ART VS COMMERCE VS DHARMA | 20 AUGUST 2025 | LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Or is it Art and Commerce? I tend to lean towards the former. The more contentious, violent, austere one. Sitting atop the roof of Shoreditch House, London, making yet another attempt at answering the question of who I am and what do I do. The past 3 years have been a time of crystallization of my identity I believe, and some unexpected truths about the way I’m meant to exist and interact with the world have been uncovered. One such truth is based in the Sanskrit term, Dharma, present in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. It points to an ‘order’ in the universe where each soul finds and inhabits their divine station in life, and by doing so the universe is in harmony. To find this for yourself, a somewhat meditative state seems to be necessary, to then find one’s intuition, accurately perceive the signs/omens, then have the courage to act in accordance with those discoveries.
This is what I did when I came back to my craft of instrumental music 3-years ago. Tentatively at first, but then with more commitment as I saw dozens, and now hundreds of instances of divine serendipity, of life supporting me in ways beyond what I could manufacture on my own, all with the message of “yes, this is your path, you’re supported, and this is what you’re meant to do”.
I say all of this in a moment of discouragement actually. It seems, even in this flow, or perhaps just because I’m still in the early stages of this enlightened state, there are still worldly challenges. Perhaps there need to be, to keep us human. My faith is continually tested, and the struggles of being an artist in a world that is increasingly hostile to choosing that career path, are very real, eliciting frequent existential reanalysis. But I sat here in London this morning, in a hub of wealth and opulence, one step closer to knowing a truth that I’ve never seen taught in the West: there are practical, three dimensional reality paths to success, but the only one that seems to actually work for me, and also has what seems to be infinitely more abundance and beauty (beyond what I could ever manufacture on my own), is this path of Dharma. I think it’s time I double down and find the next iteration of how to interact with it, and in the interim, I like that I have continued proof of its existence as an effective alternate way to exist as a human, as an artist, as a soul who wants the most fulfilling life possible.
