non violence

[FrancisHarmany]

I am posting this because I see alot of people on this forum trying to put into words what I found nicely explained in ancient teachings.

I have learned the most about non violence from studying Ajita's "model" and the teaching he gives with it.


Here is an extract from his interpetation of the Yoga Sutras.


35. Ahimsa Pratishthayam Tat Samnidhau Vairatyagah
On being firmly established in non-violence there is abandonment of hostility in
(his) presence.

The Sanskrit word Ahimsa means “Non-violence”. “A” means “not”, “Himsa” means
“violence”.
This is the first refusal or Yama of a group of five: non-violence, truthfulness, honesty, chastity
and non-desire. Together they can be viewed as vows that you express at the start of your
spiritual development. This old tradition of vows has also been preserved in Christianity and
other spiritual practices.
The idea behind the Yama’s is actually simple:
You refuse anything that you do not want, do not understand or do not want to think about.
In this way you create room for yourself to first think before you act. It enlarges your critical
powers. You do not allow yourself to be dragged into things anymore that you do not want.
You will do things your own way and become argumentative, in the first place against
violence.
What is violence?
To be able to refuse violence you have to know what violence is:

Violence is disturbance, a breach. Violence causes pain, physically, emotionally and/or
mentally. Violence can be committed against anything.
What is “anything”?
In the end everything is energy. It moves/appears in the quality of a vibration.
In the beginning, says the Sankhya philosophy, there was only Brahman, God. And Brahman
was energy, Prana. We visualize this as a straight line of energy, undisturbed, eternal and
infinite.

As time goes by a light vibration occurs with small waves, caused by subtle desire, Vasana.
The waves become bigger, flip over, and little balls or particles arise, called Anus in Sanskrit.
The Greeks called them inseparable: atomos, or atom. There are big and small Anus that spin
around. This is the energy that has turned into mass. They are called Sharira or body, or
Chakra, eddy/whirl. Long ago Rishi’s or seers saw this this way.
Albert Einstein formulated this in his relativity theory and world famous E=mc2, or energy “E”
is equal to mass “m”, multiplied by the square of the acceleration “c”. With this he proves that
energy can move in a straight line as well as that it can remain spinning on its own forming
mass. He also indicates that you can move from one condition into the other. And remarkably,
that is exactly what we do in Yoga: via purifying exercises we accelerate our energy, reduce
the condensation of our being, which is also an Anu, and at last we achieve Moksha, liberation.
The Sankhya philosophy is the second oldest philosophy, after Yoga, of the six philosophical
fundaments of Hinduism: Yoga, Sankhya, Nyaya, Vaiseshika, Purvamimansa and
Uttaramimansa.
It tries to explain the principles of Yoga in a scientific way.
Why should you refuse violence?

A person, who has been involved in violence a lot, is marked by it and becomes numb. His
powers of perception become affected. He becomes anxious. All the collisions that he
experienced cause a condensation in him. Darkness appears in that person, ignorance. His
world condenses. He is losing control, and subconsciously he is aware of that. This expresses
itself in different ways: in the form of insecurity, doubt, fear or even in the form of phobia or
panic. The majority of mankind suffers from this. Research indicates 95% and more.
So violence is a disturbance or breach in energy. Energy can be visualized as an undulating
flow. You can see violence as something that is caused by a coil or a Vritti that collides with
this wave or vibration and makes a dent in it. This dent causes a change in the course of the
energy; the energy vibration starts to wave more strongly, produces loops/energy balls quicker
and thoroughly disrupts the original straight lined energy stream.
Committing violence is like throwing a pebble into the water: ripples occur that spread all the
way out to the borders of the water and then return back to the place where the pebble hit the
water. That is also how violence behaves: it always comes back to you. Everything you do
always comes back to you.
What we do in Yoga is to avoid incurring dents and removing of the dents that you have
already incurred. To avoid inciting others to violence is also part of the practice of nonviolence.
How do you act when you come across violence?
The Bible says: An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. This means that when somebody hits
you, you immediately hit him back. You respond with the same kind of force. Do not respond
with more force, because then you put the spiral of violence in motion. If you hit back
immediately, with the same force, it is not violence. When you wait, you are too late and you
produce another breach, committing violence.
In this way you learn to deal with violence, to become one with violence. You learn to
accurately dose and prepare yourself for the advanced stage of non-violence: When you get hit,
turn the other cheek. This is a considerable step forward, in which you try to process the hit
that you received as information about the person that hit you: you try to feel the person and

his problems. Then, when you continue to “weld” his energy breaches or influence them with
love, something essential will change in that person. Only then you turn the other cheek.
Because of the sympathy that arises he will not be able to hit you any longer.
This trick works according to the three transformations or Parinama’s of Patanjali: Samadhi-,
Ekagrata- and Nirodha Parinama: Go along in the vibration, become one with the situation,
sense the situation, continue to empathize, shout back if necessary, and continue to follow it. If
you want to go directly into another direction, you have missed the contact and your attempt
will be futile; you break something. When you sense that you have the situation under control,
you transform in the direction of mitigation. So you slowly reconcile. Because you first
became one with the violence you were able to give it another direction.


http://www.xs4all.nl/~rajayoga/EN/Yoga% ... 0Ajita.pdf

[BingoTheClowno]

Don't forget, we humans are the most successfull predator (carnivore) mammals on Earth.

[Zer]

that`s what you think. But you are only a slave of your genom. Simply ask a neurobiologican who`s up to date.

[BingoTheClowno]

Cattle restrained for stunning before slaughter:

Two slaughter lines ensure that the animals are stunned peacefully and bled fully. The carcasses then pass through extremely fast and well designed cooling systems, after which they move on to the sorting department under optimal bacteriological conditions



The cutting and packaging are undertaken on a conveyor belt, ensuring minimum handling and thus guaranteeing perfect hygienic quality.

[garyb]

yep, nasty.
i try to avoid factory food.


life is inherently violent even without ANY human activity. but that's not the only aspect to life. with all respect, hinduism is a stain on the mind of mankind. it's main purpose is to justify oppression and it's corresponding caste system. it is the foundation of western philosophy, whether that's obvious or not(which is not a reason to justify unecessary violence). jmho....

[FrancisHarmany]

I do not wish to talk about violence being commited in this thread. It is about non-violence in theorie & practice.

[braincell]

What a cool idea. Whoever starts the thread should be the moderator/administrator of the thread and be able to ban, kick and censor anyone who posts.

[garyb]

that's violent. why so much violence?

i can be violent, but i prefer not to be.

i'm cool with it! sorry to be cynical in your thread, sir! thanks for the reminder!

[darkrezin]

life is inherently violent even without ANY human activity. but that's not the only aspect to life. with all respect, hinduism is a stain on the mind of mankind. it's main purpose is to justify oppression and it's corresponding caste system. it is the foundation of western philosophy, whether that's obvious or not(which is not a reason to justify unecessary violence). jmho....

I found this surprising from you gary.... the caste system is a typical example of people being hypocritical and twisting a principle to abuse sectors of society. However this is not the primary function of Hinduism, which is to help you destroy your ego and achieve self-realization. I personally find nothing in Western philosophy that even begins to understand the most basic, fundamental building blocks of Hinduism.

[FrancisHarmany]

What a cool idea. Whoever starts the thread should be the moderator/administrator of the thread and be able to ban, kick and censor anyone who posts.

it was a polite request to stay on topic and to respond to the things mentioned in my post. I think its only respectfull todo so.

[garyb]

life is inherently violent even without ANY human activity. but that's not the only aspect to life. with all respect, hinduism is a stain on the mind of mankind. it's main purpose is to justify oppression and it's corresponding caste system. it is the foundation of western philosophy, whether that's obvious or not(which is not a reason to justify unecessary violence). jmho....

I found this surprising from you gary.... the caste system is a typical example of people being hypocritical and twisting a principle to abuse sectors of society. However this is not the primary function of Hinduism, which is to help you destroy your ego and achieve self-realization. I personally find nothing in Western philosophy that even begins to understand the most basic, fundamental building blocks of Hinduism.

well, it begins with language....what is the root language for both cultures?

the caste system IS fundemental to the system. it's part of the journey of the soul and it's fundemental to the princples of karma and dharma. it's taught a little bit differently to non-indians, but Indians know how they benefit or are crushed by the thing....except for monks or other ascetics, most Hindus are not doing work in the way you are thinking of. they say their prayers to God and go about their lives in exactly the same way as a Buhddist, Muslim, Jew or Christian. except for the details of the ceremonies, there's not really much difference in the daily life, prayers or dreams. everyone wants to find some Love, get lot's of money, be healthy, have children that are healthy, happy and strong and most of all, go to heaven and never suffer or die. the exoteric religion is very much the same, the esoteric, occult aspect is also the same. you'll find similar teachings in the esoteric works of Hindus, Buhddists, Jews. Catholics, Rosicrucians, Gnostics, Christian mystics, etc. these orders all prey on the same fears and desires, which is NOT to say that they don't teach some important truths. without truths, they could never usurp a human life.

Hinduism is the reason that the royals are royal.

once again though, just as with Catholicism, i don't dislike or hate or want to disrespect Hindus. the people are usually trying to doo good, like most other people. i have nothing but love for any and all good people! it's hinduism itself that i am skeptical of.

we could talk for hours about the subject. i'm kinda sorry that my diarrhea of the mouth(or the two typing fingers) got the better of me, i'm not capable of all that typing...

[FrancisHarmany]

Yes! So staying on topic, the Sikhs where practicing non-violence when they refused the caste system and "migrated" from one of the many religions/beliefes which make up Hinduism.

I still believe the technical/energics off non-violence as describe are on track.

[garyb]

Sikhs carry blades and they WILL defend themselves. they are soldiers, still.

i agree, though. committing violence unecessarily brings uneeded suffering. of course, SOME amount of suffering is inescapable as a function of time and place. one aspect of life is violence. eating is violence. this world is here for all these things to be. it is not a mistake. non existance is not an option! existance itself is proof of this. human beings were not provided with a sense organ to perceive the wholeness and fullness of creation, only a mind to imagine it. fortunately, nothing is really lost, form moving into form.....

[FrancisHarmany]

Sikhs carry blades and they WILL defend themselves. they are soldiers, still.

i agree, though. committing violence unecessarily brings uneeded suffering. of course, SOME amount of suffering is inescapable as a function of time and place. one aspect of life is violence. eating is violence. this world is here for all these things to be. it is not a mistake. non existance is not an option! existance itself is proof of this. human beings were not provided with a sense organ to perceive the wholeness and fullness of creation, only a mind to imagine it. fortunately, nothing is really lost, form moving into form.....

Yes! non-violence is about commiting the least ammount of damange in a situation. While keeping in mind the possible violent consequence your actions have.

in other words; if not eating kills you, you are commiting violence by not eating....

See how subtle this matter is ? And to think they figured this out hundreds of years ago.... very impressive I think.

[darkrezin]

Gary, politicians in Hindu states are like any other - they will use whatever is important to people in order to control them. I don't think it's that wise to equate spiritual concepts with a government's use of them. Similarly, I don't think it's fair to judge an original concept with another society's interpretation of it (i.e. the influence on the western world). Also, Hinduism has many different aspects - the ancient tantric traditions are very different to more modern customs for example. I don't think it's possible to make simple generalizations about it.

Regarding the caste system - its primary function in more ancient society was mostly within marriage, in order to facilitate sensible matches. It's been twisted quite severely since that time and is not really all that relevant now (like many things in ancient religious teachings, but not all). For example, many politicians abuse the caste system - for either spending less money on low-caste communities, or for appealing to their disenfranchisement and promising 'positive discrimination' policies in order to obtain votes.

The relevance of the caste system in terms of karma & reincarnation could be debated, sure. The Hindu philosophy on this matter is just a way of trying to explain difficult things like poverty or disabilities, for example. It's precisely that - a way of trying to understand and come to terms with these facts of life. There's nothing in there that says you should treat disabled or low-caste people like shit, in fact it's encouraged to actively help people less fortunate than you - an important concept in Hinduism is the principle of self-realization through self-sacrifice. The tendency to abuse the caste system is an entirely social construct which comes out of the more sadistic side that exists in most people.

The most fundamental concept in Hinduism is that there is no single path for a spiritual journey. You are given absolute freedom in what you do and how you live your life... society, the state, even your parents and family are ultimately irrelevant in this task. It's not designed to make people selfish, it's designed to make them think for themselves instead of swallowing dogma.

[garyb]

well, at least that's how it works for you, which is all good to me.

[BingoTheClowno]

As time goes by a light vibration occurs with small waves, caused by subtle desire, Vasana.

That's hard to picture.

[Zer]

As long as there`ll be humans there`ll be violence, blood, death, desease, penalty, anger, starvation, war and pestilence. You may keep in your house or build your own jail - you won`t avoid it (even there) and it doesn`t matter how many people are with you. We are all slaves to our genom.

[garyb]

zer, that's the biggest bunch of crap ever.

it's not the genome, it's culture. yes, there is 'natural violence", but the rest is something made of imagination and the genome is not the source of ideas...

[BingoTheClowno]

As long as there`ll be humans there`ll be violence, blood, death, desease, penalty, anger, starvation, war and pestilence. You may keep in your house or build your own jail - you won`t avoid it (even there) and it doesn`t matter how many people are with you. We are all slaves to our genom.

I think we are slaves to ingorance more. What makes us special among all species of mammals is our self-awareness, our ability to look at our own behaviour and LEARN from it. In some this ability is more proeminent in others not too much, yet many others prefer to be led by others. I don't know if I make sense. But I agree, some genes influence some of our behaviour (not our entire behaviour), don't listen to gary, he's got his head in the clouds as usual. Our moods also are regulated by chemical neurotransmitters in our brains like serotonin which regulates anger, sleep, sex while other chemicals like endorphins are released during pleasurable activities like sex and physical activity. We are a marvellous biochemical machine.