Ahimsa/Jan

[Guest guest]

On: Sat, 20 Nov 1999 20:44:09 +0000

Jan wrote:

>

>Regularly, matters like K., lifestyle and nonduality will turn up. Perhaps

>it it useful to look at it from several perspectives:

>

>1. Health and energy

>

>The idea that protein has to be abundant in one's diet is tenacious. All

>animals, adapted to the consumption of protein-rich food are having the

>enzyme uricase at their disposal, to eliminate the harmful uric acid, an

>unavoidable metabolite of protein digestion. Fact: humans do not have this

>enzyme at their disposal and even thousands of years of meat eating did not

>change that for the Eskimos. But the adaptation to absence of vitamin C in

>their diet has resulted in the ability to synthesize the vitamin in the

>gut. Conclusion: humans are not equipped for the digestion of large

>quantities of protein, no matter its origin.

>

> One can not increase one's life energy; one can only optimize the "free"

>part of it. Living very unhealthy means getting ill (due to building up a

>deficit) whereas living healthy means plenty of energy for transformation

>with the possibility of completing transformations. One class of food just

>falls from trees and plants when ripe, made to be eaten so that the seeds

>are transported, ready to germinate after having been excreted. Would it be

>a coincidence humans can thrive on that food very well ?

>

>2. Taking the consequence

>

>Some will argue that living and dying are the two sides of one coin and

>seeing predators capture a prey, conclude that humans have the same right.

>One counter argument is that few humans would be willing to kill a creature

>with bare hands and eat it raw, just like predators do. If they can, it

>isn't a problem until the +until+ is met. The +until+ has been presented

>nicely in the movie "Soylent Green". Indeed, what is the problem of

>recycling naturally deceased bodies? Who could possibly object to that? The

>dislike for that is one side of the coin and the other is the like for

>non-human animal protein. If one still is a believer in the protein-myth,

>unwilling to take the experiment but claiming a nondual perspective, it has

>to be clear that attachment to a deceased body violates that perspective.

>In nature, all deceased bodies are either direct food or recycled into

>vegetation which again is used as food for living bodies. So non-violent

>consumption of animal protein IS possible and more efficient than feeding

>bodies to plants first.

>

>3. Love and compassion

>

>From the perspective of love, any act of killing for food is out of the

>question unless no choice is left. If one is convinced not to be the body,

>it rather is an act of compassion to feed one's body (which has served its

>purpose) to a predator, temporarily unable to capture a prey and I can

>vaguely remember a story describing just that. The consequence of the

>nondual perspective is that there is only +you+ and its consequence is that

>what is seen as "life", are all aspects of only +you+. Is is repeatedly

>stated that life is game and the essential rule is: all actions will always

>bounce back to +you+. As long as one makes a distinction between the bodies

>of a deceased loved one, a deceased pet and a slaughtered chicken, one is

>showing attachment to deceased bodies, disliking to eat some but liking to

>eat others although from a nutritious perspective there isn't a difference.

>Or attachment to beliefs like the protein-myth; experiential evidence has

>been the only "meat" for this one As any action, arguably violating the

>nondual perspective, will bounce back to +you+, it could mean "heavy

>weather" until these inconsistencies are resolved... Because, resolving ALL

>inconsistencies is synonymous with completion of transformations. Which

>leave as the last remark that learning and resolving from the perspective

>of love is far easier than from deductive reasoning

>

>Jan

 

You can bring the horse to water but you can't make him/her drink. And forcing

his/her head in the bucket will only make him/her back away (if you ever tried

it When he/she is ready he will find the water himself/herself.

There is no doubt that if one can prevent a killing one should do it. But

prioritizing this way one should be consistent and carry it out in all other

"fields" untill...one is left naked (literally). Not everyone is

unveiling/unfolding in the same direction or to the same extent; at a certain

"level"/moment (sorry for the word, I don't mean any levels here just lacking

for the better expression) I can imagine that natural empathy with all living

creatures will prevent one unvoluntarily from any act of violence.

In classical yoga ahimsa is a precondition to be "on a path" but even from

personal experience I can tell that one arrives/ripens little by little to carry

out all yamas & niyamas. And it's not the process of obeying the rules or

following the authority (scriptures)to the letter. For me it is an internal

proccess of recognizing the natural tendency that have started to "work" by its

own; one is reading/recognizing the things that have began to operate by

themselves in one. Some form of basic transformations, I guess.

 

Of course, you are right, in the sense that uncompromising, "carrying sth out"

to the end is the "refusing to get up from a Bodhi tree untill one gets

enlightened" or following the "Who am I ?" enquiry until one is left without an

answer (naked again?)...or simply to stop/abide.

 

But the form, Jan, the form...

 

Namaste,

 

Liliana

 

PS. Sorry for this late response - digest mode.

 

 

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[Guest guest]

On 11/22/99 at 6:25 PM Liliana Pechal wrote:

[...]

>You can bring the horse to water but you can't make him/her drink. And

forcing his/her head in the bucket will only make him/her back away (if you

ever tried it When he/she is ready he will find the water

himself/herself.

>There is no doubt that if one can prevent a killing one should do it. But

prioritizing this way one should be consistent and carry it out in all

other "fields" untill...one is left naked (literally). Not everyone is

unveiling/unfolding in the same direction or to the same extent; at a

certain "level"/moment (sorry for the word, I don't mean any levels here

just lacking for the better expression) I can imagine that natural empathy

with all living creatures will prevent one unvoluntarily from any act of

violence.

 

In South Africa, there is an interesting region, partly desert. When the

fruits are falling from the trees, they are fermenting already and many

animals will indulge to the point that they can hardly walk. It is a most

comical view. Each day the animals will repeat the procedure despite the

hangover and the danger of being a very easy prey. So it would be most

stupid, trying to bring these animals to water. They would object to it

with all possible means. When party time is over, the animals will start

looking for water themselves and the next year the procedure repeats

itself.

 

When a plane crashes and there are a few hundred victims, it is front page

news. The daily amount of deaths caused by traffic is far higher; more

people have been killed in road accidents than in wars and it is quite OK

because no one is protesting. From that perspective, one can leave out

publicly mentioning or advocating non violence; it is likely that

decreasing killing in one area will increase it in another, in the same way

that road killings replaced war killings and outnumbering them too.

Strictly speaking, Ahimsa in Western life is next to impossible because

creatures, humans included, are classified according to their market value,

leaving many creatures as worthless or harmful.

>In classical yoga ahimsa is a precondition to be "on a path" but even from

personal experience I can tell that one arrives/ripens little by little to

carry out all yamas & niyamas. And it's not the process of obeying the

rules or following the authority (scriptures)to the letter. For me it is an

internal proccess of recognizing the natural tendency that have started to

"work" by its own; one is reading/recognizing the things that have began to

operate by themselves in one. Some form of basic transformations, I guess.

 

In theory, "evolution" will lead itself to effortless Moksha. Methods,

Paths, Yogas etc. are only for those, not being satisfied with the

"evolutionary" pace. As to recognizing, wouldn't it be the joke of a

lifetime to realize one day, as a centenarian in a home for the elderly,

the importance of Ahimsa and still have to eat the meatballs, ordered the

day before as an act of mental Ahimsa to the cook ?

>Of course, you are right, in the sense that uncompromising, "carrying sth

out" to the end is the "refusing to get up from a Bodhi tree untill one

gets enlightened" or following the "Who am I ?" enquiry until one is left

without an answer (naked again?)...or simply to stop/abide.

 

The story with the bodhi tree is nice; I am sure that no Westerner could

just sit and wait. Because, modern life has become a complicated fabric of

compromises and conditioning no one can cut down anymore. When people are

here, they love the sun, the beach, the ocean and wished they could stay

for ever, to actively enjoy. When they have to be here, after a few months

of enjoyment, boredom sets in and all they do is talk about memories from

the former home, the former job, the heat in summer compared to the cool

breeze at the former homeland

 

But for someone like chief Tuiavii from Tiavea, a so called primitive,

merely reading the scriptures would have been enough for nirvikalpa

samadhi; he was able *just* to sit or to lie down on his mat The society

in which someone like Jada Bharata grew up didn't differ much from the

society in which the chief grew up; in both cases, "cutting the crap" was

very easy, almost natural. But for a modern Westerner? Not to mention the

fact that Buddha knew only of two memorable events: nirvana/substratum

remaining and nirvana/without substratum. I wouldn't conclude from that,

that "enlightenment" isn't a memorable event; but could it be that it is

blown into oblivion at the attainment of nirvana ?

>But the form, Jan, the form...

>

>Namaste,

>

>Liliana

 

The form of Saguna Brahman perhaps ?

 

Jan