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take recourse to one's body, mind and speech, which are the three means or implements of spiritual practice. These are also the means of liberation. These constitute the path of spiritual emancipation and are the activities of karmic stoppage and separation. As long as the body and the mind are present some physical and mental activities are unavoidable. To direct these activities in the direction of worldliness is the path of mundane pleasures and it amounts to sin whereas to direct them towards restraint is the means of karmic stoppage and separation.
It is not that inactivity is the only path of spiritual practice. If someone goes without food for some time in order to give rest to his digestive system and to reawaken his digestive faculties so that he can relish his food better, it does not amount to the fasting penance and is not a cause of liberation but that of bondage. The cessation of all activities by the crane in order to concentrate on catching the fish is not inactivity but activity only. What is meant here is that any inactivity that has the motive of enhancing mundane indulgence and pleasures at a later time is an activity that results in karmic bondage. Such inactivity has no place amongst the means of spiritual practice.
Here, we mean that the activity or the lack of it that results in sensory enjoyment or passionate feelings is flawed, binding, and causal to worldly transmigration and the activity or the lack of it, that result in reduction of carnal enjoyment or the feeling of passion, or its subsidence or destruction, is useful and acceptable because such an activity, or the lack of it, results in karmic stoppage and separation that eventually results in spiritual emancipation and final deliverance or liberation.
The activities of mercy, kindness, compassion, charity, service, feeling of friendship, etc., are non-violent and are, therefore, acceptable as parts of the practice of right conduct. The non-violent activities are never abandonable. Only the violent activities like terminating or compromising of vitalities, telling lies, stealing, sexual indulgence, possessive-ness, anger, pride, guile, greed, attachment, aversion, etc., are abandonable. That is why the renunciation is always in respect of violent and sinful activities and not in respect of the non-violent and
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Positive Non-Violence
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