The principle of Ahimsa and Ahimsa translates to non-violence.
I'll start with a short story.
So an incident that happened a few weeks ago.
I was standing in line for my morning coffee.
In the morning everyone's always in a hurry.
Everyone is half awake.
Everyone is a little bit annoyed and the person taking the order on the other side was quite overwhelmed.
The orders were piling up.
That person was facing a lot of flak from customers.
A lot of customers were annoyed and they were taking it out on the Badista.
And at one point someone said to the Badista,
How hard is it to make a latte?
And when the person said that they really yelled and said it.
And everyone was quite shocked and taken aback.
And just after that someone at the back whispered that nowadays people are so very causally cruel.
So very casually cruel.
And those two words made me wonder how often do we cause harm not intentionally but because we are in a rush or because we are stressed or because we are annoyed or because we are simply not paying attention.
And that's what Ahimsa is really about.
Ahimsa which translates to non-violence.
It's not about non-violence in that dramatic sense that I'm not physically harming someone.
It's about choosing not to be casually cruel especially in those smaller moments.
So Ahimsa,
It's not only avoiding physical aggression.
It's a complete philosophy of kindness that applies to how we live,
How we speak,
How we work and for that matter even how we scroll.
In the Yoga Sutras,
Ahimsa is the first of the five Yamas.
The Yamas are the ethical guidelines that have been prescribed by the sage Patanjali in the Patanjali Yoga Sutras.
So Ahimsa comes as the first Yama.
And why does it come first?
It's simply because without non-harming,
We cannot really expect any of the other practices to flourish.
Ahimsa is more than just not hurting someone.
It's about choosing compassion over criticism.
It's about choosing care over convenience.
It's about choosing awareness over impulse.
In our modern lives,
Ahimsa might look like not yelling at your kids when they spill something,
Pausing,
Breathing and responding calmly.
That's what Ahimsa would look like.
Avoiding gossip,
Even if the gossip seems harmless or it seems entertaining or even resisting the road rage when someone cuts you off,
Resisting that road rage,
Choosing patience instead of retaliation.
So Ahimsa,
It's not about being passive.
It's about responding with intentional softness rather than reacting with force.
So it's responding with intentional softness rather than reacting with force.
So what might Ahimsa look like in our everyday scenarios?
Firstly,
There's that self-talk,
That inner voice,
That inner critic that's saying things like,
I'm so stupid or I can't believe I messed that up again.
And that negative inner talk,
That critical inner talk,
That's mental violence.
In the practice of Ahimsa,
What you would do is you would swap that.
So it would change to,
I'm learning or that was hard but I'm still growing.
Then when it comes to work,
Skipping lunch,
Saying yes to every request,
Pushing past your exhaustion.
These are quiet forms of self-harm and we don't even realize it.
So practicing Ahimsa at work,
That would mean setting boundaries,
Taking breaks and speaking up when you see that something is not right or when something feels off.
When it comes to your digital life,
How many of y'all have experienced doom scrolling and at the end of it you feel angry or you feel jealous or you feel drained and that's an emotional toll.
In the practice of Ahimsa or when you're practicing Ahimsa,
You would ask,
Is this interaction nourishing or is it toxic?
The suggestion would be to curate your feed in the same way that you would curate your meals.
When it comes to consumer choices,
You can choose buying fast fashion that harms workers or pollutes the planet and this can be a form of unconscious violence.
So making that conscious effort to choose fair trade or to choose local or even to choose second-hand pre-loved options,
In a way this honors both,
It honors the people and it honors the earth.
So those are some ways of how Ahimsa can be practiced in our daily life.
So when it comes to harm,
There are some subtle layers because Ahimsa is not just about what we do,
It's about how we feel and how we react.
Emotional violence,
This happens when we lash out in stress,
When we are stressed out and then we lash out,
That's emotional violence and Ahimsa asks us to pause before the acting.
Then there's the subtle form of language violence,
Sarcasm,
Passive aggression,
Cutting humor.
These are some ways we practice violence in our language while speaking to others.
So be mindful of your tone,
Be mindful of your intention,
This becomes a key to practicing Ahimsa in your speech.
And then there's energetic violence,
This can come from rushing,
Rushing to do one thing after the other,
Multitasking or even ignoring people while you're looking at your phone,
This is another form of violence.
So Ahimsa is an invitation to slow down,
To treat each moment,
To treat each being as being sacred.
Incorporating Ahimsa into our daily lives,
Some simple practices,
Starting a day with a mantra and the mantra could be something as simple as today I choose to do no harm in thought,
In word or in deed.
That could be a morning mantra that you incorporate.
You could also set a phone reminder,
A phone reminder set at midday that simply says pause,
Breathe,
Choose kindness.
In the evening as part of your journaling or your evening reflection,
You can simply reflect on where you acted out of frustration and where you acted from a place of love.
Other small actions that we can incorporate in our daily life to live the philosophy of Ahimsa.
Pet your dog like it's the best thing that happened to you today or let someone merge into traffic with a smile or don't reply to that annoying email immediately,
Sleep on it and forgive yourself for being human.
So Ahimsa is not a finish line,
It is not an end.
It is a daily,
It is a messy but it's a beautiful practice and it's not about being nice all the time.
It's more about being awake,
Being aware of our impact and living with that willingness to shift.
Every act of gentleness,
It ripples outward.
So whether you're choosing kind words,
Whether you're choosing patient thoughts,
Whether you're choosing mindful purchases,
All these in some way contribute to creating a more peaceful world.
Thank you for exploring with me this philosophy of Ahimsa today.
