Kali and the Gunas?

October 5, 2004

I am new to this group, and have been mostly reading and absorbing the

interesting things people have been writing. So please pardon if I do not have

the best grasp of the matter at hand; I am only offering my opinion on what I

see. I hope I am not offending anyone by doing so.

In the above statement, I see another example of what looks to me like

blindered western thinking - that is, a willing disinterest and ignorance in

the cultures that do not behave as ours. We allow our cattle to be mindlessly

slaughtered in factory circumstances, so it must always have been so and be

so now around the world. There is no allowance in this opinion for something

like the Jewish kosher method of slaughter, which must take care to keep the

animal as calm and pain-free as possible, or the way of certain American tribes

of honoring the spirit before, during, and after the kill, and asking the

animal if it is willing to be part of the slaughter. In India, my understanding

is that cows still are not slaughtered at all, so some other animal would be a

better example; in some African countries where they are needed more as a

continuing resource, cattle are merely carefully bled and the blood drunk, and

not often slaughtered.

I do not know whether Kali would be an appropriate goddess for butchers

in some cultures or belief systems. I see the point made in that a worshipper

of a goddess of vengeance would have to reach very far to find a need

vengeance on a docile cow, but I am certainly not aware of all the aspects of

Kali, nor whether her influence as a destructive force for greater good might

come into play in the mindful slaughter of a food animal. But using

illustrations that highlight this constant inablility to see other ways of

looking at things points to an irritating conceit that holds Westerners back and

makes us look like unseeing children to others around the world.

CC ^..^

---In a message dated 10/5/04 11:05:54 AM US Mountain Standard Time,

SophiasHeaven writes:

> She does not slaughter mindlessly as a butcher in a meat packing

> plant, where 1000 cows an hour go down a conveyor belt. She is a perfect

> balance

> of many qualities, has been my perception of her.

> Powerful and capable of great destruction. Formidable when her wrath

> is evoked. But not without rhyme or reason.

>

October 5, 2004

In a message dated 10/5/2004 3:35:03 PM Mountain Daylight Time,

CelticCoyote writes:

> We allow our cattle to be mindlessly

> slaughtered in factory circumstances, so it must always have been so and be

> so now around the world.

THis is ludicrous.

I grew up on a farm.

My mother and brother slaughtered chickens and a goat.

I read a book about the meat industry which is factual. It is a statement

about our blood hunger for meat in America.

And I know Something about India and this culture, being multi-cultured

myself and having learned to see with other cultures not just one, I think India

in

general, religion aside, has no doubt many more vegetarians than we do here

in America.

Excuse me sir. But I live here.

I assume if there are slaughter houses in India, they are not less gruesome,

and I assume perhaps wrongly that there are in some big cities at any rate.

How often do you hear of spiritual leaders arising in AMerica who don't eat

meat? I've never haerd of one -- not until recently. And we do see a trend in

that direction.

Still and all, I SUSPECT that in India individuals east Much Less Meat than

Americans do.

Somebody who is of that culture, please not another American, correct me if I

am wrong.

October 5, 2004

My statements were not ludicrous at all. I pointed out that your

personal worldview is not necessarily how the world is, and that when it comes

to

taking the life of an animal, one version of slaughter for food is not

necessarily the same as every other. To cry that my position is "ludicrous" in

the face

of facts that I have pointed out to the contrary seems a bit unreasonable,

defensive and frankly disrespectful. I have seen chickens and other animals

slaughtered on many small family farms growing up in rural Indiana - yes, in my

own family as well - and have slaughtered animals myself for food.

You cannot pretend that is the same as the current factory-farm method of

major producers like Tyson and Perdue just because to do so would serve your

argument, especially on the basis of one book that you read. For all I know,

your family followed practices closer to factories than traditional farms. I

know that the two are as different as night and day. What bothers me about

factory farms, I will come right out and say, is not that animals die, but how

they are forced to live.

My pointing out a certain conceit seems justified given your later

assumption, in calling me "sir," that I am male, as well as your assertion that

you

have a stronger position because you live "here," with an assumption everyone

on this worldwide list will know you mean the United States. You kind of make

my point for me, that you are too quick to make assumptions and unwilling to

hear something contrary to the opinion you have formed. By the way, I live in

the United States as well, so you are not showing me anything of which I am

already unaware.

I also disagree about whether the reason for the current sorry state of

US factory-farms can be dismissed as simply as "blood hunger for meat." The

issue of agriculture is a broad and complex one. It would be well-served to

bring an element of the divine into it, as many Pagan organic farmers are trying

to do. The major problem seems to be not some blood-hunger, as though we were

barely-civilized savages waiting for an opportunity to give in to our basest

lust for killing. If that were the case, how does it explain other atrocities

like rendering unwanted dogs and cats into cheap pet food, and rendering dead

cattle and chickens into cheap livestock feed? Factory farms are the sad

result of a slow and sure divorce from the realization that the animals

slaughtered are indeed living, feeling beings and not some prepackaged hamburger

or

spicy wings that just appear magically in the supermarket, and that the sort of

energy we put into raising our food is the same energy that we reap.

I hope this has not gone too far afield of the topic. So many in this

group are so knowledgeable about esoteric things - at present I feel qualified

only to offer my take on the more mundane aspects of these discussions.

CC ^..^

a message dated 10/5/04 3:19:43 PM US Mountain Standard Time,

SophiasHeaven writes:

> THis is ludicrous.

> I grew up on a farm.

> My mother and brother slaughtered chickens and a goat.

> I read a book about the meat industry which is factual. It is a statement

> about our blood hunger for meat in America.

> And I know Something about India and this culture, being multi-cultured

> myself and having learned to see with other cultures not just one, I think

> India in

> general, religion aside, has no doubt many more vegetarians than we do here

> in America.

> Excuse me sir. But I live here.

>

October 5, 2004

In a message dated 10/5/2004 6:00:44 PM Mountain Daylight Time,

ellen.mcgowen writes:

> I worked with many Indians in the software industry in California and

> (remotely, as a consultant) in Bangalore. Perhaps a hundred.

> I only knew two who ate meat. One lived in the US for a long and forced

> himself to learn to eat chicken and shrimp. He use to coat his lunchtime

> cafeteria salad with Tabasco sauce in an effort to make it taste like

something. The

> other was from Kerala. He said he would eat anything, but we used to go out

> to lunch together for dosa and sambar.

>

> [Why do I see Kali smiling as she shakes mad cow disease into those

> slaughterhouses?]..

>

> Jai Ma,

> Ellen

Thanks !

Not to mention the practice of feeding cow body parts back to cows:

blood and diseased body parts are heating ( rendered ) and fed back to the cows,

supposedly heated so hot no germs can survive ( "Dooon't eat it" one cow says

to the other "Sooylent Greens is COWS !!!" ( and the recent scandal about

how chicken slaughter houses kicked and abused their poultry ))

Your experience supports my preconceived notions.

Blessings,

Cathie

October 6, 2004

I am sorry Ellen; buy many is how many? a 100 in one Billion? a 1000? I am an

Indian and even while in India my family - very devout - has been meat eaters. I

know thousands - brahmins; Kshatriyas; vaishyas and Shudras who eat meat.

IMHO your statements are like it's like "listening to an art critic rant about

how awful this Matisse watercolor is, rather he's pointing at a Picasso oil".

Ellen McGowen <ellen.mcgowen wrote:

I worked with many Indians in the software industry in California and (remotely,

as a consultant) in Bangalore. Perhaps a hundred.

I only knew two who ate meat. One lived in the US for a long and forced himself

to learn to eat chicken and shrimp. He use to coat his lunchtime cafeteria salad

with Tabasco sauce in an effort to make it taste like something. The other was

from Kerala. He said he would eat anything, but we used to go out to lunch

together for dosa and sambar.

[Why do I see Kali smiling as she shakes mad cow disease into those

slaughterhouses?]..

Jai Ma,