Ahimsa : The Virtue of Non-Violence

In spite of five millennia of human civilization on earth, fear and violence - the Characteristics of subhuman creatures - continue to survive and even flourish as parts of our social and personal lives. We have accepted them as inseparable and unavoidable parts of our culture and civilization. We may not indulge in gross killing of humans or animals in which our aboriginal ancestors indulged, but we have not been be to get over anger, hate, envy, finding faults with others, using harsh words - the subtler aspects of violence.  We have evolved newer and more refined means of exploiting others.  In spite of the end of the cold war the arms race is continuing and has become more pervasive.  We show greater interest in news of crime and sex, of war and violence, than in others.  TV serials and movies depicting war and crime have much greater appeal. All this shows that even after such a long period of civilization, we have remained brutes.  Pick up any daily newspaper early in the morning, what do you read?  Massacre, murder, rape - violence in so many forms.  The newspaper reads like a chronicle of crime.  Indeed, we have taken violence for granted as a way of life and something most natural.

© The Vedanta Kesari, September, 1999.  Reprinted with permission.

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