"At 12:15am on September 13, 2010, Katt ~ Leila Raven said to James Ryan…
Just ignore Ravinder. ( Apparently an advocate for vegetarianism - editor) Anyone who can apply knowing from their body, heart, and soul, and simple logic from their minds can see that vegetarianism does not equal greater spirituality, compassion, and love. There are kind, spiritual, vegetarians, and evil cruel vegetarians, and there are kind, spiritual meat eaters, and evil cruel meat eaters, and people that want to divide the world up into 'good people' and 'bad people' based on their choices, spiritual, or dietary, are dangerous. Best to give them no power. I will no longer be reading that thread and posting to it. I think you are wise in avoiding it. When people are not able to respond to compassionate pleas, it is best to move on."
- At 10:57am on September 18, 2010,
I Tamoharadasa the Wanderer said… - Dear James Ryan; came here simply because we both share the name Ryan, which is 1/2 the Name of Na-ryan, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Saw the conversation, and feeling somewhat shocked , I reply to Katt, who is otherwise a good friend; Katt; my own experience with vegtarianism started as a teen experimenting with LSD. When I ate fruit or yogurt, or other simple vegtarian foods,my energy remained clean and I went up. when I indulged in flesh foods, my aura etc were immediately dulled and I went down. Fasting similarly proves to oneself the effects of unnecessary killing; the karma immediately contaminates ones being.
Compassion means casuing minimal suffering. No question but that the animals suffer when they are imprisonned, their children slaughtered, and their lives end in horrible fear and terror in Nazi-like death houses. Your logic of equating vegetarians with Hitler is just ridicuous and abusive. You will find very few vegetarians who are violent, and all meat eaters who are by definition violent. You are taking the exception as a standard. That is called cheating and that is a violent agenda of supporting the unequal treatment of all the cititzens. The animals have a right to life, this killing and eating their bodies is species-ism. The Draconian reptilean demons eat human children with no qualms either. I am very surprised that you take this position, as I thought you were a person who loved Life, yet it is as if you are unaware of what goes on in the egg chicken fish and meat industries. They enslave and torture whole species for money. You know the laws of karma. Those who live by the sword shall die by it. How can you offer humans a heart of love, and animals a knife in the throat? Please rethink this way of being.
Later Reply. Sept 19, from Tamoharadasa to James;
Hey there, James. Thank you for being passionately attentive to my message.
As Katt has said, ( elswhere at that site - editor) each contains the light of God wthin us, we are that light. So based upon that reasoning, which I think we all accept, condemning others merely on account of their temporary possibly sinful activities/diet is not right, rather we should condemn the activity of sin, for all are rightfully pure when we give up our tendency to try to be the controllers. Using our temporary higher position to dominate and eat others is symptomatic of the disease of aggrandizing one's own self and one's sensory /ego desires over those of others, what to speak of Godhead's, and abusing others or whatever is required to achieve that goal. Ultimately, living in a material body on earth means you eat the bodies of others, unless you are one who eats only food fallen from the trees, but even then, that is the fruit's body also, and the seeds are then in trouble. By offering all one's foodstuffs to God in sacrifice as according to His speicific directions, there is no karmic reaction. That is the platform of loving devotional service in a liberated state, and by such actions, one becomes spiritually elevated, not entangled in karmic reaction.
Anyway, thanks for your time. Kindly delete any of my comments which you may find inappropriate
Replies
Hi Sharon ! Thank you for the thoughtful letter.
So far Krsna consciousness is concerned, ours is a lightning path meant to supercede all gradualities and proceed directly up to the highest possible status; that of surrendered associate of one of the direct servitors of Godhead. So far we are concerned, if there is no remembrance or service directly of a bonafide self-realized servant of Godhead, then any action etc done is less than useless; it binds one further to karma.
Forgetfulness of our constitutional relationship, who we really are before we fell into the material world, is illusion and any action etc tainted with that is also useless, however refined or elevated materially. We're kind of for all or nothing, though not exactly, as there are options and varieties, due to our disciplic succession's extensive history of many hundreds of thousands of years. The path varies according to the age. This Kali age is very difficult, but made the easiest also, by dint of rare unlimited blessings and mercy extended to us by Godhead, Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. His appearacne is extremely rare by any scale.
There are paths of gradual elevation, and we do not disparage or deny them, but simply suggest that one skip all that and take advantage of unlimited Divine Mercy coming from the lotus feet of Sri Krsna Caitanya.
I freely admit I know little or nothing of the graduated spheres of which you speak. Seems to me as if involvement with the astral planes and the various levels of the material universes etc is just a fancy elaborate higher class form of maya, a deviance from the goal, which is direct service of Godhead. Why should we worry ourselves about anything temporary, except inasmuch as it is involved with our linked-in devotional services in any given realm? The first thing needed is to know what is God's purposes, and act accordingly, with enthusiasm, experetise, and surrender.
You have understood an ascension process, and i a self-realization process. The direction is the same, so it is probably that which we would best emphasize. The details are too involved for us to reach a consensus, but it is very interesting to see what other devotees such as your good self are doing at this time. The varieties are indeed endless. As a preaching movement, we tend to harmonize around a central cultural theme, and feel that this is the best trans-cosmic culture to sastify all the living enitites.
The devotees of Mahaprabhu Sri Caitanya of course feel that everyone should take advantage of His incredible offer of help in this dark age. We accept the instructions passed down directly by our successions, so we do not have to think so much as realize. It is a big help to have someone at the top of the mango tree to pass them down to us!
Wishing you much love and happiness and success. Hare Krishna