This is what spiritual awareness means. The pain inflicted on the fish is in me. It was not the fish out there on the pier who were suffering, as separate beings; it was I who was suffering in them. This is how spiritual awareness shows itself in us; we begin to suffer in everything that is subjected to suffering. Until we become aware of this unity underlying all life, all talk of spiritual awareness is just playing games.
— Eknath Easwaran, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: Volume 1