Ahimsa: non-violence, non-injury, harmlessness
In his commentary on the Yoga Sutras, Vyasa [Vyasa was one of the greatest sages of India, author of the Mahabharata (which includes the Bhagavad Gita), the Brahma Sutras, and the codifier of the Vedas.] begins his exposition of ahimsa: "Ahimsa means in no way and at no time to do injury to any living being." Shankara expands on this, saying that ahimsa is "in no capacity and in no fashion to give injury to any being." This would include injury by word or thought as well as the obvious injury perpetrated by deed, for Shankara further says: "Ahimsa is to be practiced in every capacity-body, speech, and mind." We find this principle being set forth by Jesus in his claim that anger directed toward someone is a form of murder (Matthew 5:21,22), and by the Beloved Disciple’s statement that hatred is also murder.(I John 3:15)
Even a simple understanding of the law of karma, the law of sowing and reaping (Galatians 6:7), enables us to realize the terrible consequences of murder for the murderer. As Vyasa explains: "The killer deprives the victim of spirit, hurts him with a blow of a weapon, and then tears him away from life. Because he has deprived another of spirit, the supports of his own life, animate or inanimate, become weakened. Because he has caused pain, he experiences pain himself…. Because he has torn another from life, he goes to live in a life in which every moment he wishes to die, because the retribution as pain has to work itself right out, while he is panting for death."
Ahimsa is interpreted in many ways-which is to be expected since Sanskrit is a language that abounds in many possible meanings for a single word. But fundamentally ahimsa is not causing any harm whatsoever to any being whatsoever, including subhuman species.
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