God means the supreme being, supreme person. So . . . or the supreme authority. Supreme means the greatest authority. As in a state the greatest authority is the government, similarly, throughout the cosmic manifestation, throughout the whole creation, there must be some supreme authority. So that supreme authority is God, and whatever He gives, the rules and regulation, that is called religion. You cannot change it. That the law whimsically, you cannot change. Then you will be punishable. Similarly, the laws or the words are the regulative principles given by God. That is religion. And if you do not follow it, then you'll be punished.
Actually, the Sanskrit word dharma means the constitutional position. We may try to understand what is the meaning of dharma. Just like fire. Fire means there must be heat and light. Without heat and light, there is no meaning of fire. If you say that, "We have got fire," but there is no heat and no light, so what kind of fire it is? So that fire and light of . . . heat and light of fire is to be understood as dharma. You cannot change it. This is no possibility. Otherwise, there will be no meaning. And water, water is liquid. Any water, any parts of the world, when you take water it is liquid; therefore this liquidity is the dharma of water. You take anything. Actually, dharma means characteristic—anything you take. Just like I am speaking before this microphone. So it does not produce the sound, then what kind of microphone it is? The sound production from the microphone is the dharma, is the religion, natural characteristic.
So what is the natural characteristic of human being? The natural characteristic is that we serve the superior. That is natural characteristic. Either you become Christian or Hindu or Muslim or Buddhist, nobody can say that, "I do not serve any superior." Nobody can say. One must serve. That is dharma. Faith, ritualistic—I am today Hindu; I can accept the ritualistic process tomorrow of the Christian faith; or a Christian may take another ritual—but his business, to serve the superior, that does not change. Either you become Christian or Muslim or Hindu, it doesn't matter. It is not that Hindus, they only serve in the office; the Christian do not. No. The service is there. So actually the service is his dharma, not this rubber stamp, "Hindu," "Muslim," "Christian." No. That is designation. Actual dharma means the characteristic. If you take sugar, if you taste sugar, it is sweet. The sweetness is the characteristic of sugar. That is dharma. If you take chili, it is very hot. If you take a chili and if it is sweet, you immediately say: "Eh, this is not good chili," because there is no dharma. So dharma means characteristic.