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Health & Fitness

Ahimsa for Your Life

The principle of non-violence teaches us that we must be careful of our actions, our words and our thoughts so that they do not harm others or ourselves.

It's natural for a personal yoga practice to teach us an increased mindfulness that leads to more earth-friendly and personal life choices. The essence of yoga is balance, and that means not only balance in our bodies or our emotional lives, but also balance in our relationship to the world. Yoga's core principles can motivate you to take purposeful actions that are healthy for the planet and also appropriate for you, whatever your circumstances.

First among the yamas-or principles- is ahimsa, or nonviolence. It is obvious
that we should not be physically violent against others; however, a deeper look
at non-violence involves our words and our thoughts. Verbal abuse toward others
is extremely detrimental, not only to the victim but to the perpetrator as
well. One who speaks such words, most basically, has an angry heart and allows
the hate or anger to consume them or to fill them to the point it spills out
onto others. Thoughts alone carry tremendous energy; we need to be very careful
about the things we think as well.

A very primitive concept is that if we responded to ALL cruel words with love we
would be able to diffuse the primary emotion-pain. Try to think of every angry
comment as a cry for love. I challenge you- just for a week. This means that when your partners come home from work crabby you tell them how much you love them. When your children act out tell them how much you appreciate them and love them. Children become what we teach them to be. Send loving thoughts to your past relationships, friends, family, and even the guy that just cut you off on the expressway. One of my favorite quotes is, “Being angry is like drinking
poison and waiting for the other person to die”.

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An exerpt from Yoga Journal states, “Does Ahimsa just apply
to the interaction between human beings? No, it applies to all interactions
with everything in the universe. There is a connection between all things in
the universe, and creating harm to any of them can put negative energy into the
world. If a calf spends its life in a small pen unable to move and in pain so
that its meat will be tender, could you imagine that the animal’s sufferings
would not somehow become part of the animal's meat? If the animal is killed in
way that is painful the animal’s body will react to the pain with hormones, a
change in heart rate and various other changes that will in turn will affect
the levels of sugars and other elements in the animals blood. This is the
“fight or flight” reaction that creates changes in the animal’s body. Do you
think the energy of food from an animal that was killed while having this
reaction is positive?”

In conclusion, we see that the principle of non-violence
teaches us that we must be careful of our actions, our words and our thoughts
so that they do not harm others or ourselves. I pray for you all to be filled
with peace, happiness, and love.  Take a deep breath and let it the rest go- Namaste

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