QUESTION: Is it better for us to be what we currently are, or should we put in efforts to change be ‘good’? Should I accept my role as a mischief-monger or try to fit in? In the later case I’m not following svadharma, right? 

If you are adharmī, then being yourself is sva-adharma (not sva-dharma).

If you are a good person, being yourself is good. If you are a bad person, then being yourself is bad.

The phrases “bad person” and “being yourself is bad” are difficult to hear or say because we don’t really understand what the words “self” and “person” refer to in this type of conversational language.

In this context, “me” is a conditional entity, a product of upbringing and behavioral conditioning. It was assembled by circumstance, and therefore it can be reassembled by circumstance. This is why a “bad person” can change. What changes is not the “self” (ātma) but the behavioral conditioning that defines the particulars of the ego to which the self adheres (ahaṁkāra).

The concept of svadharma is beautiful. It means each individual can make their contribution to society, as they are. It does not, however, mean that nothing is bad.

Take, for example, someone fascinated by weapons, fighting, violence, and life and death situations. This individual could either become a menace or a protector of society, depending on how they apply their individual inclinations.

If they apply themselves towards acquiring illegal weapons, fighting with innocents and helpless people, killing them and thriving on the trill of trying to evade arrest… what they have done with their self (sva) is not dharma, it is adharma.

If, however, they apply the same self towards enlisting in a police or military force, fighting against those who threaten innocents and the helpless, destroying them and evading their attacks… what they have done with their self is svadharma.

The criminal in the former case will consider the “self” as a criminal, and will justify their actions as “being myself” (svadharma). They have misidentified the “self,” however, with the conditional ego. The hero in the later case might also have this typical misconception of self. The difference between the two however, is that the later contributes towards the larger, social self – and therefore moves gradually closer towards comprehending the ultimate self: paramātma.