In the same way, a human being has a certain natural svarūpa and svabhāva that are as dear as life itself. These are also called ‘powers’. Only as long as they remain in him does he deserve to be called a human being. If he loses them, he cannot be human. To develop these powers, precious as life, certain disciplines of conduct and observance are of the utmost importance for him. To guard these powers, his chief support, is to guard Dharma. Dharma has not come from somewhere, and it is not going off somewhere. One's own svabhāva is itself Dharma. If a man finds it a burden to guard this power of his own svabhāva, he must be taken for an innocent who does not even know his own svabhāva. To guard the natural power each thing has, and to act in keeping with those powers, is the conduct of Dharma. To overstep their limits and change them as one pleases is called Adharma. In the course of time, those who nourish these natural powers, which are God's will, those who practise them and those who hand them on became few; so people said that Dharma had perished. But it is not something that perishes. In a field of crops, wild grasses like sedge and couch grass spring up and keep the crop from coming up. In the same way, in the crop that is Dharma, a natural power, useless blades of grass, invented dharmas, grow up, trample the true Dharma down and make it disappear. Pulling out that wild grass and making the pure crop grow tall: that is what is called ‘the protection of Dharma’. In this Kali age Dharma has stayed in words but has vanished from practice. Understand this well: Dharma is meant to be practised; it is not a magic trick of words. What is to be spoken is Satya; what is to be practised is Dharma.