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know what is under your control. The Lord says, “It takes so
many causes to come together for you to be able to kill even a
single bug.” The killer merely does the bhaav, ‘I want to kill’, but
so many other circumstances have to come together too besides
this intent created by the killer. Do you think your father owns
this world? If he did, don’t you think he would have thrown you
out a long time ago? But really there is no telling when one is
going to drop dead. It is merely the ego that gets hurt; the ego
becomes exposed in all this; that is all. The Lord has said, “You
have to have inner intent of compassion (bhaav-daya).” Bhaav-
daya does not mean to save the bugs from being killed, but the
bhaav one gets to kill the insects, causes destruction of your
Self. And because it kills your self, you should have compassion
towards your Self (bhaav- daya). That is bhaav-daya, to have
compassion for your precious Self. You should be primarily
concerned with compassion for your own Self; insects and
people have brought their own karmic accounts with them.
Every living being brings his own karmas with him; they are all
independent. Otherwise, would America allow the cold war to
go on for such a long time? They are claiming that they can wipe
off Russia within an hour!
Protect and preserve your intent only
No one has the independent control over anything;
therefore you simply need to be careful that you do not become
instrumental in the killing of your own self. When you have intent
to kill any living being, you are actually killing your atmabhaav,
your Self. That is why you should maintain kindness towards
your own Self (bhaav-daya). The Lord did not tell us to have
kindness towards others and yet people are preoccupied with
doing just that. Let go of this madness! How can you feel sorry
for others when there is no telling what is going to happen to
you? And then one becomes heavily laden with the ego in doing
so, “I feel terribly sorry for them…I feel very sad for them…”
you foolish people, why don’t you worry about yourself first?