05/31/2026
Karma, Dharma, My Father, and Detachment
I want to capture this before I lose it.
I remember my dad telling me something using his hands.
I can still see his hands.
Creased hands.
Soft hands.
Oiled hands.
Smelling of jasmine oil.
My father believed his body was a temple.
He exercised every day.
He walked every day.
He went to the gym without fail.
The jasmine oil was simply one small part of a larger discipline.
With one hand, his left, he would trace a straight path in the air in front of him, stating it is Karma — determinism, fate, kismet.
Then with his other hand, his right, he'd trace an intersecting line crossing the karmic path, saying this second crossing path is our Dharmic path — our daily duties, responsibilities, and actions.
He stated that we could alter our karmic path through our daily dharmic actions, good or bad.
It was not a static deal.
We had agency.
We had responsibility.
We had choice.
This visualization stayed with me.
One line.
Then another crossing it.
Karma and Dharma.
Fate and responsibility.
What has already been set into motion, and what we choose to do next.
Looking back, I think this was the essence of my relationship with my father.
He lived in paradoxes.
Oxymorons.
Contradictions.
Venn diagrams.
Daoism.
Yin and Yang.
Advaita.
Dvaita.
Every second.
Science and spirituality.
Acceptance and striving.
Destiny and effort.
Logic and mystery.
Individual and collective.
Past and future.
Nothing was ever completely one thing or another.
My father's answer was always some version of:
"Both."
Circumstances matter.
Choices matter.
Both are true.
I think this question followed me into therapy.
Clients often arrive carrying stories that have been repeated for years, sometimes decades.
Well-practiced narratives.
Polished.
Stories about who they are.
Stories about what they deserve.
Stories about what is possible.
Sometimes those stories were inherited.
Sometimes they were taught.
Sometimes they were survival strategies.
Narrative therapy resonates with me because of this.
The stories we tell ourselves can become so familiar that they feel fixed.
But maybe they are not.
Maybe there are other ways to understand the same story.
Maybe we can become more forgiving, curious, flexible, and compassionate with ourselves.
This also connects to why I am drawn to humanistic and Rogerian therapy.
Empathy.
Validation.
Unconditional positive regard.
Sitting alongside people.
Not rewriting their story for them.
Helping them examine it with curiosity and compassion.
Perhaps that is what my father was teaching me all along.
Not that karma doesn't exist.
Not that destiny doesn't exist.
But that we are participants in our own lives.
That Dharma intersects Karma.
That responsibility intersects circumstance.
That action intersects fate.
Maybe life happens at the intersection.
Maybe that's where change lives.
Maybe that's where life sparks.
