Shedding Ego, Finding Love: The Deeper Truth of Ahimsa

Ahimsa is the ultimate vow superseding all other concerns in yoga. Although it is defined in negative terms as “non – violence”, its application has to be the positive affirmation that all life is precious and worthy of protection. This is not an intellectual exercise but a realization of one’s own connectivity to all living beings. It is obtained through meditation: as we sit and observe the mind, we start to see the shallowness of our own distinctions: things like race gender and nationality does not exist beyond our conceptual minds.

The self – identity we hold onto is merely fleeting accounts of the past that we change according to circumstances. As our personality , thus start to dissolve shedding layers of culture and conditioning, we get down to our raw humanity: our awareness can expand beyond the ego’s limitation and from this perspective there is unity rather than separation. We experience that we are all connected and therefore all life is our concern. This realization that we can call “love” is the foundation of ahimsa.