atmosphere in which one lives begins to be felt. The sutra in this connection is:
ahimsāpratiṣṭhāyām tatsannidhau vairatyāgaḥ (II.35). Animosity, which is ingrained in
the personality of a human being and in every living being, loses its sting, becomes
diminished in its intensity, and its aura is felt by the very fact of animosity not being
there.
Of all the vows or the principles of the yamas, ahimsa is the most difficult. The other
ones are not so difficult. One can practise them, but this one is almost impossible
because it includes every other thing. Therefore, it is also difficult to understand,
since one can easily overlook the fact that the tendency to hate is the essence of
himsa. It is not actually going and belabouring someone, or attacking physically. The
very urge that is ingrained in oneself, even though unmanifest, to dislike another is
the essence of himsa. And, who is free from it? Not one that is born is free from it.
Therefore, it is also difficult to follow other rules, because this one vitiates everything
else. But one can, with a great effort, suppress this tendency which asserts one’s ego
and cuts off the values of other egos, which is the background of dislikes; and then
there is a manifestation of spontaneity in oneself.
Artificiality of nature, whatever be its character, is due to a pretended expression of
personality, which is contrary to the essence of the personality. It is this artificiality
that creates all the troubles of life—physical, psychological and social. It is impossible
to see a human being who is natural in his behaviour. Always one is unnatural
because it is impossible to live in this world by expressing one’s nature wholly and
entirely, for reasons which are very peculiar. In this spontaneity that is expected of a
seeker, there is naturally an absence of selfishness, because the difficulty in becoming
spontaneous is the presence of some kind of selfishness in the person. Who can
express this selfishness? The other selfish centres, who are equally intense, will
obstruct the manifestation of it, so it puts on an artificial atmosphere of concordance
with other egos.
This will not work because the feel of nature has nothing whatsoever to do with the
artificial harmony that we have apparently expressed in social life. What it is
concerned with is the very structure of the inner individual, who is more important
than the outer one. The social personality of ours is not our true personality, and so
whatever affection we may express outside is not genuine. And, this has nothing to
do with the requirements of natural laws.
Hence, ahimsa is the abolition of the very deep-rooted tendency to dislike anything,
which spontaneously follows from the recognition of an equal worth in everything—
which is called love. No one can have complete mastery over oneself, or mastery over
anything in this world, unless there is a total absence of selfishness—which is the last
thing that one can achieve in this life. The sutra says that the absence of the tendency
to animosity in oneself opens up the gates of the system of unity behind things; and
the force that is generated by the manifestation of this unity, which is automatically
expressed in oneself in one’s own life by the absence of selfishness due to the practice
of ahimsa, has an impact upon others outside. Animosity, hatred, ill-will and discord
of every kind get mitigated, and even abolished completely, in the vicinity of the
person who has mastered himself by the eradication of selfishness.
The power that one generates in oneself is a spontaneous energy that speaks in its
own language; and it is a language of all things, which can be heard and understood