Right now, despite all of our technological and scientific advances, the world is inundated with violence.
Wars, murder, theft, terrorism, abortion, child and spousal abuse are rampant. Since 1945, more that 140 wars have been fought and in this country alone, an average of 16,000 people are murdered every year.
Despite what we try to do to curb this, our solutions fail. Perhaps we should address the problem according to the law of karma and view the problem in accordance with the way we callously and brutally slaughter innocent and defenseless animals.
Wars, murder, theft, terrorism, abortion, child and spousal abuse are rampant. Since 1945, more that 140 wars have been fought and in this country alone, an average of 16,000 people are murdered every year.
Despite what we try to do to curb this, our solutions fail. Perhaps we should address the problem according to the law of karma and view the problem in accordance with the way we callously and brutally slaughter innocent and defenseless animals.
We live in an age that is virtually devoid of compassion. And, under the law of karma, every action has a reaction.
If you kill or partake in killing, you will likewise be killed. So, how does the immense, unrestricted killing of animals come back to us?
What about war? In this country, slaughterhouses are prolific. Yet, every 5 or 10 years there is a big war where multitudes are slaughtered even more cruelly than animals.
Spiritually, there is a difference between the body and the inhabitant of the body – the soul. One, is material, one is not.
During the course of one's life, the living entity is encased within a particular type of body before evolving to another. Before that can happen, they must finish the time they were allotted to remain in that body.
So, killing an animal or another living being that is not an aggressor places an impediment in the completion of that cycle. And if one kills simply to engage his senses in some sort of bizarre pleasure like feasting on flesh and blood, one incurs a reaction that must be paid for.
Basically, an animal, or fish, or bird or whatever, must leave its body naturally. If not, the person in that body has to come back in the same type of body and try again. This is the karmic restriction that is imposed upon him.
All these lower forms are evolving toward the human form because it is the human form that is the springboard to the spiritual world.
The lower forms are governed by the laws of nature. They do what they do instinctively and suffer no karmic reaction. The human form has a choice, and as previously mentioned, every action has a reaction.
If one lives like an animal, simply eating, sleeping, having sex and defending his turf, he does not differ from an animal.
As such, he takes birth in a lower form next time around and has to go through the evolving process again and again and again.
The reaction to violence results in not only a waste of one's time in the material world but to the degradation of society as a whole.
The question always arises that aren't vegetables killed as well? To a degree yes. Though the pulling of a carrot out of the ground is far less painful than slitting an animal's throat.
But, here are two spiritual truths to consider. One, Genesis saying, “Behold, I have given you every seed-yielding plant that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you”.
And two, science has never been able to create a seed, which bears food. Only God has.
As such, we should offer our thanks to him by offering plant foods to Him before we eat. He then takes that karmic reaction away from us which in turn makes us more compassionate, caring and aware.
In the ancient scripture Bhagavad-gita, God says: “If one offers Me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower, fruit or water, I will accept it”.
Those that truly want to be pleasing to God will give Him whatever He wants. If He states that he will accept plants then obviously vegetables, grains, fruits, *dairy, water, etc. are the proper foods for human beings. If He wanted flesh and eggs He would have said so.
So, by not even doing this simple offering one is simply deepening their involvement in the complexities of material nature and building karmic reactions leading to endless rebirths in lower forms.
Aloha!
*Yes, dairy is now nothing more than liquid or solid fat devoid of all nutrients. But offering dairy to God benefits those animals that produced it originally. You can offer it but you don’t have to eat it. Just put it outside for the creatures that live there and by their eating this purified food they have a good shot at taking on a human form in their next life as well as the producers of the dairy have.
Complex? Yes! But this is integral in the transmigration of the soul and whether it takes on a material or spiritual form next time around.
Sources:
www.gauranga.org
www.theosociety.org
www.spiritportal.org
If you kill or partake in killing, you will likewise be killed. So, how does the immense, unrestricted killing of animals come back to us?
What about war? In this country, slaughterhouses are prolific. Yet, every 5 or 10 years there is a big war where multitudes are slaughtered even more cruelly than animals.
Spiritually, there is a difference between the body and the inhabitant of the body – the soul. One, is material, one is not.
During the course of one's life, the living entity is encased within a particular type of body before evolving to another. Before that can happen, they must finish the time they were allotted to remain in that body.
So, killing an animal or another living being that is not an aggressor places an impediment in the completion of that cycle. And if one kills simply to engage his senses in some sort of bizarre pleasure like feasting on flesh and blood, one incurs a reaction that must be paid for.
Basically, an animal, or fish, or bird or whatever, must leave its body naturally. If not, the person in that body has to come back in the same type of body and try again. This is the karmic restriction that is imposed upon him.
All these lower forms are evolving toward the human form because it is the human form that is the springboard to the spiritual world.
The lower forms are governed by the laws of nature. They do what they do instinctively and suffer no karmic reaction. The human form has a choice, and as previously mentioned, every action has a reaction.
If one lives like an animal, simply eating, sleeping, having sex and defending his turf, he does not differ from an animal.
As such, he takes birth in a lower form next time around and has to go through the evolving process again and again and again.
The reaction to violence results in not only a waste of one's time in the material world but to the degradation of society as a whole.
The question always arises that aren't vegetables killed as well? To a degree yes. Though the pulling of a carrot out of the ground is far less painful than slitting an animal's throat.
But, here are two spiritual truths to consider. One, Genesis saying, “Behold, I have given you every seed-yielding plant that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you”.
And two, science has never been able to create a seed, which bears food. Only God has.
As such, we should offer our thanks to him by offering plant foods to Him before we eat. He then takes that karmic reaction away from us which in turn makes us more compassionate, caring and aware.
In the ancient scripture Bhagavad-gita, God says: “If one offers Me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower, fruit or water, I will accept it”.
Those that truly want to be pleasing to God will give Him whatever He wants. If He states that he will accept plants then obviously vegetables, grains, fruits, *dairy, water, etc. are the proper foods for human beings. If He wanted flesh and eggs He would have said so.
So, by not even doing this simple offering one is simply deepening their involvement in the complexities of material nature and building karmic reactions leading to endless rebirths in lower forms.
Aloha!
*Yes, dairy is now nothing more than liquid or solid fat devoid of all nutrients. But offering dairy to God benefits those animals that produced it originally. You can offer it but you don’t have to eat it. Just put it outside for the creatures that live there and by their eating this purified food they have a good shot at taking on a human form in their next life as well as the producers of the dairy have.
Complex? Yes! But this is integral in the transmigration of the soul and whether it takes on a material or spiritual form next time around.
Sources:
www.gauranga.org
www.theosociety.org
www.spiritportal.org