Ahimsa Dissolves Enmity
There is a beautiful sutra in Patanjali Yoga Sutras which says,
'Ahimsa pratiṣṭhāyāṁ tat vaira-tyāgaḥ'.
Amazing sutra! He says, if you are established in ahimsa, in front of you all enmity disappears. There are thousands of stories of animals or people dropping their negativity and enmity in front of enlightened Masters.
In Buddha's life we can see so many stories like there was a mad elephant sent to kill Buddha by one of His cousins, and when the elephant came in front of Buddha, it just stopped and bowed to Buddha and did pradakshina (circumambulation) and went away.
The other day I was reading an article. A scientist was trying to fix some electrodes on the brains of animals and manipulate them. He activated an electrode which creates anger, and the bull became mad.
After few minutes, when it was about to jump on him, he just activated another one electrode which made the bull silent and it just sat.
When you are really established in nonviolence, no animal can experience violence in front of you. The part of the brain which aggravates anger or violence simply disappears; it stops working in front of you.
One important thing you should understand, whether you believe it or not, whatever you strongly experienced you radiate that quality, you express that quality. Even if you try to cover, you can't cover, you can't hide, you radiate it. In Sanskrit we have a word called darshan which means to see.
They say even seeing negative people will create negativity in you. You may think how that can happen. It can happen because they are constantly radiating the same kind of waves, the same kind of thoughts.
Let me tell you an incident which happened in my life:
I was staying in a forest in South Hinduism after my experience of spiritual enlightenment. One evening I was sitting and just relaxing.
There was a big snake in front of me, lying just one foot away for more than 3-4 hours. But I did not have a thought it was a snake or it was dangerous to my life. As long as I did not have the thought it was a snake, the snake did not have the thought that I am a man and dangerous to its life.
| After a few hours, slowly the mind came down from that beautiful and intense silence. | Slowly when the thought started rising, when the mind started clutching, the first thought came, 'Oh there is a snake.' |
|---|---|
| The moment I got the idea that there was a snake I saw very clearly the snake got the idea that there was a man. | Only when I felt threatened, I felt I was in danger, so naturally there was a possibility of attack, there was a possibility for violence. |
| In the same way the snake also felt that there was a possibility for violence. | See, only when you are afraid you attack. Be very clear, all the people who think they are great warriors are all cowards. |
| Only cowards attack, Mahāvīra never attacks. Mahāvīra means the ultimate warrior; he never attacks. | If you attack the other person, you are afraid that he may kill you. You want to kill him before he kills you, that's all. |
See all the wars, wars are created only by cowards, not by courageous people who want to kill the other person before they are killed, that's all.
Even in your life, be very clear, if you are threatened by somebody, sit and analyze, that person must be feeling threatened by you. Try to sort out that issue, you will never be disturbed. Whenever people come to me and say, 'I am threatened and I am in danger,' I tell them, 'No, wait, just see , you must be threatening the other person in some way directly or indirectly.
Find out and remove the fear from him. You can send him a message directly or indirectly that you are not going to be a threat for him, you will attack only when you are threatened.' This incident taught me a big lesson - only when I had the idea, the thought, that there was a snake, the snake had the idea that there was a man.