God Makes the Rivers to Flow: An Anthology of the World's Sacred Poetry and Prose (Essential Easwaran Library Book 4)

by Eknath Easwaran

renounced violence toward all creatures. Such a one neither kills nor helps others to kill. That one I call a brahmin who is never hostile to those who are hostile toward him, who is detached among those who are selfish and at peace among those at war. That one I call a brahmin from whom passion and hatred, arrogance and deceit, have fallen away like mustard seed from the point of a needle. That one I call a brahmin who is ever true, ever kind. Such a one never asks what life can give, only ‘What can I give life?’ That one I call a brahmin who has found his heaven, free from every selfish desire, free from every impurity. Wanting nothing at all, doubting nothing at all, master of both body and mind, such a one has gone beyond time and death. That one I call a brahmin who has gone beyond good and evil and is free from sorrow, passion, and impurity. That one I call a brahmin who has risen above the duality of this world, free from sorrow and free from sin. Such a one shines like the full moon with no cloud in the sky. That one I call a brahmin who has crossed the river