Adharma

The opposite of dharma — unrighteousness, moral failure, evil.

Overview

Adharma is the negation of dharma. Swami introduces it through Duryodhana’s famous confession. Before the Mahabharata war, Krishna comes to Duryodhana as an emissary of peace and tells him his path is adharma. Duryodhana‘s reply captures the eternal human predicament: “I know what is dharma, I don’t feel like doing it. I know what is adharma, I can’t stop myself from doing it.”

Swami contrasts this with Arjuna, who acknowledges the same difficulty but asks how to change. That is the difference between someone caught in adharma who does not want out, and someone who turns to the spiritual path for help.

Related concepts

• Direct opposite of dharma
• Central to the duryodhana story
• arjuna‘s later question “why do people do wrong things even when they don’t want to?” is about adharma

Lecture evidence

• Ep. 1 [61:58]: Krishna tells Duryodhana his path is adharma.
• Ep. 1 [63:02]: Duryodhana — “I know dharma, I can’t do it; I know adharma, I can’t stop it.”
• Ep. 7 [36:58]: Adharma as the first term of the punitive karma chain — adharma → paapa → dukha.