For A Noble Cause

Your journey into self awareness is going to take you outside of yourself and onto paths that you may not realize are relevant in the beginning.  Some people have more to learn in this life than others and if you are one of those who will become a counselor or a world changer you will have more side trips than most.

Some of you will be met with an issue that probably will go against everything that you were taught as a child regarding nutrition and health and that is the issue of eating meat.  Is it right or is it wrong to kill a living thing and consume it?  Who has more rights on this planet, you or the multitude of other creatures who inhabit it?  All things have life. There are some people who believe that you must mentally warn a vegetable that you are going to consume it before you cut and prepare it so that it can acknowledge this and “faint” beforehand.  Nature and evolution contain all of the answers that are necessary and appropriate to sustain life, but you must make sense of them and balance them with what is truly correct for you. 

If it is in you to pursue a life without eating meat it can become a conviction that you will be tempted to impose upon others.  I would not recommend that.  Start with yourself and try to follow in the footsteps of Gandhi whenever you feel the urge to preach to the unconverted;  be the change that you would like to see in the world.  Those who convert to vegetarianism many times become too over-zealous in their desire to promote a good thing to others.  These types tend to give a bad impression of vegetarians and vegans to everyone who has not learned the benefits of such a lifestyle yet.  Truly, some people will never learn it, but that does not mean that you have to shun and shame them for not being at your level.  To do so is bullying, pure and simple.  It is good to understand that all living creatures have a right to live their lives and not be interfered with just because humans are hungry, but you will not make your case well by mocking and insulting those who have not reached your level of understanding yet. Bear in mind that you were once where they are and the snooty vegetarians who act superior are no better than the jack-asses who insult them for appearing self-righteous.  A mentor of mine once told me that you cannot change everyone and make them like you for what you are doing.  The best that you can do is bless them and go on. Let it go, and keep with what you are.  You will still be able to look at yourself in the mirror and be comfortable with you.  Self acceptance is at the heart of peace.  You do not need the approval of others to live the convictions that are important to you.  To expect that approval defeats the purpose of finding your true self. Approval seekers are not capable of knowing their own individualism. What you are and what you are meant to be must be shown to the world as the self they are either going to receive as worthy or not.  You have no control over this and it is futile to try to convince others of it.  Learn to live without this or know that you will spend your entire life trying to get and maintain constant approval. It is actually you that you are trying to convince of your worth, and until you believe in it, you will never get off the treadmill of trying to feed your hungry soul. Once you have accomplished the approval of yourself, for yourself, you can mirror this back to others who have the ears to hear and the eyes to see, and approval, if it comes, will feel deserved.

If you feel that eating meat may not be the right thing to do but you don’t know where to start to change your eating habits and can’t even imagine a life without steak, chicken, cheeseburgers, and turkey at Thanksgiving, a good place to begin to change your feelings might be to see the film “Temple Grandin”.  This movie is not about becoming a vegetarian.  Miss Grandin herself is not a vegetarian, she is an autistic young woman who becomes interested in cattle ranching and animal studies.  She is in no way advocating that people stop eating meat.  What she is advocating is that the animals be treated humanely and with respect for their inborn nature.  I won’t go in to her struggles in doing this.  I will save that for when you watch the film.  My reason for recommending it is because it is a good place to begin to have compassion for the animals that are sacrificed so that you may have meat on the table.  It may only serve to show you some compassion for the woman, Temple Grandin, because she has to struggle hard to overcome the many obstacles that life laid before her.  But even if you only take away some empathy for her,  you will still have taken away something of value.

If you are already fairly certain that you would like to stop eating meat, another film that I would recommend to you that may actually inspire you to accomplish it is the documentary, “Food, Inc.”   Learning more about the process of food coming from the farm and the factory to your table is profoundly humbling.  Most people never give a second thought to how a cow or a pig or a chicken go from a living thing to packaged, processed parts in the grocery store.   The film is quite an eye opener and some of it is downright harrowing to watch,  but if you are going to put something in your mouth and let it run through your digestive system you really need to be informed of what is in it and where it came from. Watching this documentary alone gave me the incentive to give up meat there and then.  I had tried to go vegetarian before and did not stay with it, but after watching, I was able to stop again and I have maintained that conviction. Be prepared for some very disturbing images.  Also be prepared to learn that there are people in this world who do not give one big damn about anything but making money at the expense of anyone and anything that must be sacrificed to get it.  It is very sad to find that this kind of  “I don’t give a shit about anybody but me” attitude exists but it truly does.  If this film does motivate you to stop eating meat for whatever conviction it may move you to manifest, know that you are making a significant contribution to your own health and well being by what you are doing.  Nearly every major illness such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes (if you survive them) will require you to either cut back on your consumption of meat or give it up entirely in order to return to wellness.  It is too bad that the medical establishment does not endorse being vegetarian from the moment of birth. 

I don’t expect that everyone who watches either of these films will be as motivated as I was. Many of my friends saw “Food, Inc” and felt it was disturbing and thought provoking, but ultimately they did not change anything in their eating habits.  Still, I believe in planting seeds and hoping that somewhere down the road the messages in these two films will spark the necessary inspiration to rethink what they saw at a later date when its message may be more relevant to their stage in life. It can only benefit this world and everyone in it to respect and care for all who are on planet earth, be it animal, vegetable, mineral or human.  All who are here deserve to live life to the fullest and have the opportunity to live it well.

Many times you have to go backwards to move forward.  This may seem like a waste of time and effort to backtrack so much when you want to move ahead, but to find yourself at the point where you even realize a change should be made in your life is the universe urging you to evolve.  Most of the time, our evolution requires us to go back and remember how we got to this point in the first place.  There is a higher knowledge at work, and that you see it at all is a sign that there is so much more potential in you than you might imagine, but some deprogramming of yourself is always going to be necessary because to one extent or another, you have acquired a lot of “other people’s” baggage over time.  It is up to you to determine how much of your reality is truly you.  It is a mixture of your original self and the evolution of your soul.  Original self can be found in the past, and knowing where you have been will help you discard all of the unnecessary debris that others have imposed upon you.  Remember the past, live in the present, and think in the future.  A whole life emerges from this.  And your life is only one in all the universe, but it is one that has great worth and great potential.  Just be mindful that other life forms have their place in the cosmic scheme of things as well.  And many of them depend upon you for their very lives.