AW: sharing

[Guest guest]

Mark,

these are deep questions you are touching here, and I am sure you will

get answers from other listers who would be more qualified to comment

on this problem than I am. Anyway, let me try to contribute a few

thoughts.

Those who accept the idea of reincarnation might agree that animals,

too, evolve to higher forms as well as higher states of

consciousness. I, for one, have no doubt that this is so, and will

look forward to meeting my dear dog, Vivaldi (he loved music), again

at some later time.

As animals are the lower form of life, man may sometimes be justified

in killing them if that should be necessary to save a human life,

which is the higher form. That's what Paramahansa Yogananda taught.

However, he extolled ahimsa as the prime virtue. He said that mankind

will become almost completely vegetarian before this new century ends,

which will remove much animal suffering. And he also said that we have

now reached a stage in the development of man where vivisection can

and should be done on plants instead of animals.

In fact, it was mainly for this reason that Yoganandaji devoted one

whole chapter of his "Autobiography of a Yogi" to the research of

Jagadis Chandra Bose, inventor of the "Crescograph". A few excerpts:

[bose said,] "the telltale charts of my crescograph are evidence for

the most skeptical that plants have a sensitive nervous system and a

varied emotional life." ... "Graphs of my ... apparatus have proved

that trees possess a circulatory system; their sap movements

correspond to the blood pressure of animal bodies. The ascent of sap

is not explicable on the mechanical grounds ordinarily advanced, such

as capillary attraction. The phenomenon has been solved through the

crescograph as the activity of living cells. Peristaltic waves issue

from a cylindrical tube which extends down a tree and serves as an

actual heart!" ... ".... reported having discovered that the long

single cells of the fresh-water plant nitella, used frequently in

goldfish bowls, are virtually identical with those of single nerve

fibers. Furthermore, they found that nitella fibers, on being

excited, propagate electrical waves that are similar in every way,

except velocity, to those of the nerve fibers in animals and man. The

electrical nerve impulses in the plant were found to be much slower

than those in animals. This discovery was therefore [used for] taking

slow motion pictures of the passage of electrical impulses in nerves."

Mark, I am sorry this has become so long, and besides you may well be

familiar with all I wrote. I'm just thinking that you might feel much

better if you were to do research along these lines because this would

serve to let your work be more in harmony with the laws of the

universe (or whatever you choose to call it).

Wishing you well,

Mike from Germany

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----Von: Mark Otter

[mark.otter (AT) sunysb (DOT) edu]Gesendet: Wednesday, April 04, 2001

22:26An: harshaBetreff: sharingSeveral of you have

invited me to share, so let me share this.Here's a poem by Marc

Straus:Neuroanatomy SummerThe even flow of neuronal pattern was

visibleon the green screen, as tiny electrodes were placeddirectly

into portions of the cat's brain.I was given the job of sectioning

incremental portionsof the brain and measuring the cat's

response,reflexes, gait, etc, until it becamedecerebrate, that is had

no higher functionat all. Then the cat was rigid, fully stretched

outand unresponsive. What was remarkable the professorsaid, was that

I was able to take this catthrought twelve step-wise operations

(surely the basisof a paper) and keep the cat intact.Later on I saw a

man stretched out like thatand rigid with tubes in his nose and penis.

Someonemore important than me was writing a paper, I thought.This is

a powerful poem for me today as I ponder my career in

biomedicalengineering, where I killed perhaps 60 or so dogs to try to

understandwhy (and how) bending their bones caused tiny electrical

signals to begenerated. Why? Because maybe these electric signals

are related toosteoporosis and osteoporosis causes a lot of suffering

and I don't likesuffering. I'm just not sure that it was the right

thing to do and Idon't understand anything anymore. Some of you say

that there is a joythat surrounds and supports all the things that

happen and that this joyis more real than the suffering. I don't

believe you.Love,

Mark/joinAll paths go

somewhere. No path goes nowhere. Paths, places, sights, perceptions,

and indeed all experiences arise from and exist in and subside back

into the Space of Awareness. Like waves rising are not different than

the ocean, all things arising from Awareness are of the nature of

Awareness. Awareness does not come and go but is always Present. It

is Home. Home is where the Heart Is. Jnanis know the Heart to be the

Finality of Eternal Being. A true devotee relishes in the Truth of

Self-Knowledge, spontaneously arising from within into It Self.

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