To be a lion does not mean that you are violent. To be a rat is not necessarily to be violent. In fact, the word ‘violence’ does not apply to the lion or to the rat; it applies only to the human being. The lion kills all his life but he cannot be called violent; he cannot be called non-violent either. He is just doing what his physical conditioning compels him to do; he has no option.
Man has the option to kill and not to kill. Man has the option to choose what he wants to eat, and therefore only man can be violent or non-violent. The most fearsome carnivore is not violent at all. The mosquito is not violent even if it survives only on your blood. But if you can avoid killing the mosquito and you still kill it, then you are violent.
This article has been created by volunteers of the PrashantAdvait Foundation from transcriptions of sessions by Acharya Prashant
