Life is Sacred
Whatever be the form, all life is sacred as creation is the reflection of the Creator, each one carrying a sense of divinity. Thus, every time you eat meat – be it red or white – please reflect for a while that that meat came from a life form that once did breathe, having experienced in its own right pleasures and pains, exposed to the wonders of life, having felt the warmth of the sun, the coolness of the wind, the brightness of the moon and the stars at night, tasting food from the loving touch of the raisers and finally, had to succumb to the pains of shedding blood as its throat had to be cut – all because you must eat to live.
When one has to cease breathing, be it flora or fauna, so that the Homo sapiens have to live, i.e., giving-up one’s life so that another creation can live, that unescapable drama of life must be reflected upon by all of us that somehow contributes to the sacredness of life that only our Creator knows its reason for being. That truism alone shows why one must pray before meals. Perhaps, that too should be in the mind of a hungry lion before eating a cornered prey especially if that victim is a human being. One has to die so that another creation has to live. Will that justify the killing of an animal? Life for life? But when the flora and fauna are massacred and put to extinction to prove one’s dominion over nature, to be sacrificed to the altar of greed and profit, or worse, for sports for enjoyment, that is a categorical manifestation of a human being, having been created in the image and likeness of the Creator, to be reduced to a mere beast. Yes, the Homo sapiens is a flawed species. This latest species that came about 700 million years ago while plants and animals came about 3 to 4 billion years earlier (thus, by seniority, they have mor right to live) has done so much harm to Mother Earth and has put GAIA in the precipice of its 6th extinction or end of life on earth through the anthropogenic (man-made) climate crisis. Such is reinforced by thousands of concerned, well-known environmentalists globally stating that, “At the rate that we are destroying the ozone layer and the world’s resource base, worse, putting to extinction some 100 species of flora and fauna every day, what seems unimaginable has become possible which is the end of life on earth.”
Life is holy. It has now become urgently imperative for the Homo sapiens to end the non-stop killings and sufferings of the billions of other sentient beings – the animals. It is the strong stand of these well-known environmentalists that, “Meat consumption and animal husbandry cause about as many greenhouse gases globally as all cars, planes, trains and ships put together.” Besides, environmental physician, Professor Hans-Peter Huttner of the Medical University of Vienna says, “Meat plays a crucial role in the development of cancer of the intestine or circulatory disease. Moderate consumption significantly reduces your disease risk, is beneficial to environment and climate and doesn’t really hurt. A win-win situation.” Indeed, what we eat affects all of us. No less than His Holiness Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace Laureate, emphatically and categorically stated that, “We Buddhists disapprove of killing as a sport. I support those groups and people who work for animal rights and animal welfare around the world. It is sad that millions and billions of animals are killed for human consumption.”
This truism should now be in the mindset of humanity. No less than Leo Tolstoy said, “As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields.” Do we agree on this? Do we see this connection between intensive livestock killings and violence among people? Of course, it can easily be understood that such connection exists. In all religions we know this spiritual law: “As you sow, so shall you reap.” No way shall we allow the shedding of blood or killing as such is an inner inhibition that goes contrary to our moral nature. Never is it right to inflict pain on other sentient beings which is contrary to our conscience. If we let our conscience be brutalized while killing animals, it will also be brutalized while killing people. Such reinforces what Tolstoy had said relating slaughterhouses to battlefields.
This very enlightening truism is now rising in some countries which are trailblazing a paradigm shift from brutal consumption to go meatless. In the USA, the new meatless brand is called, “Beyond Meat,” In consonance to the declaration of the Dalai Lama: “Many consumers want to reduce meat consumption in order to protect the climate, but also to alleviate animal suffering caused by factory farming. Now there are vegetarian hamburgers.” It has dawned to us nowthat to be a veterinarian is not just for one’s health but for Mother Earth’s health as well. How destructive the Homo sapiens not only to fellow human beings killing some 150 million co-human beings in the 20th century alone but to Mother Earth Herself! This truism reinforces the contention that without humans, the earth would be doing better. Indeed, the destruction of nature and its resources results from ignorance, greed and lack of respect for the earth’s living things. Today, we have access to information and it is essential that we re-examine ethically what we have inherited, what we are responsible for, and what we will pass on to the coming generations.
Yes, as Christians, our actions should not just be limited to prayers. Ethical action is more important than prayers because the environmental crisis is now a question of our very own survival. This is the reason why we need environmental ethics that focus on action and compassion for all sentient beings, not just prayers! Indeed, ethics is more important than religion. If only our politicians, who are now very busy engaging in a big “circus” called Philippine Elections, have environmental ethical standards, not just focusing on instant pursuit of wealth, fame and power, we will have a better world. Environmental education has become imperative to know our very essence which is ONENESS with all of God’s creation. That essence of oneness will propel us to greater heights of consciousness to debunk the mundane and leap-up to the Sublime. Unless we liberate ourselves from unbridled materialism and consumerism buried in collective insanity, the statement that WITHOUT HUMANS THE EARTH WOULD BE DOING BETTER will indeed be true! To begin mankind’s transformation for a compassionate ethical world, let the killings of sentient beings STOP NOW! As God’s stewards of His creation, the proper declaration should be: with humans, we will have a better world which of course is the very opposite of what’s happening now because the humans are the ones killing the earth. Indeed, if we have the capacity to destroy the earth, so too, we have the capacity to protect it.
An awakened humanity must not focus on maximizing profit or consumer goods. The call of the times is to maximize our values, to live a different way of life that respects the sacredness of all life, a new spirituality guided by transcendental consciousness where the Universal Intelligence governs. The satisfaction of bodily needs through the killings of sentient beings seems normal in a highly materialistic world controlled by the Satanic ego. It has become imperative to follow what Lord Jesus said, DENY THYSELF and in doing so, to dive deep within ourselves to know who truly we are – CONSCIOUSNESS and to discover the biblical pronouncement that indeed, “The kingdom of heaven is within us!” – all for God’s greater glory!
