12
Non-Violence
must move away from wherever the nuisance is. Keep two
separate cooking areas in your home if you can. Keep a spare
stove in your home. Surely you can forego a cooked meal for just
one day! Killing is a very serious matter.
Questioner: We only kill them if they get in our way. We
do not go out of our way to kill them.
Dadashri: For those who want to kill insects, such a
situation will present itself to them. Those who do not want to kill
will come across circumstances that will accommodate their intent.
Your circumstances will change if you make an effort to not
kill for a while. The practice of killing will not stop unless you
understand the law that governs this world, and as a result you
will not be able to break away from the habits of this worldly life.
If you kill an insect by accident, do pratikraman (asking for
forgiveness).
Questioner: Will the use of insecticides affect us?
Dadashri: A change occurs in the subtle subatomic particles
within you the very moment you kill something. Innumerable living
organisms within you die. The killing you do externally is
proportionate to the killing that takes place internally. There is an
entire cosmos within you just as there is on the outside. So kill as
much as you want to, but understand that the same destruction is
taking place within you, for there is as much within the body as
there is in the universe.
You can never be safe because there are so many ‘thieves
and pickpockets’ around. But if the thought of picking someone’s
pocket or stealing from someone does not occur to you, then no
one is going to steal from you. However, if instead of violence,
you choose non-violence, you will not come across any
circumstances of violence. That is the way of the world. If you
could just understand this world- just once- your problems will
be solved.