Reverence for life includes sympathy or fellow-feeling and, something more, love. Reverence for life is love for all living beings—the whole universe. This reverence makes it imperative on us not to cause pain to anybody—pain by thought, pain by word, pain by deed. When I guard my words, deeds, and thoughts, to ensure that they do not cause pain to others in any way, I am practicing reverence for others.
Reverence, as the great German world-poet Goethe said, is of three aspects: Reverence for what is above us, reverence for what is around us and reverence for what is below us. Reverence for the vast universe that God created; reverence for the great ones of humanity; reverence for the poor and needy; reverence for the speechless world of birds and animals—this is what will enable us to be liberated from the vain and empty cult of the ego—and this, we must aim to achieve. For true liberation is emancipation from the ego; and I repeat these beautiful words from our scriptures: Ya vidya sa vimuktyate—that is true knowledge, which liberates us!
It was the poet Tennyson who penned those memorable lines, which I love to quote again and again: “Let knowledge grow from more to more, But more of reverence in us dwell! If there is one quality which is sadly lacking in our lives today, it is the beautiful virtue of reverence: reverence for what is above us, reverence for what is around us, and reverence for what is below us.”