Who is most like you? You, yourself. So, be empathetic to yourself first. Then, who is most like you? Your mother, father, siblings; show empathy to them. Then, your neighbors, extended family, and finally, be empathetic to all. Lacking compassion for other conscious beings will only harm 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 suffer. The flesh keeps you alive, and tomorrow awaits—a dark tomorrow as your punishment.
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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.
