Dimensions of Ahimsa

  
Today I want to address some of the fundamentals of the yogic lifestyle that actually connect to each other.
The main topic will be ahimsa, which is a Sanskrit word for "nonviolence".
You can hear Kino MacGregor really nice talk about Ahimsa here:

For me, personally, Ahimsa has three basic dimensions, or that's at least how I see it. It might be ideologically not correct, but this is what I discovered so far.  I listed them from the easiest to hardest one (for me).
First dimension of Ahimsa, which is the one that seems the easiest for me, is non violence to animals. I've been always an animal 
lover, with many, many animals in my household. My record was seven cats, a rabbit and two guinea pigs. Not hurting the animals was always something obvious since I was a little kid. My entire family adored animals, so I could say I " inherited" this animal loving thingy and always included animals as members of my family.
Yet the concept of Ahimsa made me re-examine and look again at my feeling towards animals and I turned out to be animal lover hypocrite. 
And here goes my diet. Would I slaughter a cat? A dog? A fish? A cow? A pig? Any living creature? No. Never. I would much rather die from hunger, than to live knowing that I hurt a living being. Would I be ok with going into the slaughter house and watch without blink how animals are killed? I don't think I would be ever able to do that. 
So then, why do I allow other people to do the dirty work for me? 
Why do I, by buying meat with my money, feed the entire machine of animal slaughter? One would say - animals will be killed anyway. There are thousands of people who feed the business every day and will not eliminate meat from their diet. I don't think that going with the crowd is a solution here, just because "nothing will change anyway". I think that the changes start within ourself, and if you can, inspire others to do so. It's valuable to have your own point of view, be true to oneself and go with it. If everybody would be following the crowd, nothing would ever change. If I can make make the animal slaughter industry income 0.0000000000000000000001% lower,  then I will do so! Add on those little percentages of the people that choose to not rat meat and the true change starts to look more material. 
I've been always struggling back and forth with eating meat - part of me wanted to do just to animals and stay true to myself, and my love to animals, and another part just said "oh that won't change anything" and went with the mainstream. 
There is another change that happens when you consciously decide to exclude meat from your diet. It's a change within your self, it's a feeling of integrity with your true beliefs, your actions, and the "outside word". On that note, concept of ahimsa led me towards connecting with what I feel is right and putting it into action. 
I think it's important to make people aware about this and listen to your inner voice telling you what is right for you and the "outside words" 

The second dimension of Ahimsa, for me is non violence towards other people. 
For me, when I first started to unroll the concept of ahimsa the first question that poped out was the question about the definition of violence. What is the meaning of ahimsa towards other people? 
For me it is acting the way that won't hurt the others and won't cause an intentional suffering. It also goes beyond intentional and ask to re-examine the possible unintentional effect of our actions. It can be words, action, but also thoughts. 
Its really mora about "scanning" and measuring everything against that idea of non violence. Actually it's very much about making a decision, that I'm not going to get angry, that, I'm not going to talk back in that way. It's not about being idle but about refraining from any verbal or physical violence. While it is quite understandable for most of people that you should not hit another person, verbal assault and violence through words is much more common. Words can hurt more than a physical pain. 
In "Sacred fire" Kino MacGregor writes"(...) when you find yourself in the throws of anger with heat rising up your spine, blood boiling
and eyes narrowing, the normal reaction is to let it spew out from your mouth and body in rising torment that attacks all beings around. (...) I began to see that rather than creating or acting out of my anger I could, instead, act out of love. This state actively gives, creates, heals and inspires".
The third dimension of Ahimsa is the hardest thing ever. It's non violence to your own self. 
We often don't realize how much harm we do to ourselves. It can really be a variety of actions, thoughts, words. It is so hard to control it and realize that little pieces of violence that we do to ourselves every day. Beating yourself up for a mistake, making a decision that will have negative influence on our mind and body, negative thoughts and many many others appear every day. It's a life long process to come to peace with oneself. 
Something that is definitely worth working on.

And, last but not least,for inspiration - Danny Paradise talking about the power of one.
http://youtu.be/EnMo9QKi9-w