The mode of living which is founded upon a total harmlessness towards all creatures upon a minimum of such harm is the highest morality.
Quotations
Scriptures
Behold the man who shields his family from all suffering. Has not his body become a willing vessel for affliction? Without good men to hold it up, the family house will fall when misfortune descends.
Not knowing the consequence of good and evil karmas, he is afflicted and hurt. Nevertheless, he, due to his egotism, piles up more karmas and undergoes births and deaths again and again.
Perceiving her son endowed with the characteristics of Vishnu, Devaki prayed: You are the Illuminator of all psycho-physical organisms, the indefinable Reality, which the Vedas declare as the unmanifest cause… When the universe is dissolved by force of Time, the gross elements are ultimately merged in ahankara (their cause)…
Delusion is a sort of demonic force. People’s original mind is pure but it becomes perverted due to delusion and other karmas.
Lao Tan said, “I was letting my mind wander in the beginning of things.”
“What does this mean?” asked Confucius. Lao Tan said, “It means to attain Perfect Beauty and wander in Perfect Happiness. He who attains Perfect Beauty and wanders in Perfect Happiness may be called the Perfect Man.”
Even as a mirror reflects an object held close to it, one’s behavior reflects as the ego-sense in one’s consciousness. But if held at a distance, ego-sense does not arise.
One should not injure, subjugate, enslave, torture, or kill any animal, living being, organism, or sentient being. Just as suffering is painful to you, in the same way it is painful, disquieting and terrifying to all animals, living beings, organisms and sentient beings.
The worthy person is grateful and mindful of benefits done to him. This gratitude, this mindfulness, is congenial to the best people.
The Gods gave a microbe a drop of water, and in it he lived. They gave an ant a half acre of land, and he prospered. They gave a tiger the forest and he formed an empire and became an emperor. They gave man the Universe and all the knowledge therein. He entered of his own free will the dungeon of Dogma, shut his mind to truth and slew and starved his brothers.
