“Ahimsa” is a Sanskrit word meaning “Do no harm,” “Do not injure,” and more colloquially, it means Universal Love, Pure Love, the supreme duty of man, true sacrifice, forgiveness, and true strength.
By contrast, “Himsa” is violence and injury. All harsh and rude speech to others and ourselves is Himsa. The egoic mind turns our negativity into harm against oneself through the use of our self-doubts, our shakey self-image, or perhaps the sharp tongue-lashing we received by someone else unexpectedly, which we then take to heart. Negative thoughts become negative actions. Himsa is a weapon built on repetition serving to maintain a lower well-being status quo. Physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual himsa leads one to the brink, to the very edge, to that moment of choice between this world and falling through the veil to the next. Himsa at its worst is self-harm, because by harming ourselves, we harm the world around us, too.
At it’s best, Ahimsa is the greatest love of all. It is pure and utter self-love and love for all that is, has ever been, and will ever be. It is the practice of self-care and maintaining one’s greatest well-being through the reaffirmation of believing one is deserving and worthy of that love just as much as anyone else. Ahimsa is the knowledge that one’s body, mind, and soul are truly a tripod temple.
Physically, by acknowledging the messages that are given to us from our bodies, we are appreciating the absolutely amazing opportunity to communicate with ourselves. Messages of the body that are painful might be signaling to us a way in which we are practicing himsa, or self-harm. It is my belief that trapped emotions are stored throughout the body. When we practice yoga, dance, running, spinning, swimming, chasing after children, walking the dog, climbing a tree to rescue the cat, blowing bubbles, or laughing so hard we begin to cry, or any other forms of physical activities we do on a daily basis, we are gaining Ahimsa, self-love, self-appreciation.
Mentally, Himsa occurs when those loving actions are perceived as not good enough, which at the core becomes the idea that WE are not good enough and that we never will be. When one is feeling trapped mentally, confined within his or her body, the purest form of love is not to try to escape, but rather to simply be with what is in the current moment of one’s existence. When we look at ourselves in the mirror, it is not himsa that should be reflected back, but rather, ahimsa and compassion for who you are now, where you have been, and where it is that you hope to be at some future time. So often, himsa is indeed exactly what we see. Sometimes, to acknowledge oneself, to truly look oneself in the eyes, our true nature should shine through despite all of the flaws that we could focus in on instead. At our very core, we are love, and to know this, is to know or true nature, love, pure love.
Another way to practice Ahimsa in our daily lives is to engage in good self-care. For example, be mindful of what one is consuming. Food that comes from harm introduces harm to one’s body. Foods that are nutrient rich and full of good energy provide our souls with the nourishment that is needed in order to complete our journeys in this lifetime. Be gentle with your body, the machine that is transporting you, because it is indeed fragile, but not often in the ways that your ego scares you into believing. You are not weak, pathetic, despicable, horrendous, ugly… those are the fightin’ words of himsa that your ego is attempting to use to convince you to believe that you are less than ALL that you actually ARE.
Spiritually, I recommend beginning or starting to engage in the practice of meditation. By focusing on one’s breath, and taking a moment to acknowledge what is just below the surface, slowly, but surely, one begins to take the problems of the here and now and transform those concerns into what they really mean in the bigger picture. Personally, I have a high level of anxiety that sometimes holds me back from accomplishing what I have set out to do. When I take a moment to not do, and instead meditate on what is really bothering me, what I am anxious about, or just come back to the breath, deeply inhaling in, and deeply letting it all go out, I come back to my sacred center. From this place, when I come back to what I “need” to do in the here and now, I can do so from a place of calm acceptance intermixed with the determined intent to give all of the love I can possibly give to this world for as many days as I will have upon this Earth.
Albert Einstein said, “A human being is part of a whole called by us ‘the universe’, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
Although it is impossible to live (and so do good) without doing harm, we seek to minimize any suffering we may cause. In recognizing the preciousness of our own lives, we recognize that the intricate dance of life around us is also precious. When we step away from our own pain and step into our divinity, pure and utter joy becomes possible.
May an abundance of AHIMSA bless your day as you go forward with the mission of love, light, and well-being for yourself and all others.
Nora Ann Shannon, M.A., MFT-Intern, RYT-200, RMT
855 S. Center St.,
Suite 101
Reno, NV, 89509
For an appointment, please call 775.384.3111
