Non-injury

[Ms Tercy Lonan]

Non-injury
Spirituality is similarly founded upon a goodness that arises from the understanding that
even as I experience and feel so do others experience and feel: “What is distasteful, unfavourable,
harmful or undesirable for me, I should not do unto others either by thought or word or action.
Others are like me. They have sensitivities. Therefore, they should be given the same consideration
which I am always only too ready to give to myself.” Thus equating oneself with others and others
with oneself, one behaves with a sense of fairness, with a sense of justice, with a sense of
consideration, with a sense of feelingfulness and compassion. Such a person never does anything
that is likely to be harmful to others, that is likely to destroy the welfare of others, that is likely to go
against the highest good of others. This is the essence of humanism.
Lower creatures, subhuman species, have not this feeling of “I am hurting others, I must
not.” All lower forms of life are so constituted in nature that they feed upon other forms of life. This
naturally entails destruction, it entails killing. So the most beautiful bird, with the sweetest voice,
will be seemingly heartless. It will suddenly catch hold of an innocent butterfly flying in the air. If
the insect is too big or if it flutters, it will hit it with its beak against some hard object and then
swallow it. All forms of life other than human are thus constituted, although there are exceptions
such as herbivorous animals like the elephant, camel and horse. But with rare exceptions, in nature
most forms of life feed on other forms of life. There is no feeling that when I am preying, I am
causing harm, giving pain, destroying life. That feeling is absent. In the human being, that feeling is
present. That is the essence of the humaneness of the human status.
From the point of view of Vedantic philosophy and Yoga, this is because of spiritual
evolution. The human being is an evolved being. Therefore he is capable of compassion, kindness,
consideration for other people’s feelings and an urge and a desire not to hurt, not to harm, not to
cause pain, not to injure, not to destroy life. This has to be developed further until one becomes
godly. And the ideal of ahimsa (non-injury), the acme, the pinnacle of compassion, jiva-karunya
was taught by Lord Jesus. He said: “There is no greater love in this human world than that of a
person who is prepared to give up his life to save the life of his friend.”
It is, however, perfectly possible to be seemingly established in ahimsa, never hurting,
harming, fighting or quarrelling, but at the same time one may hurt, harm, cause injury and make
people suffer through subtle means. In Western society there is a term called “psychological
torture.” Sometimes it is used in the law courts as the grounds for divorce: “In various subtle ways,
upon the mental plane, my partner has tortured me, caused me untold psychological torture by

taunting me, insulting me, making me feel unworthy etc.” In this way, causing anxiety, causing fear
and distress, all in a subtle psychological way only, is also against the law of ahimsa.
Yoga and the spiritual life demand that violence in all its aspects, harming or injuring in all
its forms, be it gross or subtle, manifest or unmanifest, expressed or unexpressed, should be
eschewed, should be given up. And Holy Master Swami Sivanandaji went one step further and said:
“It is not enough to merely abjure violence, injuring and harming others, whether grossly or subtly,
by action or psychologically; on the contrary, one must actively and positively exercise
compassion, feelingfulness, mercy, kindness, daya, karuna.”
For that is our concept of God. He is all-compassion, an ocean of mercy. And all spirituality,
all yoga, all sadhana, ultimately is an earnest attempt to approach God, to return to God, to contact
God, to experience God and become established in God. It is a continuous effort to draw nearer to
the great, divine, cosmic Universal Being, to enter and experience that Being and make ourselves
one with that Supreme Reality. It is an inner mystical process whereby the seeker grows into the
God-nature or progressively approaches the ideal of godliness, wishing to become a channel of
God’s divinity, to become an expression of all that he conceives God to be, all that he looks for from
God.
They call it spiritual alchemy, a slow but sure process of transformation of one’s very being
from one’s lesser nature into a sublime higher state of godliness, of the God-nature. It is a slow but
steady inner transformation of the being, progressively into the likeness of the Being whom we are
trying to attain, whom we are trying to realise. And the more this transformation takes place, the
more this inner change towards godliness goes on progressively within, the more one begins to
draw closer and nearer to that supreme experience. This is the inner dimension of yoga. This ascent
towards godliness is the hidden inner form of yoga. It is the true yoga. It is the very life breath and
inner heart of yoga. This inner transformation is the subtle unseen content of the life spiritual, yoga
and the practice of yoga.
And this, therefore, requires that we cast out, shed away and remove from ourselves all that
is contrary to our concept of the God-nature, all that is other than the God-nature. Everything that
does not harmonise with the God-nature can have no place in the spiritual ascent to divine
perfection. Anything that does not harmonise with the supreme ideal—the God-nature—logically,
rationally, cannot have a place in the life spiritual. To see this clearly does not require any great
erudition, philosophy or metaphysical knowledge. You cannot approach light taking darkness with
you. When you approach light, darkness has no place.
Truthfulness, compassion and kindness go hand in hand. Because when you are kind and
compassionate, you manifest your true nature which is the God-nature, you being part of God. It
becomes your authentic life, not contrary to your reality. It becomes your true life. Anything that
goes against the God-nature in you—either mentally, verbally or physically—is contrary to your
true nature; you are contradicting your truth. Therefore your life becomes based upon falsehood. It
is not expressing the truth of your being, your real identity. This is the inner contradiction,
dichotomy, that comes about if you do not grow in the spirit of divine compassion and kindness.
This is to be understood and grasped. It is to be seen with clarity and practised with determination.