On Whether to Eat Meat

[Guest guest]

ksimani writes: "Today more and more people go veg - it is sad to see to remark

in the mail."

 

Um, do you mean it is sad to see a remark about a high number of meat-eaters, or

that more and more people are going veg? Just trying to clarify the

statement...

 

About this question of whether or not to eat meat: I have long realized that

there is a strong emphasis on vegetarianism within eastern religions. I assume,

until someone enlightens me, that much of this is to avoid killing animal

spirits that may be reincarnating. But I feel a strong life force from

plants, as much sentience and self-awareness as from animals, even if it is more

subtle and not as notably active to humans. Many religions take animals for

food after they have precieved their compliance in the matter. Many people

have realized previous incarnations as trees or flowers or grains.

 

I have weighed this matter considerably, and do not see that animals are

somehow greater than plants in spirit or right to live. The only way I can

see to solve the problem of killing for food would be to eat nothing and starve

to death. One can try to argue that plants offer seeds and fruit, but if you

eat a carrot, you've killed that carrot, and one might see the offspring of

animals as akin to seeds. In a field where mice overbreed, the fox breeds

greater numbers to keep the mouse population in check. Life consumes life, and

to live, one kills and eats - there is no way around it. The fact that one eats

something so unlike oneself that they can justify it as not the "same" as

killing a more similar being seems wrong to me.

 

I am asking my question purely on religious or spiritual grounds - I

don't want to even get started on the physical reasons and evidence for whether

or not to eat meat, as that will just get started down another long meandering

path that is not the apparent focus of this group.

 

What I would like to know is: is there a place for my understanding and

beliefs in this matter in this system? I must say, I do like reading the sage

comments by those here who are advanced in the Hindu religious practices; some

of them are quite enlightening and at the very least make me think very hard.

 

CC ^..^