More Positive but Less Harvestable

[Monica]

You referred to the doctor who misdirected you. Your animal rights activist friends who think you don't go far enough. I'm not saying you do it. By "make excuses" I mean go along with it, I guess.

Oh, I don't go along with it...not anymore anyway. That health practitioner misdirecting me, that happened almost 30 years ago. I was young and naive. I eventually stood up to her. And I respect my vegan friends who do more than I do. I don't make excuses for them. I accept them. Of course, there are always a few radicals in every bunch...the animal rights movement has some extremists (my use of the term extremists refers to those who are violent, just like the pro-life activists who blow up abortion clinics, or terrorists...those who are violent, are extremists, in my view) just like other movements. I agree it probably doesn't matter, but I'm still curious why you thought I was making excuses for them.

Hrmmm. So yeah.. then what I've been trying to get at is this: What actions could we take that are the most congruent? There are so many issues and everybody is divided among them. Can't we put some details aside for the moment and focus on the root cause? The illusion of separation...

I'm not sure that's possible, being that we all have different missions. Some of us might have chosen to take on the daunting task of being outspoken and proactive, while others might have taken on the mission to help a handful of troubled souls make the grade, while others might have agreed to meditate on a mountaintop all day, in order to offset the negative energies on this planet. Some might have incarnated into New Age/wholistic circles, while others have chosen the fundamentalist religious social circle, in order to help facilitate changes within. We each have our unique role to play. One of my good friends is a Christian, though not fundamentalist, and is actually deemed a heretic by his fellow Christians, but I consider him to have the best grasp of the Law of One of just about anyone I've ever met. I believe him to be a Wanderer, who has infiltrated the Christian community and is working from the inside, to help awaken those people. It's all good.

How shall we treat each other?

All is One. We are all connected. Therefore how one treats another is a reflection of how one treats oneself...

How shall we live?

All is One. All is life. Expressing itself in an infinite variety of ways, none greater than another...

What shall we eat?

All is One. All is Life. Through eating we share in the connectedness of all things...

I appreciate your efforts, Tenet, I really do! But right there, I see an incongruency.

Looking at the first adage:

how one treats another is a reflection of how one treats oneself...

and the last

Through eating we share in the connectedness of all things.

I see them as incongruent, if eating includes animals. I don't want to resurrect that debate here. I'm just pointing out that, in order for us to agree on even such 'basic' tenets, we'd first have to define the term you used in #1: another. What is another? What is an other-self? Is an animal an other-self?

Do you see how this can quickly get complicated?

That's why we don't want to turn this into a religion. As soon as we start laying down rules, we encounter a slippery slope, where we won't all agree, not even on what seems like basic stuff.

I'm not saying we have to agree on everything. Goodness, no! I am suggesting we might want to try starting from the same place and seeing how that conversation turns out.

What can we agree upon? Rather than what do we disagree upon?

What are we for? Rather than what are we against?

I think that's a noble goal to pursue. In the meat thread, abridgetoofar and I accomplished that, to a large degree. Even though we had some opposing views, we both realized that we were on the same team, with the same eventual goals. It was a beautiful thing.

I didn't. I think some zealots, however, do. (You not being one of them.)

Whew, ok.