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money-grabbers, destroying the happiness of many fellow beings in order to amass riches for themselves
Ahimsa as Swamijee showed means "not to kill". It does not mean "save from death" No power on earth can save all the fishes, animals and insects from devouring each other. One cannot change the natural law of big fish eating smaller ones or cat killing mice But one can save one's soul by not killing or harming others.
By giving up eating of the sweet fruits, we have brought a kind of control on our sense of taste, and which will nodoubt help us to be released from the bondage of the sense of taste, but it will not benefit the sweet fruits in any way. Those sweet fruits will be eaten and enjoyed by some others with which we have no concern, but we have advanced a step onward in selfcontrol by curbing the desire of eating away the sweet fruits By refraining from killing we save our souls from sinning, but we cannot stop by it the every day slaughter of animals. But by advancing the cult of 'not to kill', the slaughter of animals will be lessened automatically On the other hand the principle of 'saving the animals' will surely need money, power and coersion, which will ultimately end as I have already said in Himsa or killing Thus the ignorance of the real meaning of Ahimsa as not to kill has resulted in self-deception among the votaries of Ahimsa As for lay people the teaching of Lord Mahavira seems to be quite appropriate. He says
