Deeper Your Empathy, Deeper Is Your Self-Love

Acharya Prashant: When you kill, you do not kill a stone, right? What does the word ‘killing’ refer to? Consciousness. In some way the mosquito is like you. If you love yourself, how can you kill the mosquito? It's a strange logic, but this is it. Liberation requires that you do not kill the ones who are like you.

Jesus pointed at it when he said, “Behave with the neighbor as you would behave with yourself.” Why? Because the neighbor is like you. Just as the neighbor is like you, the goat or the bird too is like you.

The greater your circle of empathy is, the greater will be your empathy towards yourself. It’s almost as if it is your own empathy that spreads radially outwards in concentric circles. The greater is the intensity of the source of empathy at the center, the greater is the spread of empathy; then it starts encompassing more and more conscious beings. In other words, the more deeply you want liberation for yourself, the more will be the domain of conscious beings you would seek liberation for.

Understand it this way. You would have thrown a stone into a pond. If you just drop it with almost zero speed, how big will the ripples be? Very small, without any power, because there is not much depth in the impact that you are creating. Take the impact as the y-axis; there is not much depth that you are attaining in the y-axis. Therefore, the effect in the x-dimension will also be negligible. The ripples that you will see will be very faint, very feeble. But if you throw the stone vertically, right into the surface of the pond with power and velocity, then the vertical impact of the stone will be large, right? And because vertically the impact will be large, horizontally the ripples will spread far and wide.

Now, understand. Vertically, what you want is for yourself; you are the y-axis. Horizontally, what you want is for others. The bigger the circle, the more are the number of people that are included in your circle of compassion and empathy. The point where you drop the stone is the center of your personality. Closest to the center are the ones closest to you, for example, your parents, your spouse, your kids, your friends; a little further away are your neighbors; a little further away are other human beings; a little further away are people of, let’s say, other countries, other continents; even further away are non-humans, other conscious beings.

Even in the category of non-humans, radially outward first you will encounter, let's say, mammals. Then you will encounter, let's say, birds; then you will encounter insects and so on; then bacteria and so on. As you keep moving further away from the center, you are encountering more and more beings that are conscious but not like you. Your circle of empathy will never reach those beings if it does not have depth. But the more you love yourself, the more you are empathetic towards yourself, the bigger your circle will be. And then you will be empathetic towards conscious beings far and wide.

Therefore, if you are someone who can eat even a human being, it only proves that your circle of empathy is very, very small. You can eat even a human being, even human beings lie outside your circle of empathy, so your circle is very small. And if your circle is small, what does it prove about the intensity of your self-love? It has very little intensity. Therefore, the circle that it created was very small. If you can eat a human being, it means you do not love yourself at all. If you do not love yourself at all, there is no possibility of liberation; you are a very violent person. If there is no possibility of liberation at all for you, then you are a very violent person—that is violence.

To make a choice that will not lead to liberation is violence.

Who is the most like you? You, yourself. So, first of all, be empathetic to yourself. Then who is the one most like you? Your mother, your father, your siblings; be empathetic to them. Then who is the one who is like you? Your neighbors, your extended family. Then who is the one most like you? Be empathetic to all. If you are not displaying compassion towards other conscious beings, it will only hurt you.

Kill the animal and in some way the animal is liberated of its misery, at least in the physical sense. But you, having eaten the animal, will now live to suffer the effects of eating that animal; that is your punishment. You will survive to see tomorrow; that is your punishment. The animal is gone, but you will not be allowed to go. You have just had flesh. The flesh will keep you alive, and you will stay put. There will be a tomorrow for you, and it will be a very dark tomorrow—that will be your punishment.

Full article link: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles/non-violence-and-killing-mosquitoes-1_6eaf845

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