I think all paths converge on Ahimsa! We start out as strands of consciousness, conditioned by tradition and circumstances. Sooner or later, we try to find our path - or dharma - toward self-realization. But if we really seek peace within ourselves through realization of ourselves, then, as we get closer to others, our individual dharma paths will progressively merge into a common dharma stream of Self.
The whole concepts of separation and division fall away. It's like many paths meeting at a single bridge over a river to the other shore. But this point is still prior to complete surrender to conceptless, absolute being(ness). It's at the bridge, but not over it yet. It's almost there. The other shore can be called enlightenment, nirvana, Self-realization, "I Am That" (Soham, the "I" version of "Tat tvam asi"), simply "I Am" - whatever one wants. But what is that penultimate state on the path, just before reaching the other shore; that is, what is the farthest "destination" we can possibly conceive of in our journey, since the other side is beyond?
What is that point right at the threshold of enlightenment, where all dharma paths converge to a single communion? It certainly has to be what we'd term "mystical," because it is beyond our cognitive framework, and it's that framework that we unlearn and let go of in following our dharma. It must be that last conscious stop on the path, just before the final step, having gone as far as reason and meditation can take us before we finally surrender to just being, without division or condition.
That is completely lived Ahimsa! It's the nexus between "I am this" (still within the conditional world) and "I am That" (pure being without separation or phenomena). Ahimsa, at that threshold, is a mystical thought-feeling of connectedness. Others are me. The dog on a leash walking in the park is me. The tree is me. The pavement is me. The chewing gum stuck to the pavement is me. The air is me. The moon is me. The sun is me. Energy - pure fundamental energy, as physicists describe it, plus the remaining unit of the unknowable - is that one Essence. That is me. And that connectedness, the sense of being embedded in a matrix of Essence where every part is inseparably of the whole, provides a seamless transition to the ultimate realization that there are no parts to the whole at all. Then you are That - Self, not self. So Ahimsa is the bridge to the stateless state. The paths come together at that bridge to let you cross over to the other shore. The other shore is enlightenment and realization of Self.
— Gabriel Fenteany, November 16, 2015
