CHAPTER 3 AHIMSA Nonharming

Who will be the happiest person?

The one who brings happiness to others.

—SWAMI SATCHIDANANDA

Three things in human life are important.

The first is to be kind, the second is to be kind, and

the third is to be kind.

—HENRY JAMES

Ahimsa means “nonharming.” What happens when you practice ahimsa long enough to become established in it?

ahiṁsā-pratiṣṭhāyāṁ tat-sannidhau vaira-tyāgaḥ

PYS II.35

When you stop harming others, others will cease to harm you.

1. ahimsa: nonharming, nonviolence
2. pratishthayam: being established or grounded in
3. tat: (in) that
4. sannidhau: presence
5. vaira: hostility
6. tyagah: give up, abandon

IN THE YOGA SUTRAS, PATANJALI gives us five recommendations, called yamas, for how we should treat others if we want to attain Yoga—the realization of the oneness of being. The first yama is ahimsa, which means “nonharming.”

Patanjali says that if you are seeing a multitude of others and not One, then first and foremost, don’t hurt them! The yamas are directives for how we should relate to others, not ourselves. Nonetheless, some contemporary yoga teachers interpet ahimsa as a directive not to harm yourself. “Don’t be aggressive in your asana practice; be kind to your body,” they say. Or else, “Don’t restrict your diet with extremes like veganism or vegetarianism; it might harm you.”

If Patanjali had been recommending ahimsa as a way of treating oneself, he would have included it in his list of niyamas, the observances one should maintain in regard to oneself. The five niyamas are saucha (cleanliness), santosha (contentment), tapas (discipline), svadhyaya (study), and ishvarapranidhana (loving devotion to God). None of these niyamas conflicts with ethical veganism, while the yamas all support it. Not harming yourself is a result of the practice of ahimsa, but if you limit your practice of ahimsa to being kind to yourself, you will deny yourself the ultimate benefit of yoga practice, which is enlightenment. The fact that Patanjali placed ahimsa as the first yama, and not among the niyamas, or personal observances, seems vitally significant. So much of the violence we see in the world today seems to be out of our control, but what we choose to eat is very much within our control.

We cannot change the suffering that has already happened in our lives, but future suffering can and should be avoided. A benefit of not causing others to suffer is that we will eventually, but inevitably, become free from suffering. We may mistakenly think that to refrain from harming another brings benefit only to that other, and not to ourselves. We often view extending kindness to animals as a form of charity. Many nonvegans may even look on vegans as depriving themselves of enjoyment by refraining from eating meat. But when you understand how karma works and how yoga works, you begin to realize that how you treat others now determines how much suffering or joy you experience in your future.

In the case of eating meat, fish, and dairy products, the suffering may occur relatively quickly in the form of health problems like heart disease, stroke, or cancer. But most often, the karmic seeds of violence, like all seeds, take time to gestate, sprout, and grow. One may not see the results of one’s harmful actions right away. In fact, the negative seeds we plant now may not come to fruition until future lifetimes. There is no such thing as instant karma. If there were, eating a hamburger would cause a person to drop dead.

Through the practice of yoga and ethical veganism, we can realize that we were meant to live in harmony with all the other animals and all of life. We come to know that our physical bodies function better without having to instill fear into others and to kill them, and that there is no nutrient that we need that we can’t get directly from plant sources or from sunlight. We will come to recognize that our old bodies can be transformed and become light and whole—holy bodies, used as vehicles to bring peace. We can truly become the peace we wish to see in the world, and all beings will rejoice in our presence and not fear and run away from us.

Nonharming is essential to the yogi because it creates the kind of karma that leads to eternal joy and happiness. According to the universal law of karma, if you cause harm to others, you will suffer the painful consequences of your actions. The yogi, realizing this, tries to cause the least amount of harm and suffering to others possible.

Compassion is an essential ingredient of ahimsa. Through compassion, you begin to see yourself in other beings. This helps you refrain from causing harm to them. Developing compassion does something more that is of special interest to the yogi. It trains the mind to see beyond outer differences of form. You begin to catch glimpses of the inner essence of other beings, which is happiness. You begin to see that every single creature desires happiness.

To develop compassion, examine the motives behind your actions. Are they selfish, or unselfish? Proclaiming that it is right to eat meat because it makes you healthier, for example, is himsic, or harmful, because it is an action stemming from a selfish motive. When you recognize that cows, pigs, and chickens, as well as all animals raised for food, want happiness just like you do, you recognize kindred souls. The distinction between you and other beings wears thin as awareness begins to dawn.

In truth, we all share consciousness, and harm inflicted on one being (be it animal or human) is felt by all, sooner or later. Some meat eaters like to advance the argument that vegetables have feelings, too, so what is the difference between eating chickens or carrots? The answer is simple: Patanjali gives ahimsa as a practice, meaning you do your best to cause the least amount of harm. The yogi strives to cause the least amount of harm possible, and it is clear that eating a vegan diet causes the least harm to the planet and all creatures.

Generally speaking, the disease of disconnection plagues the human condition. As a species, we are not at ease with ourselves—with our bodies, with our minds, or our feelings—nor are we at ease with others, whether human beings or other animals. We can be nervous, competitive, fearful, or worried. We crave respect and approval while simultaneously seeking dominance and power. We certainly aren’t at ease with our environment and are constantly altering it to suit our needs or, more often, our desires, with little regard for how our actions impact others or the Earth. This “dis-ease” causes all sorts of problems. We are destroying ourselves, other animal species, and the planet in a misguided quest to find happiness or ease of being.

By enslaving other animals and abusing them through lifelong torture and degradation, we deprive them of freedom and happiness. How can we ourselves hope to be free or happy when our own lives are rooted in depriving others of the very thing we say we value most in life—the freedom to pursue happiness? If you want to bring more peace and happiness into your own life, the method is to stop causing violence and unhappiness in the lives of others.

We tell our children that “Might is not right,” yet we throw that idea out the window when it comes to the everyday reality of using might to torture, humiliate, and kill the enslaved and confined animals we raise for food.

maitryādiṣu balāni PYS III.24

Through kindness, strength comes.

1. maitri: friendliness
2. adishu: et cetera (compassion, kindness)
3. balani: strength, power

This is a radical concept because it challenges our enculturation, which tells us that strength comes from weakening another. The fork can be a powerful weapon of mass destruction or a tool to lead a movement of peaceful coexistence. Eating a compassionate vegan diet will stop war and create peace in one’s body, peace with the animal nations, and peace on Earth.

Indeed, it is very radical to be a vegan during these times! As Ingrid Newkirk reminds us, “Never be afraid of seeming radical. All the best people in history have always been radical.” The word radical, like the word radish, derives from the root word rad, meaning “root.” A radical is someone who attempts to dig to the root of a situation. Yogis have always been radical and were even considered heretical because Yoga philosophy says a mediator or priest is not necessary—you are a direct line to God. Yogis search for the root causes because they understand that effective change can occur only if you change a course of action from the causal point. Failure to understand this is why so many “liberating” revolutions of the past never elicited long-lasting positive change; they dealt only with surface symptoms, not the root causes of social and cultural problems.

If we are to discover lasting solutions for our contemporary problems, we should look at the circumstances that might have led to those problems. History shows us that the enslavement of animals served as the model for human slavery. First, animals were enslaved and exploited, and then it was not a far leap to begin treating humans “like animals” by enslaving and exploiting them as well.

In ancient India, the cow was economically essential. The word for cow became synonymous with many other terms used to describe the values of a culture founded on the exploitation of animals, primarily cattle. The goddess of nature, for instance, was called “the perfect cow” because she provided abundance for her worshipers. So, people came to look on nature as existing to be used and exploited. Cow herders from ancient times to the present have viewed the cow’s existence as a means to provide human beings the four Ms: milk, meat, manure, and money.

In our quest for peace, it is valuable to recognize that the ancient wars in our culture’s history were fought over disputes about animal ownership and the land needed to confine, graze, and grow crops to feed those animals. Interestingly, the Sanskrit word for war is gavya, literally meaning “the desire to fight for more cattle,” and gavishti means “to be desirous of a fight.” Both words come from the root gav or go, which means “cow.” The domestication (enslaving) of cows led to war.

Yogis seek real and lasting liberation from suffering. The Sanskrit term jivanmukti reveals the philosophical idea that such liberation is possible even for a person who still has a physical body, rather than only after the body is shed. Jiva means “individual soul,” and mukti means “liberation.” Together, the words describe a liberated soul, a person who perceives himself or herself not as a separate individual, but as holy: one who is part of the whole of creation.

The jivanmukta experiences liberation—absolute freedom from all states of confinement and suffering—and wishes this for all beings. In Tibetan Buddhism, we find a similar idea in the concept of the bodhisattva: one who lives for the benefit of others and finds the highest joy in the happiness and liberation of others. Yoga means liberation. Slavery is contrary to liberation. We ourselves can never be free while taking away freedom from others. Through the practice of yoga, we begin to recognize ourselves as inseparable from the whole and realize that whatever we do to others, we ultimately do to ourselves.

Pratishthayam means “to become well established or grounded in a certain practice.” If we want to live in a less violent world, we will have to give up violence ourselves. As we become less violent, the world around us becomes less violent. We cannot demand something that we ourselves are not willing to embody.

I once spoke to a well-known yoga teacher, who is not a vegan and who had told his students that veganism isn’t an important aspect of the practice of yoga, about the subject of ahimsa-pratishthayam (being established in ahimsa). In a public statement at a yoga conference, he had said that it was not necessary to be a vegan in order to be established in ahimsa. I asked him whether he felt that a person could kill and eat an animal without causing the animal harm, which would be the only logical support for his statement. Instead of answering my question directly, he asked me whether I thought that Jesus and the Buddha were enlightened beings, and went on to tell me that neither of them were vegans. “How do you know that they were not vegans?” I asked. The reality is that no one knows for sure what they ate or didn’t eat, but we certainly do know what we have been eating. We also know for sure whether we are living a peaceful, easeful life or one filled with violence and hostility.

Yoga is said to be the perfection of action by the removal of selfish motivation. Yogis use the world they live in and the way in which they interact with the world as a vehicle for transformation. A vegan diet is an informed, intelligent, and conscious way to act peacefully and selflessly each time we make a choice, because it takes into consideration the well-being of others as well as of ourselves.

The practice of yoga builds inner confidence. As we become more Self-confident, we become less fearful. We become less self-absorbed, and our ability to feel life all around allows us to hear what life is trying to communicate to us through nature. Speaking to us through the animals, trees, water, and air, the message is simple yet profound: All of life is interconnected. What we do to others affects us all.

When we begin to feel this, we can free ourselves from the false idea that the Earth belongs to us and instead use our lives to benefit others. In turn, we will become happy as we discover that the best way to uplift our own lives is to do all we can to uplift the lives of others. When we become well established in ahimsa, we live in such a way that all hostility ceases in our presence. Others will not harm us. They won’t feel any animosity toward us or even think harmful thoughts about us. They will have no need to fear us. Animals will not cower or shake in our presence or fearfully run away from us. As we rid ourselves of violent tendencies, we purify the atmosphere surrounding us, which is but a projection of our inner ground of being.