Fwd: Ahimsa: Noninjury

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Hare Krsna. Ahimsa: NoninjuryThe first yama is ahimsa, noninjury. To practice ahimsa, one has topractice santosha, contentment. The sadhana is to seek joy and serenityin life, remaining content with what one has, knows, is doing and thosewith whom he associates. Bear your karma cheerfully. Live within yoursituation contentedly. Himsa, or injury, and the desire to harm, comesfrom discontent.The rishis who revealed the principles of dharma or divine law in Hinduscripture knew full well the potential for human suffering and thepath which could avert it. To them a one spiritual power flowed in andthrough all things in this universe, animate and inanimate, conferringexistence by its presence. To them life was a coherent process leadingall souls without exception to enlightenment, and no violence couldbe carried to the higher reaches of that ascent. These rishis

weremystics whose revelation disclosed a cosmos in which all beings existin interlaced dependence. The whole is contained in the part, and thepart in the whole. Based on this cognition, they taught a philosophy ofnondifference of self and other, asserting that in the final analysiswe are not separate from the world and its manifest forms, nor from theDivine which shines forth in all things, all beings, all peoples. Fromthis understanding of oneness arose the philosophical basis for thepractice of noninjury and Hinduism's ancient commitment to it.We all know that Hindus, who are one-sixth of the human race today,believe in the existence of God everywhere, as an all-pervasive,self-effulgent energy and consciousness. This basic belief createsthe attitude of sublime tolerance and acceptance toward others. Eventolerance is insufficient to describe the compassion and reverence theHindu holds for the intrinsic sacredness

within all things. Therefore,the actions of all Hindus are rendered benign, or ahimsa. One would notwant to hurt something which one revered.On the other hand, when the fundamentalists of any religion teach anunrelenting duality based on good and evil, man and nature or God andDevil, this creates friends and enemies. This belief is a sacrilege toHindus, because they know that the attitudes which are the by-productare totally dualistic, and for good to triumph over that which is alienor evil, it must kill out that which is considered to be evil.The Hindu looks at nothing as intrinsically evil. To him the ground issacred. The sky is sacred. The sun is sacred. His wife is a Goddess. Herhusband is a God. Their children are devas. Their home is a shrine. Lifeis a pilgrimage to mukti, or liberation from rebirth, which onceattainedis the end to reincarnation in a physical body. When on a holypilgrimage,one

would not want to hurt anyone along the way, knowing full well theexperiences on this path are of one's own creation, though maybe actedout through others. Capil Sookdeo

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