Book Review: Discover Your Dharma

Title: Discover Your Dharma: A Vedic Guide to Finding Your Purpose
Author: Sahara Rose Ketabi
Genre: Self Help, Spirituality, Non Fiction, Personal Development

What It’s About: Dharma is everyone’s life mission. It is your purpose, and the reason why you are placed on earth–whether you follow it or not, it’s up to you–but you were given a unique set of gifts that allow you to become the full embodiment of who you are. Many times, these gifts have been buried under expectations, and societal norms and pressures, but you can–at any point in life–choose to lean into what brings you joy through service and do what you were meant to be.

Everyone has that purpose, which they serve through the Doshas–energies that make up your soul and usually you have combinations of them within you that come to the surface when you do follow your Dharma. Vata–standing for air, is the energy behind a person who has tons of ideas, and jumps from one project to another, but rarely finishes them. Pitta–standing for fire, is the energy behind a person who gets shit done, has singular focus, and can be a hothead. Kapha–standing for earth, is the energy behind a person who nurtures, who is grounded, and a great listener. All three of these energies are inside you, in differing percentages.

And based on these energies, you would fall into one of Nine Archetypes–Teacher, Nurturer, Visionary, Artist, Warrior, Activist, Entrepreneur, Researcher, and Entertainer. Once again, we can have multiple archetypes that rise and fall like the sea throughout our lives and our circumstances, though most people firmly fall into one or two categories that define how they best serve the world and connect with the world.

Through quizzes and questions, you get to discover your purpose and find what resonates with you, so long as you remember that finding your Dharma is all about the journey, not the end goal.

My Thoughts: My explanation is a lot more simplistic than the actual book, and it’s because I’m just not in the mood to write up every single characteristics of each of the Archetypes. That section of the book certainly bored me out of my living mind, mostly because while reading it (and even after taking the test on the author’s page) I could see a bit of myself in every single one of these.

Overall, what I enjoyed about this book is that it has given a different perspective of manifestation and what people’s life purpose is. It ties more into old Ayurvedic beliefs–ones that have been around for as long as civilization has been around–that still somehow find relevancy in what we do today. One of the things that really resonated with me is something that Steve Jobs once said during the Stanford Commencement Speech–that it’s only when we look back that the threads connect with each other. This is the same thing that Sahara keeps saying in the book–you don’t always see things in the future, but mostly see the way that things connected when you look in the past. Who you were, brought you to where you are, and for the most part, I will say that has been abundantly true for me.

I think that it’s a good book to start with if you are looking on your journey to find out what it is that you’re meant to do, and to understand how to start your journey. Everything is about doing the things that interest us, finding what sparks joy, learning from it, and just gaining wisdom and knowledge. Falling into fear isn’t helping anyone by keeping people stuck in the past.

That said, I would never see myself reading this book a second time just to rehash the topics–there were certain parts where the reading got a bit slow and a bit boring to get through, but I powered through for the sake of learning. If you don’t like to read books that are too “dry” in their authorship (they just mostly state things without providing relatable stories to make parallels in your own life) then this is not the book for you.