i do not recall why i said je ne comprends pas... browsing this time, je comprends tout de suite
The Vegetarian Myth
- Thread starter truth seeker
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Musicinventor
Jedi
When I was 16 I spent a month in the Colorado Rockies with an organization called Outward Bound. At the end of our 28 day "outing" we had rabbit for dinner. As part of the course it was required we killed our meal for the evening. Working in pairs one would hold the live rabbit by the legs and ears stretching it taught. The other person would, swiftly, deftly, and with as much force as possible karate chop the rabbit in the back of the neck. The purpose was to make us aware of where and how our animal meats were produced. After 47 years that lesson has stayed with me and I am always thankful for the loin, rib, or leg of whatever animal I happen to be consuming. I also include the seafood in there too!
truepositive
Jedi
The thing about this whole debate is that we ought to dislike any 'kill for sustenance' mechanism. Certain plants regenerate the edible parts by default without needing to be rooted up, killed and replanted. The whole notion of of predatory cycles gives credence to us being a part of 'middle earth' at best. If the primary way to transfer energy is through death of organisms transferring energy, earth might even masquerade as a middle planet while being way down on the spectrum, close to a hellish planet.
Well, J.G. Bennet wrote that the first freedom in the Work could be described as freedom from like and dislike, which are often based on programming. This comes when we learn observe reality as it actually is, and adapt ourselves accordingly. That includes eating meat, which is normal for humans. Without it, we get very sick. That's a major clue about what we should like or dislike in an objective sense. It's one of the rules of the school, like it or not.
I think part of the veganism and vegetarianism thing comes from the fact that lots of us live in a very death-phobic culture. A lot of consequences flow from that, including our likes and dislikes. I've thought that with the widespread fear of death, there's also a widespread fear of killing. That includes killing for sustenance. I think it comes from lack of education or opportunity in approaching the unknown of death. We don't understand that not all killing is bad, because not all death is bad. Death is what creates life. The C's recommended reading the book Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola-Estes, and in it she calls for understanding the Life/Death/Life nature of existence. Can't have one without the other:
We also have this linear program that death is final that Laura mentioned in The Wave. Whereas the C's say that all souls recycle, 2D animals returning to their Soul pool. And we might also say that our food animals also have a Soul mission while being here. In some Native American traditions, it is understood that the deer aren't here by accident, but by part of a grand design - the deer accept their part in their grand design. They accept that will be food for us, and others, and in return the deer get to be prolific breeders and enjoy an ongoing existence as our companions. Our part of the deal is to respect them and give thanks to them for their sacrifice, their willingness to come here to die so we can live. In the West, this thanksgiving for our meat is expressed in the story of the Patron Saint of Hunters, Hubertus, who was out hunting one day and came across a vision of a glowing buck with a cross between his antlers. This buck dictated to him the first terms of ethical hunting practices.
To the old Christians, the cross between the antlers was understood to be a direct connection between the sacrifice of the deer and the sacrifice of Jesus. Both were seen to be holy in some way, as both sacrificed their lives for ours. This biblical connection is alluded to in session from the C's:
fifty_five
Jedi
I summarize in a few lines, and you can laugh at me 
. when I was young I became a vegetarian because I found the supermarket slice of meat hypocritical. aseptic and devoid of the splatter of slaughter, which is instead an integral part of the process. then I became a crudist vegan for health reasons (recurring candida, impossible to cure by official medicine) and with complete success. Never had it again. with menopause I started eating meat again, for hormonal balance reasons. as vegetarian first and as a vegan later, I both maintained my food tolerance of both meat ( always been a glutton for raw meat, once a year were binges with my thalassemic friend) and wheat. I also weaned my son as an omnivore which he still is. and yes. Not only in my current hypocrisy as a non-hunter do I thank the animal I eat, but also in my current hypocrisy as a gatherer, I thank the plants, whose hair I in all humility cut.
. when I was young I became a vegetarian because I found the supermarket slice of meat hypocritical. aseptic and devoid of the splatter of slaughter, which is instead an integral part of the process. then I became a crudist vegan for health reasons (recurring candida, impossible to cure by official medicine) and with complete success. Never had it again. with menopause I started eating meat again, for hormonal balance reasons. as vegetarian first and as a vegan later, I both maintained my food tolerance of both meat ( always been a glutton for raw meat, once a year were binges with my thalassemic friend) and wheat. I also weaned my son as an omnivore which he still is. and yes. Not only in my current hypocrisy as a non-hunter do I thank the animal I eat, but also in my current hypocrisy as a gatherer, I thank the plants, whose hair I in all humility cut.
naorma
Dagobah Resident
I had a similar experience. Years ago I decided not to eat food - very spontaneously. I was invited to a birthday eating and I felt so bad after having eaten a "Schnitzel" that I avoided meat from that moment on. This lasted about 3 years. I came back to eating meat again when I was staying at a friends small farm. He had to slaughter a pig, he was not a professional in doing this. I had to help him to cut the throat and also dividing the pig. I had to kill a hen, too. After these very impressing exercise he told me that now I had to eat something of the pig we slaughtered. And so I did and this was the end of my vegetarian years. I am also thankful that I was able to participate in this process. It makes one feel different and thankful . . .
Thank you @iamthatis for your words of wisdom... I am no longer vegetarian since I met Laura and this forum which opened my eyes to so many things...It's not so much death that I fear for animals but "suffering"...As for the rabbit, when I was 7/8 years old my father (a soldier) found nothing better than to offer Mamn, my two little sisters and me the spectacle of killing a rabbit to eat it. ..I still remember this horrible scene perfectly today...I never ate rabbit again in my life because I vomited which scared my parents who never forced me to eat it again...Today I only eat grass-fed beef because I think it's a death that feeds a lot of people for a single kill...
I think that suffering is also something we don't understand in the West. It belongs to the dark shadowy stuff like blood, dirt, poverty, grief and sickness, etc., all the things we're supposed to overcome or ignore or shut out. We're all supposed to be happy, moving away from pain and towards pleasure, away from failure and towards success. IMO if we can't have life without death, in the same way we can't really experience joy without suffering. They are also two sides of the same coin.
There's the Buddhist saying that life is suffering. It's inevitable here. But what do I do with that fact? Become a victim? I tried that for a long time. I was pretty blown away with J.G. Bennet's description of Gurdjieff's 'doctrine of reciprocal maintenance', which is the idea that our suffering feeds a certain type of vibration the higher ones and helps the world keep on turn, the sun keep on rising, and the water keep on flowing, the harmonious movement of the whole solar system. This is analogous to the way that the suffering of animals and plants, those lower than us on the scale of being, feed us and keep our society going. So there's a heroic option in terms of suffering - we can choose to suffer and direct our sacrifice to feed those higher than we are, and helps to maintain the cosmos. Gurdjieff had a name for this spiritual ecology food pyramid, the Trogoautoegocrat. Everything is always eating, and we are food whether we like it or not. We do get a choice in whom we feed - we can feed the forces of darkness or the forces of light.
Jordan Peterson says that the antidote to suffering is responsibility. I think that's a great way to look at all this. With the Fourth Way we can understand that our suffering can be a force for good in the world, taking responsibility for our small and sometimes confusing role as human beings, and doing the best we can in our own lives, which emits vibrations that support or feed those higher than us. Suffering also helps us directly, too, by up-regulating our DNA and clearing our karmic debts. This cleans out our channels of static, and helps to form the conduit for goodness, beauty and truth to flow into this fallen world. So it's in this sense that intentional suffering and responsibility is the road to joy. I like this poem by Khalil Gibran, On Pain:
It might be that the suffering of animals is similar to our own - their suffering may also help to up-regulate their DNA and could be an important step on their path to 3D. Who knows. It's definitely a strong vibration, tho, and when we're small and innocent and accustomed to teddy bears and pets and cartoons, it can be shocking to witness pain, blood, and death. But that's just growing up, coming to know the price of life. I do think it makes sense to minimize the amount of suffering an animal goes through in killing them, tho, as that is a way of taking responsibility for their lives, and honouring their sacrifice in trying to ensure their passage is smooth. And a death at human hands is often quicker than in the wild. A good shot will end the life quickly, whereas a pack of wolves will start eating the entrails while a moose is still alive and kicking. There's a poem by Leslie Marmon Silko, conjuring up a deer who makes a willing agreement to go along with the death and the suffering. Maybe this is the 2D group soul speaking. To me at least, it present the challenge of killing with love.
Thank you @iamthatis for your simple words that touch the heart, Thank you for your poems, I really appreciate you... Thank you.
JandI
The Force is Strong With This One
When we studied Ho'opono'pono with Morna (sp?), she tells the story of growing up in a small fishing village on the Southern part of the Big Island, and one of the things that she did for her village was to walk down to the shore and call the deep sea fish in and then enough of them to feed the people would leap out of the water onto the shore to be collected and eaten. Then the rest would swim back out to deep water. My belief tends to run to "when we are in harmony with our surroundings, then source energy provides". We are in the process of learning what we know so little of. Thanks Laura, Team and C's.
truepositive
Jedi
Thanks for the comments. To be clear, what i said was not about any kind of judgement or morals to be questioned/ discussed, but rather that the cycles themselves have started to appall me when clearly there are 'better ways' possible. Biochemical transfer/ transportation/ availability of 'stuff' does not require death. The notion that it is the best or even only way to recycle certain parts of our physical reality is beyond silly, but perhaps this requires a topic of its own.