Sex, Love and Dharma:
Ancient Wisdom for Modern Relationships

For Beyond 50's "Spirituality" talks, listen to an interview with Simon Chokoisky.  He'll talk about the ancient systems of East Indian astrology, Ayurveda and dharma type - your personality and spiritual purpose archetype - systems to analyze physical, emotional, and spiritual compatability between people.  He teaches about how the 5 dharma types: the Outsider, Laborer, Educator, Warrior, and Merchant, align in relationships to create harmony or disharmony, and which ones need work.  You'll learn how living your dharma helps you flow with Nature in a way that makes life and your relationships more fulfilling.  

Characteristics of the 5 Dharma Types

Based on the teachings of Chokoisky, here are simple explanations of what the dharma types are like:

Outsider - Their purpose is to express freedom for themselves and the world that can reform and refresh.  They are born to free others by inciting revolution, positive change and progress.  You can get a sense of wonder being around them with their unique perspective on life.  Even though they value personal freedom, they unfortunately, resent establishment and the "normal" life of others.  Outsiders deal with the negative emotions of deception and anxiety, refusing to accept personal responsibilities for their own actions.  As they evolve or devolve, they can take on any of the four dharma types to be an Outsider-All.

Laborer - They have a deep love for society, building communities through their love, great service and self-sacrifice.  Their key strengths are to be hardworking and unaffected.  Laborers have strong ties to their family, country, job and home team.  Known for their specific intelligence and strong intuition, they are not well-rounded.  On the emotional end, they can be filled with jealousy and sloth.  Their other weakness lies in being overly attached to the point of irrationality.  They increase their potential by evolving to Laborer-Merchant, but can devolve to Laborer-Educator.

Educator - They can be very enlightening as high minded, pure and noble beings.  Their strengths lie is being sources of wisdom and purpose to others.  Educators can provide the emotional "safe space" to go to them for understanding and compassionate counseling.  What can leave them unbalanced is being wish-washy, feckless and lacking a backbone.  Their is an obvious divide in their understanding between ideals and reality, like getting stuck emotionally in lust.  They can evolve their Dharma to be an Educator-Warrior or devolve into a Educator-Laborer.

Warrior -They are freedom fighters, standing up for a just cause by using their shield of wisdom from experience.  Their strength is being generous and self-sacrificing.  Warriors have to work on their hangups with too much anger, lust, greed and pride because they like to indulge their senses.  They can be a problem to themselves by being pessimistic, cynical and materialistic.  It doesn't help that Warriors like to operate from a "dog-eat-dog" mentality.  As part of their evolution, they can take on the dharma characteristics of Warrior-Educator or devolve to become Warrior-Merchant.  

Merchant - They like to be charitable by providing life's enjoyments and prosperity to others that can be unifying.  You can seek them out for true inspiration.  Merchants raise people's energies with their positivity.  Known as Happiness Brokers, their strengths are in being entertaining, funny and motivating.  On the other end, Merchants have trouble greed. They also wrestle with insecurity from being unsure of their worthiness, requiring constant, outside validation of it.  Because of their keen understanding of how society works, Merchants can be good at taking advantage of that.  In their evolution, they can expand their dharma type to be a Merchant-Laborer or devolve into a Merchant-Warrior.  

Compatible Dharma Types

Chokoisky has outlined the unique compatibilities that draw prospective mates to each other, ranging from excellent to poor:

Excellent Compatibility - Educator-Warrior, Merchant-Laborer

Good Compatibility - Educator-Educator, Merchant-Merchant, Laborer-Laborer, Warrior-Warrior, Outsider-Outsider

Average Compatibility - Educator-Merchant, Laborer-Warrior

Poor Compatibility - Laborer-Educator, Merchant-Warrior

Chokoisky points out that your long-term happiness resides in acting within your dharma type.  He adds that "you cannot pretend to be someone else and find lasting success, because that is a crime against wisdom.  The root of all dis-ease is crimes against wisdom, which pull you away from your core purpose."

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