True Meaning of Ahimsa

True Meaning Of Ahimsa (Non-Violence)
The Jain belief is that all living things have an atma, a
soul that provides them the characteristic of a living
being.Without the soul the body is ajiva, lifeless.
The soul is considered to be a breakaway fragment of a
Super Consciousness, Paramatma, which, due to karmic
bonds, is locked into a cycle of birth and death. The
terms birth and death indicate the transmigration of the
soul from one body to another. The soul in its purest
form is a replica of the Super Consciousness and is thus
all knowing, free from all feelings, and in a constant
state of bliss.
The true nature of Soul is to revert to its purest form.
The degree of karmic bondage to the soul varies; it
could be from a mild level to an extreme level. For
human minds to comprehend it, the same could be
expressed in terms of colour. The soul could be any
colour ranging from the mild to a jet black. The deeper
the bond of karmic influences, the more difficult it is to
free the soul of it.
The Jain concept of non-violence could be
misunderstood. Generally non-violence is associated
with not being violent towards living beings. But that's
not all. The Jain concept of non-violence has
far broader connotations. To understand the scope of
it, one has to go back to the true nature of the soul.
Since the soul is locked into a cycle of birth and death
due to karmic bonds, its liberation from this cycle and
the return to its blissful, all-knowing state, lies in
shedding all karmic bonds.
As per Jain thought karmic bondage happens due to
the soul's attachment to the world that we see and
perceive and in which we exist. This world is in
existence and visible to us in its current
form due to two phenomena: First, the interlocking of
matter in a space-time paradigm makes up
the physical world that we see and perceive as our
world. Matter, as per Jain principles, is not liquids,
solids and gases that we see, but the particles that make
up the liquids, solids, gases and all that we see or feel
or perceive around us. Second, the attachment
of karmic bonds to soul gives rise to souls locked in
birth and death cycles that is, the fusion of soul to
matter.
The cycle of death and birth is almost eternal for a
soul unless broken by detachment and is released from
karmic bonds. For this the soul has to constantly
remember its true character and destination, going back
to its pure form. It has to also constantly remember
that its presence in the visible world is transient. It has
to shed all its karmic bonds to return to its blissful state.
Any attachment to this visible world increases karmic
bonds and thus contributes to pollution of the soul.
Therefore, to move towards its true destination, the soul
has to shed all attachment to the visible world. To shed
attachments one has to constantly remember the
true nature of the soul, the transient nature of its
present state and the fact that it does not belong here.
With this realisation, there ought not to be any
tendency or urge to violate whatever one sees and
perceives in the world around us. That, according to
Jainism, is true non-violence.