You should not have any violent intent in your mind. Your intent not to cause harm to any being should be constant, within you. Each morning before you begin your day, you must ask for the strength to not hurt anyone through the medium of your mind, your speech and your actions. This will ensure a lesser liability for you. If you were to accidentally step on an insect, you are not responsible, because today your intent is not to kill. The Lord is concerned with your intent and not your deed. According to the laws of nature, the intent is the most important. The world however, only considers the deeds of a person. The deeds will remain here but it is the intent that will help you progress further. So keep a constant vigil on your intent.
Recite the following prayer five times each morning:
'Dear Lord, give me the strength not to hurt even in the slightest degree, any living being with my thoughts, my speech and my actions.'
In doing this you become non-violent. With such intent, even if you quarrel with someone, you would still remain nonviolent; because you have already made a strong resolve not to hurt anyone. If you do hurt someone during the day, you should reinforce your resolve by recalling all the transgressions, repenting for them and resolving never to repeat them. Doing this much will absolve you from any liability.
Such intent not to hurt any living being is equivalent to having accomplished the supreme vow of ahimsa (one of the five major vows called mahavrats). You have to make a decision that you want to maintain this intent and then you should remain sincere to it at all costs. When you do not adhere to your decision, it is called anuvrat.
1) Non-violence is called that when despite having the full power if someone does something to him, he does not do anything to that person.
2) There is nothing more powerful than non-violence (ahinsa) and nothing weaker than violence (hinsa). Who is weak in this world? One who is egoistic. Who is powerful in this world? One who is non-egoistic.
1) The Lord resides in every living being. If you hurt any living being you will incur liability for the hurt and violence that you cause.
2) Do you not occasionally fast as a means of penance? In that penance, do you not tolerate the pangs of hunger? Then why not accept the bedbug's bites as a form of penance? This penance presents itself directly to you. It is the basis for liberation - Moksha. Why must you create your own kind of penance? Why not suffer the penance that presents itself naturally? Naturally occurring penance is the cause of liberation, whereas self-created penance is the cause of worldly life.
3) People have ruined everything. On the one hand they are obsessive about observing ahimsa towards life-forms in the root crops and yet at the same time they do kashayas. This is like making a profit of three rupees on the one hand and a loss of ten million rupees on the other! People are adamant about trivial issues, but they commit endless violence through their kashayas. The greatest violence in the world is kashaya. There is more sin in kashayas than in killing a life- form.
4) As long as you believe that, 'I am picking this flower and I am committing violence' then the laws of violence will bind you. The same laws also bind the people who do not have this awareness. It is only when you attain the realization of your real Self that violence will not affect you under any circumstance.
Book Name : Non-violence (Entire Page #78)
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