soul’s freedom from works and the determination of works in the nature by the Lord within and above us,—is the kernel of the Gita’s teaching with regard to action.’
Interestingly Sri Aurobindo uses just the two examples that you mention. Essentially one has to feel within one’s heart whether a thing is to be done or not. The heart is the seat of dharma. Though it may not be always easy to act in obedience to the deeper promptings of the heart especially as it can also be clouded by personal desires, attachment and preferences. However it may not always be possible to act according to the highest inner calling. A lawyer still has an option not to take up a client whom he feels or has reason to believe is on the evil side but a soldier cannot run away from the battlefield just because the cause is wrong. Nor can a doctor refuse to treat a terrorist. In these situations one has fall back upon Swadharma. Thus the Swadharma of a lawyer to help the judge render justice based on available facts and not to save a criminal. The Swadharma of the soldier is to fight valiantly. His responsibility, if any ends there. He is not responsible for the decisions of the politicians and the administrators. But equally as a soldier he is not to kill civilians or safeguard evil doers or use cruel means to torture or dismember the enemies.. Swadharma always helps if we understand it clearly and even if we cannot then surrender to the Divine and seek His inner guidance is the best option.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
