“Every man has an equal right to the necessaries of life even as birds and beasts have.” ~ Gandhi, Young India, March 26, 1931, p. 49

I recently came across an order issued by Delhi High Court, from May of 2015 on the topic of bird confinement: “all the birds have fundamental rights to fly in the sky and all human beings have no right to keep them in small cages for the purposes of their business or otherwise.” The case has yet to be decided, but is a landmark statement that expresses the evolution of human consciousness.

Human liberation and animal liberation go hand in hand. An early philosophical argument against animal cruelty stated, quite correctly, that if we are cruel to our “dumb brethren” we will certainly fall into cruelty toward one another. The more we realize our capacity for nonviolence, on the other hand, the more we practice bringing out our compassionate nature. In doing so, we are broadening our vision to see how our actions and choices affect all of life, and the more we expand our capacity for creating environments that foster freedom for all lives, even those of birds.

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About Daily Metta

Stephanie Van Hook, the Metta Center’s executive director, launched Daily Metta in 2015 as a way to share Gandhi’s spiritual wisdom and experiments with nonviolence.

Our 2016 Daily Metta continues with Gandhi on weekdays. On weekends, we share videos that complement Michael Nagler’s award-winning book, The Search for a Nonviolent Future: A Promise of Peace for Ourselves, Our Families, and Our World. To help readers engage with the book more deeply, the Metta Center offers a free PDF study guide.

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