In regards to eating meat

[Monica]

No doubt, and I completely agree with you that the mainly corporate animal food industry today is horrible and heartless. I do not support it at all!

I'm glad we agree on that!

"There's no such thing as a victim, only a willing participant." I totally subscribe to that theory in the same sense as you. I feel I've bridged a gap that probably shouldn't be bridged...of course the soul of the food animal understands what it is incarnating into, but it doesn't mean the physical animal will feel at peace being put into that situation.

Right. Nor does it mean, in my opinion, that it's 'ok' for STO-oriented entities to participate, any more than it's 'ok' for STO entities to assist in providing catalyst to the person who wants to be a murder victim, even though a human murder victim has programmed that catalyst as well.

Eggs are incredible! Strange note, too...if the chickens see a cracked egg they will devour it immediately! They'll even knock over the basket of eggs to break them and go to town on the buffet. Kind of weird, but I feel it supports your point in a way.

I didn't know that! That is interesting. Animals are sometimes cannibalistic.

...eggs from happy chickens are perfectly okay to eat for people who abstain from eating meat due to treatment of animals (since they indulge in them themselves!).

I agree that free-range eggs are ok to eat, for those who abstain from animal foods for ethical reasons. I don't think I would agree that chickens indulging in them, themselves, is a reason though, since other animals sometimes eat their 'defective' or dying young, so I wouldn't use that as a justification.

I think eggs are a perfect protein source that are cruelty-free, provided they are free-range. But commercially-produced eggs are laced with hormones, and the chickens are kept in horrible conditions.

I do think some vegans miss the point sometimes. Some common sense is in order here. Getting fresh, raw goat's milk from a farmer who treats his goats well isn't harming the goats. Nor is eating eggs from hens who are allowed to roam freely, since they lay eggs anyway.

However, there is a lot of deception in labeling. Cheese labeled 'organic' just means it didn't have hormones or antibiotics added injected into the cow. It doesn't mean the cow was treated well. Cows are tortured in commercial dairy farms just as much as the cows being raised for meat. Commercially produced milk products support that cruelty and is therefore the same as meat, in that regard.

But if I can be certain that the eggs were from free-range hens, I wouldn't have any issues with eating those eggs. Same with dairy products, but it's even trickier with dairy products.

Also, I do appreciate what the vegans are trying to accomplish. By avoiding all dairy and eggs, they avoid the entire dilemma. When one regularly consumes cheese, it's too easy to just go ahead and eat that pizza, even though the cheese on that pizza was almost certainly from a cow that was treated horribly. And I respect that vegans avoid all baked goods containing eggs, since, in most cases, the eggs were commercially produced under torturous conditions.

The devil's advocate in me wants to point out that you could consider uprooting a carrot slaughter...you are effectively ending that entities dance with its reality.

This argument is commonly presented, so I've heard it many times before. Bring it on!

Uprooting a carrot doesn't kill it. Put that carrot in your kitchen cupboard and a few weeks later it will have grown sprouts. Same with potatoes, onions, etc.

It's still alive.

NOTE: What I'm about to say is graphic so might be offensive to some. Please skip this post if you find discussion of eating plants offensive.

There is a huge raw vegan movement. I find it significant that plant foods promote healing, whereas animal foods are known contributors to disease. Many people are experiencing dramatic healing by becoming vegetarians, with even more rapid healing if they go all the way to raw vegan.

Why would this be?

My theory is that the life-force is still present in raw vegan foods, and this life-force is imparted to the person; whereas, the life-force of the animal is long gone by the time its carcass is purchased from the meat department at the store.

Packaged, denatured foods don't have any life-force left either.

But living plants still have life-force. We've all seen office ivy plants spreading, and a co-worker asks for a cutting, and that little strip of plant becomes a new plant, without harming the original plant. A piece of potato can be planted and will sprout into a new plant, making more potatoes.

To me, these attributes of plants support my belief that they haven't yet developed an individual consciousness. I think they are lower 2D entities, and are more like appendages of the planet, much as our hair and fingernails are to us. I see plants as Earth providing for us, much as a mother suckles her baby.

We know from Ra that trees, and as unity100 has pointed out, even places, can develop an individual consciousness. We also know from Ra that this happens more readily with cats and dogs, since they are interacting with humans. I've had cats reincarnate back into our family before. I just don't think a lettuce has had enough invested in it to become individuated. Its lifespan is too short, and the likelihood of a human actually spending that much time and energy drawing out the consciousness of a lettuce is exceedingly rare (though probably possible).

Thus, in my view, plants generally have group consciousness, not individual. (I'm referring to garden plants here...we know that many ancient trees have individual consciousness.) This is also supported by work with plant devas, such as what they did at Findhorn. In light of what we know about the power of live plants to heal the human body, it seems logical to theorize that, at this nexus anyway, Earth's plants have chosen this type of service.

When a live carrot is eaten, has its dance with reality been ended? Or could its consciousness be merging with ours? In which case, being eaten by a human might be to the carrot, like merging into blissful larger life might be to us.

This theoretical on my part, but to me it makes sense. The Earth is extremely polluted. One out of 3 people get cancer. Children have already received their lifetime's allotment of pesticides by age 2. There are now reports of teenagers having heart attacks and babies being born with cancer.

A plant-based diet, especially a raw vegan diet, imparts strength to the person, and the ability to prevent and even heal these modern plagues. Whereas, animal foods make them worse. This has to be significant!

Ultimately, only a totally fruitarian diet is totally karma-free. And even that could be argued, if we don't complete the cycle of planting fruit seeds. As long as we exist in 3D, we have to eat something. I look forward to consuming nectar only. Adopting a vegetarian diet isn't perfect. But it's an easily accomplished first step on the continuum towards nectar or even breatharianism.

A human isn't likely to go from eating animals to eating fruit only. Plants are needed to heal the body from decades of eating dead animals and denatured foods. It's easy to be healthy without meat (provided they get educated). Not so easy to be healthy without plants.

We know from Ra that the UniVerse is hierarchial. I contend that the karma incurred from eating is also hierarchial. I think most of us would agree that a human's life has more value to us than a dog's life. (Though some might disagree, with their own pet vs. a murderer, for example.) Fortunately, we aren't usually in a position to make such a judgement, other than theoretically in psychology class.

But we do make such choices with our diets. I find the argument "plants feel pain too...you are slaughtering plants too" weak. (I realize you aren't arguing that point, abridgetoofar, but were playing devil's advocate, so this isn't directed at you personally.)

Whether plants feel pain or have individuated consciousness, is speculative. But it's not speculative regarding animals. We know they do.

Since the debated topic is whether this carrot is okay with being uprooted, I'm guessing you would not consider this slaughter, while an opposing viewpoint would. I suppose that fact will remain to be decided by personal opinion.

The bottom line is that we don't really know the other entity's level of consciousness, or intended agenda for its incarnation. And, we cannot completely avoid harming other creatures, as long as we're in 3D. We absorb into our bodies microbes, bacteria, etc. each time we take a breath. Are we slaughtering microbes?

It's the design of this planet. However, we can minimize that which is obvious suffering by obviously sentient beings.