(Continuation from my previous post)
The deeper understanding of ahimsa is based on the higher realization of one’s identity. If you realize that you’re not your body but a conscious, eternal being, you see all other beings as such as well. You will also see those who do not have this realization and you will know that they are pretty much puppets in the hands of karma and the three modes of nature (Bhagavad-gita explains the modes of nature; goodness, passion and ignorance, in the 14th chapter). You will know that they will have to be born again and again in who knows what type of bodies (cats, dogs, cockroaches, amebas, trees, etc.) and experience old-age, disease, death and what’s even worse, puberty, over and over again.
Such a realized person will express his compassion by teaching others about their original, non-material nature and connection with the Supreme. These acts of sharing spiritual wisdom then constitute real non-violence because, instead of focusing on protecting the needs of someone’s body and calling that non-violence, these acts actually help the atma, the individual inside the body. And the help that reaches the atma will not be lost at death, unlike material acts of charity toward the temporary body.
On the flip side, if someone has higher knowledge but does not attempt to share it, that is then considered violence. You are prolonging the suffering of others’ atmas by not trying to aid in stopping their cycle of birth and death, when you can.
Alright, I think I have poked around in my brain enough for now. Back to reading the Bhagavad-gita - I’m far from finished.
(Coincidentally, the neighboring van I mentioned in the beginning of this series belongs to a band called Far From Finished, here’s their charming mannequin.)
Come to think of it, aren’t all our bodies like mannequins, made of dead matter, alive as long as the atma inhibits them?