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STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT mind by causing unnecessary pain to others, or by engaging in gambling, hunting, shooting, etc-sport.
(Incidental) Insentient things are only tempor tarily units; but sentient beings remain the same individual for all time. Any insentient thing, as a teacup, consists of matter, and that matter did and always will exist in some relationship; it cannot be destroyed. A sentient being is a soul and capnot be destroyed as an individual.
6. The layman who wishes to take the first steps towards spiritual progress should avoid (or abandon) places of difficulties and dangers. For instance, a place of battle, or where plague, or famine is. Or where there is ill feeling towards him from the people around him (this is for the beginner). The reason is that if he stays in such places he will not be able to accomplish what he wisues to accomplish.
7. He should live in a State or Country where he will have adequate protection of his life and property by the rulers. If he lives where crimes go on unpunished he is liable to be disturbed.
Rule 8. The layman should get the con:pany of genteel people who appreciate good, whose actions are right, whose conduct is of the right kind, and who are always partial for virtue; and whom he considers examples to be followed.
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