Ahimsa - Non Violence
Compiled by Richard Stoney
This Sanskrit word, universally translated to mean "nonviolence,"
has a great depth of meaning that is not expressed by the English equivalent.
Like many Sanskrit words of philosophical and ethical usage, it is poly-dimensional
in its importance.
Ahimsa
has been mentioned in many ancient Hindu words, including the Bhagavad
Gita.
The practice of ahimsa is perhaps best known by the works of Mahatma
Gandhi. He, in the quest of how humans may become like God, resorted
to the idea of various incarnations, that is, evolutionary, spiritual
and philosophical "stages" towards perfection.
However, Gandhi took the ideal of divine perfection in human form away
from the mythological past and placed it in the undetermined future
pf every person's possibility, that is, not as an object of hard-to-reach
worship but as an ideal goal for everyone.
Gandhi insisted on the practical aspects of self-realization, wherein
"practical" referred not to that which is possible on a theoretical
level, but that which should be rendered into actual observance regardless
of its difficulty. The realm in which all this takes place starts with
one's neighbors and extending to all the outer limits of reality.