All harsh and rude speech is Himsa (violence or injury). Using harsh words to beggars, servants or inferiors is Himsa. Wounding the feelings of others by gesture, expression, tone of voice and unkind words is also Himsa. Slighting or showing deliberate discourtesy to a person before others is Himsa. To approve of another's harsh actions is indirect Himsa. To fail to relieve another's pain, or even to neglect to go to the person in distress is a sort of Himsa. Avoid strictly all forms of harshness, direct or indirect, positive or negative, immediate or delayed. Practice Ahimsa in its purest form and become divine. Ahimsa and Divinity are one.
If you practice Ahimsa, you should put up with insults, criticisms and assaults. You should never retaliate or wish to offend anybody even under extreme provocation. You should not entertain any evil thought against anybody. You should not harbour anger, you should not curse. You should be prepared to lose joyfully even your life in the cause of truth. The ultimate truth can be attained only through Ahimsa.
Ahimsa is the act of bravery. Ahimsa is not possible without fearlessness. Non-violence cannot be practiced by weak people. Ahimsa cannot be practiced by a man who is terribly afraid of death and has no power of resistance and endurance. Ahimsa is a quality of the strong; it is a weapon of the strong. When a man beats you with a stick, you should not entertain any thought of retaliation or any unkind feeling towards the tormentor. Ahimsa is the perfection of forgiveness.
Gandhi
Mohandas K. Gandhi was born in 1869 to Hindu parents in the state of in Western India. He entered an arranged marriage with Kasturbai Makanji when he was 13 years old. His family later sent him to London to study law, and in 1891 he was admitted to the Inner Temple, and called to the bar. In Southern Africa he worked ceaselessly to improve the rights of the immigrant Indians. It was there that he developed his creed of passive resistance against injustice, Satyagraha, meaning truth force, and was frequently jailed as a result of the protests that he led. Before he returned to India with his wife and children in 1915, he had radically changed the lives of Indians living in Southern Africa.
Back in India, it was not long before he was taking the lead in the long struggle for independence from Britain. He never wavered in his unshakable belief in nonviolent protest and religious tolerance. When Muslim and Hindu compatriots committed acts of violence, whether against the British who ruled India, or against each other, he fasted until the fighting ceased. Independence, when it came in 1947, was not a military victory, but a triumph of human will. To Gandhi's despair, however, the country was partitioned into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. The last two months of his life were spent trying to end the appalling violence, leading him fast to the brink of death, an act that finally quelled the riots. In January 1948, at the age of 79, an assassin killed him as he walked through a crowed garden in New Delhi to take evening prayers.
Gandhi became known as the symbol of a free peaceful India. Refusing earthly possessions, he wore a loincloth and shawl of the poorest Indian and survived on vegetables, fruit juices and goat’s milk. Gandhi’s encouragement of non-violence, known as Ahimsa was the expression of a way of life in the Hindu religion. By the Indian practice of non-violence Britain too would eventually consider violence useless and would leave India. The Indian population however could not grasp Ahimsa. A series of armed revolts against Britain broke out, leading to such violence that Gandhi confessed the Shivratri.
Gandhi
failure if the civil-disobedience campaign he had called, and ended it. The British government again detained and imprisoned him in 1922.
Gandhi’s death was regarded as an international catastrophe. His place in humanity was measured not in terms of the 20th century but in terms of History. Religious violence soon decreased in India and Pakistan, and the teachings of Gandhi came to inspire non-violent movements forever.
Gandhi used non-violence not only at the individual level but also on the social level for abolition of untouchability and non-co operation. He firmly believed that non-violence must be lived in day-to-day life. Gandhi worshiped God through the service of man and looked upon all human beings as the manifestations of God himself.
In Gandhi’s view when a situation arose where nobody would practice ahimsa, as he understood it, violence, as always was preferable to cowardice. As he has so often explained before, nonviolence could not be taught to a person who feared to die and had no power of resistance.
After 21 years in South Africa Gandhi returned to India to fight for Indian independence from Great Britain. In addition to the methods he used in South Africa, Gandhi would add fasting, prayer, and to his system of nonviolence. He spent numerous days in jail goal of showing people that violence is not the answer in his long life, he would inspire and encourage many to follow his same path. His legacy includes many books and writings, but most importantly his spirit that lives on today.
Gandhi
Gandhi was both religious and open-minded, and saw the different religions as paths to the same goal. He was inspired by the teachings of Jesus, in particular the emphasis on love for everyone, even someone’s enemies, and the need for justice. He also took from Hinduism the importance of action in one’s life, without concern for success; the Hindu text Bhagavad-Gita says, “On action alone be thy interest, never on its fruits Abiding in discipline perform actions, abandoning attachment being indifferent to success or failure.”
For Gandhi, ahimsa was the expression of the deepest love for all humans, this non-violence therefore included not only a lack of physical harm to them, but also a lack of hatred or ill-will towards them. If need be, one might need to suffer or die in order that they may be converted to love.
Vegetarianism
Hindus of certain , especially , are forbidden from consuming anything gained at the expense of an animal's suffering, such as meat, eggs, animal byproducts such as and and honey. The milk of cows, buffalo, and goats as well as daily products (other than containing rennet) are acceptable, as milk is given willingly. Leather from cows who have died of natural causes is acceptable.Not all Hindus are vegetarian.
All dietary rules listed for Hindus apply to , in addition to which Jains must take into account any suffering caused to plants and suksma jiva by their dietary choices. They are forbidden from eating most root vegetables and deem many other vegetables acceptable only when harvested during certain times of the year.
Food is the source of the body’s energy, and what we eat affects our consciousness and emotions. If a person wants to live in higher consciousness, in peace and happiness and love for all creatures, then we cannot eat meat,fish or eggs. By eating animals one introduces the body and mind to anger, jealousy, anxiety suspicion and a terrible fear of death, all of which is locked into the fleash of the butchered creatures. For these reasons, vegetarians live in higher consciousness and meat-eaters abide in lower awareness.
According to Hinduism we classify our food using three basic gunas or qualities as follows:
Satvic- milk, fruit, vegetables and grains
Rajasic-meat, alcohol, eggs and spicy foods
Tamasic- over ripped foods and rotten foods
Vegetarianism
A sattvic mind is a pure and calm mind, working to gain higher knowledge of God. A rajasic mind is involved in worldly knowledge and a Tamasic mind is inactive.
There is a growing loss of species, destruction of ancient rainforests to create lands for live stock, loss of topsoil’s and an increase of water impurities and air pollution have all been traced to the simple fact of meat in the human diet, due to all of these reasons the Earth is suffering. No decision that we can make as individuals or as a race can have a dramatic effect on the improvement of our planetary ecology as the decision not to eat meat.
Cow Protection
According to India's traditional scriptural histories, the original cow Mother Surabhi, was one of the treasures from the ocean, and "the five products of the cow" (pancha-gavya)-milk, curd, ghee, urine and dung-were considered purifying. The cow is respected in her own right as one of the seven mothers because she offers her milk as does one's natural mother. The cow plays a central role in the Vedic ideal for humanity: "simple living and high thinking," a life close to nature and God. Until recently in India's history, most people lived of land suitable for complete self-sufficiency.
The cow has always played an important role in India's economy. For example, cow dung serves as an inexpensive fertilizer. Stored in underground tanks, it also generates methane gas that is used for heating and cooking. Cow dung is also an effective disinfectant and is used as a cleansing agent.
In the case of Hindus, we are vegetarians for religious reasons. The main character of being a Hindu is the fact that you are a vegetarian. We are vegetarians because of our belief that killing is bad, and that the taking and that taking another’s life is not in our hands. As Hindus we believe that only Brahma has given us life and so is the only one that can take it away. Killing is a bad karma and one must try to avoid bad karmas so one can attain moksha.
The Vedic Scriptures refer to the cow as our mother when we stop taking milk from our mother the cow gladly takes over the role of supplying milk. For this reason the cow is our mother.
It is nature’s special arrangement that the cow provides milk to give nourishment to people.
Opinion
“The principle of Ahimsa is Hinduisms greatest gift to the world.”
I agree with the above quotation I feel that non-violence should be maintained all the time because I feel that it is important for people not to lose their tempers, no matter what situation they may come across in life. Without Ahimsa it would be impossible for humans to exist. Without Ahimsa we would all continue to have endless wars that would eventually lead to extinction.
There are other means and ways of solving problems without using the means of violence, for example instead of hitting someone to try and resolve a matter a form of negotiation could be used instead. An example of a person who believed that Ahimsa was wrong was Mahatma Gandhi, his struggle for independence in India included the best traditions of Ahimsa and brought Ahimsa into the main stream of Indian society.
Although Ahimsa should be practiced most of the time, there are also times when Ahimsa can not be practiced for certain reasons, it is not possible to practice Ahimsa in all situations a person comes across in life. For example, if you are going to be attacked then self-defense must be used in order to protect ones-self therefore the principle of Ahimsa will be temporarily not in use.
Personally I think that if “The principle of Ahimsa is Hinduisms greatest gift to the world.” Doesn’t this imply that other religions do not teach the principle of non-violence? I feel that all religions in one way or another teach non-violence. I feel that Ahimsa is a great gift to the world, but it is not only Hinduism that promotes Ahimsa it is all religions.