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STAGES OF SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT
171 wishes, gets or helps himself to get the samyaktva, the samyaktva being in all the guṇasthānas or stages of development after the third gunasthāna. So that these rules are as it were a link between the 3rd and 4th gunasthāna. Common Dharma Or Thirty five Rules of Conduct
The ordinary or common dharma is the first step which a person desiring to make some spiritual progress should adopt. It is the way to commence working out the karmas, particularly the anger, pride, deceitfulness and greed. The following 35 rules are the ordinary or conmon dharma.
1. The person who wishes to make some spiritual progress should follow some kind of business, trade or profession which is not of an ignoble or degrading nature; he should follow it in a just and fair way, and in proportion to his capital.
This would include service in the employment of other people, and then in proportion to the capital would mean not undertaking to do more work than you have energy and strength to perform.
All these rules are, as before said, based on dayā, i.e., doing good to and not causing injury to other living beings. Therefore, the business must not be that of a butcher, brewer, (in fermentation there is infinite destruction of life), wine merchant, gun-maker, or any business which involves or necessitates the wholesale destruction of life, whether animal or man, fish, bird, or insect.
The reason why it is necessary for such a layman to undertake some business (a layman who wishes to make spiritual progress) is because by so doing he can provide himself with means (a) to maintain himself and anyone dependent upon him, and with means to (b) help those who are in distress. A layman cannot help much by teaching, that is to say spiritual help. By helping people in distress he removes bad karmas and generates good ones. Also (c) with means to perform his dharma without too much difficulty and obstacle.
The reasons why he should do his business or profession in a fair and just way are (a) because it is only money earned in a
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