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PRACTICAL RULES FOR SOUL-CULTURE
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of this love for human beings only. If human beings are parts of the universe the animals also have the right to live as much as human beings have.
The first requisite for the soul-culture is a life of harmiony, which implies the practice of universal love. It includes the respect for the bodily as well as soullife of all living beings. We destroy the bodily life of other beings by killing them ard we destroy their mental and moral life by harbouring evil thoughts and desires for them. Soul is potentially infinite knowledge and infinite good, theoretical and practical; and anything done to thwart the progress of the soul in that line is the violation of the law of universal love. This respect for the life of others must be ingrained in our very being. Mere repetition of the word Love cannot be considered practical love. All our daily acts must be regulated on this principle. Limiting our necessities and sharing our possessions with others is a practical illustration of universal love. The idea in the mind must not be that we are giving something that belongs to us; but that the possessions that we have been fortunate to obtain did at one time belong to some other person and in future it may belong to some other person; and we have no right to appro priate it to our sole use.
Maitri, Pransoda, Karunā and Upeksha are the foar great virtues which must stand as our guides in all departments of life. The first simply means
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