Theos-Talk Archives (April 1996 Message tl00119)

To DSArthur,

Very valid argument, and very difficult to give a cut & dried solution to.
Life isn't cut & dry. What I do with it, is I do the best I can. Since I
believe that, among other consequences, killing and torturing animals
creates negative karma, I'm in favor of keeping such events to a minimum in
my personal life. I have no qualms at all with medical students cutting up a
cadaver. That's not a living entity anymore, but a discarded body. As for
mice, they bother the hell out of me, so I get rid of them, preferably by
chasing them out of the house, and plugging up the hole that lets them in.
If that doesn't work, I study the method of killing them first and try to
choose the quickest least painful way. I'm not completely vegetarian anymore
either. I had to make a choice of eating vegetarian cuisine by myself, or
eating chicken & fish in the common dining room and being able to socialize.
I think I made this choice because not socializing was a more immediate
inconvenience, than eating the negative vibes still present in the dead
meat, the fear that the animal felt when it got killed. Besides, I'm rapidly
approaching that stage of life where cooking for myself will become very
cumbersome. Someone else might have chosen differently.

Liesel

> From: DSArthur@aol.com
>To: theos-l@vnet.net
>Subject: "The More Efficient Alternative"
>Message-ID: <970408115431_-1703781798@emout09.mail.aol.com>
>
>   I grasp Liesel's comment ... but I'm not sure I understand her point.  Is
>she suggesting
>that, somehow, it would be preferable for budding surgeons <not> to prefect
>their skills
>first on cadavers (electronic or otherwise) or animals before attempting to
>perform them on
>humans?
>   As for Karmic consequences, lower species of all kinds have been suffering
>at the hands
>of humans since the very dawn of humanity.  I am not an advocate of suffering
>per se but
>I can't help but wonder what someone like Liesel does about, say, an
>infestation of mice
>in her kitchen.  Does she put out "Mousepruff" (a very efficient rodent
>poison) or spring-
>loaded traps (either lethal or benign)?  Or, instead, out of concern for
>Karmic consequence-
>quences, does she simply endure the infestation because "they have as much of
>a need
>to be there as we do."
>   I am not trying to put Liesel (and others who may agree with her) on the
>spot but this is
>an issue that has perplexed philosophers for ages.  I understand, for
>example, that even
>that towering theosophical personage, William Q. Judge, "had to have meat" in
>order to
>survive physically for as long as he did.  So how many animals suffered and
>died for the
>express benefit of Judge?  My point is that Theosophists need to look at "the
>big picture"
>before rushing to judgment about small segments of it.
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>                                                                       Dennis
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