Actual Freedom ~ Frequently Flogged Misconceptions

RESPONDENT: As of now I am a vegetarian, if I discard this belief, what would happen? Would I eat meat without guilt? The reason I am vegetarian is that I don’t think I should cause pain and suffering to fellow sentient beings just for a burger. So what would happen to this belief and action if I self-immolated?

RICHARD: There are two ways to answer this question about guilt ... and they are contained in what I have already written. Allow me to paraphrase for ease and clarity. Vis.:

(1) When ‘I’ am no longer extant there is no ‘believer’ inside the mind and heart to have any beliefs or disbeliefs. As there is no ‘believer’, there is no ‘I’ to be guilty ... one is then free to not eat meat, or eat meat, as the circumstances permit. It is an act of freedom, based upon purely practical considerations such as the taste bud’s predilection, or the body’s ability to digest the food eaten, or meeting the standards of hygiene necessary for the preservation of decaying flesh, or the availability of sufficient resources on this planet to provide the acreage necessary to support the conversion of vegetation into animal protein. It has nothing whatsoever with the avoidance of ‘pain and suffering to fellow sentient beings’.

(2) Whilst ‘I’ am still extant ‘I’ can face the very fact that one is alive means consuming nutrients ... and staying alive means that something, somewhere must die in order to supply these nutrients. This is a fact of life ... and the marvellous thing about a fact is that one can not argue with it. One can argue about a belief, an opinion, a theory, an ideal and so on ... but a fact: never. One can deny a fact – pretend that it is not there – but once seen, a fact brings freedom from choice and decision. Most people think and feel that choice implies freedom – having the freedom to choose – but this is not the case. Freedom lies in seeing the obvious, and in seeing the obvious there is no choice, no deliberation, no agonising over the ‘Right’ and ‘Wrong’ judgment. In the freedom of seeing the fact there is only action.

If you followed the discussion thoroughly and see for yourself – not merely believing me – the actuality of being alive then your feelings of guilt will be long gone. For all that I am demonstrating is that feeling guilty is born out of holding on to a belief system that is impossible to live ... as all belief systems are. I am not trying to persuade you to eat meat or not eat meat ... I leave it entirely up to you as to what you do regarding what you eat. It is the guilt that is insidious ... feeling guilty is a sure sign that one is being controlled.

RESPONDENT: You say that you have no beliefs. Do you murder people? If not why not?

RICHARD: I have no urge or desire to as I have eliminated both malice and sorrow from myself ... thus I am happy and harmless. With no vindictiveness or anger, I have no need to control myself with moralistic injunctions as to what is ‘Right’ and what is ‘Wrong’. It is only people who have a self – the genesis of malice with its hatred and aggression – that need to be controlled. Hence morals are essential to keep the wayward self from running amok.

RESPONDENT: Why do you do some things but not others? What is your drive in life?

RICHARD: I have no drive, no ambition and no urges whatsoever. I do some things because they are comfortable, (like sitting on a cushion instead of a concrete slab) and other things because they are determined by what is silly and what is sensible.

It is silly to be unhappy and sensible to be happy.

RICHARD: The extinction of ‘I’ in any way, shape or form ensures the elimination of every single anti-social urge or impulse – let alone behaviour in action – thus freeing oneself to the enjoyment of the harmless pleasures of life. Like eating a hamburger if that is one’s predilection. Rape is not harmless. This is all pretty basic stuff ... can you raise your level of debate a bit, please?

RESPONDENT: Neither is eating a hamburger. Just ask the cattle.

RICHARD: Actually, I was talking about having eliminated malice – what is commonly called evil – from oneself in its entirety. That is, the ‘dark side’ of human nature which requires the maintenance of a ‘good side’ to eternally combat it. By doing the ‘impossible’ – everybody tells me that you can’t change human nature – then one is automatically harmless ... which does not mean abstaining from killing. It means that no act is malicious, spiteful, hateful, revengeful and so on. It is a most estimable condition to be in.

As for killing cattle: the very fact that one is alive means consuming nutrients ... and staying alive means that something, somewhere, must die in order to supply these nutrients. This is a fact of life ... and the marvellous thing about a fact is that one can not argue with it. One can argue about a belief, an opinion, a theory, an ideal and so on ... but a fact: never. One can deny a fact – pretend that it is not there – but once seen, a fact brings freedom from choice and decision. Most people think and feel that choice implies freedom – having the freedom to choose – but this is not the case. Freedom lies in seeing the obvious, and in seeing the obvious there is no choice, no deliberation, no agonising over the ‘Right’ and ‘Wrong’ judgment. In the freedom of seeing the fact there is only action.

When it comes to the consumption of nutrients there are many and various beliefs one can hold dearly to. There are people who will not eat red meat at all ... only white meat and fish. Then there are people who will not eat any flesh of warm-blooded animals at all ... only fish and reptiles. Then there are people (vegetarians) who will not eat any meat at all, but will consume eggs and dairy products. Then there are people (vegans) who will eat only vegetables, grain and seed. Then there are people (fruitarians) who will only eat fruit. Then – as we go into myth and fantasy – there are those who live on water and air ... and finally those who live on air only!

As in regards to ‘asking the cattle’ : Some vegetarians maintain that as a carrot (for example) does not scream audibly when it is pulled from the ground there is no distress caused by the consumption of vegetables. Yet the carrot indubitably dies slowly by being extracted from its life-support system – the ground is its home – and is this not distressing on some level of a living, growing organism? It all depends upon the level, or degree, of ‘aliveness’ that one ascribes to things. Vegans, for instance, will not consume eggs as this prevents an incipient life from being born. Fruitarians go one step further and say that, as the consumption of carrots prevents them from going to seed and sprouting new life, vegetables are to be eschewed entirely. Then, as the eating of grain and seeds also prevent potential life-forms from growing, they will eat only the flesh of the fruit that surrounds the kernel and plant out the embryo plant-form (I have been a fruitarian so I know full well what I am speaking of).

The obvious fact is clearly demonstrated by taking all this to its ultimate consideration. What will one do – as a fruitarian causing no pain or the taking of life of anyone or anything – about those pesky things like mosquitoes, sand-flies, cockroaches, rats, mice and other ‘vermin’ that invade my house? Put up screens? What about outside? Will I slap them dead ... or just shoo them away? What will one do if attacked by a snake, a crocodile, a shark, a lion and so on? Do as the Revered Scriptures say and turn the other cheek? Will I humbly submit to my fate and be mauled severely myself – or even killed – simply because of a religious injunction, a moral scruple, a noble ideal, a virtuous belief, a passionate opinion, a deeply held ethical theory? In other words, have animals and insects been given the right, by some inscrutable god, to do with me whatsoever they wish? Is my survival dependent upon the non-existent benevolence of all those sentient beings that I am not going to cause distress to?

What then about germs, bacteria, bacillus, microbes, pathogens, phages, viruses and so on? Are they not entitled to remain alive and pain free? If one takes medication for disease, one is – possibly painfully – killing off the microscopic creatures that one’s body is the host too. Some religions – the Jain religion in India, for example – has its devout members wearing gauze over their nose and mouths to prevent insects from flying in and they even carry small brooms to sweep the path as they walk so that they will not accidentally step on some creature. It can really get out of hand. For instance, small-pox has been eradicated from the world by scientists as a means of saving countless human lives ... is this somehow ‘Wrong’? What is ‘Right’ in regards to what I do in order to stay alive? If I do none of these things then I will be causing pain and suffering to myself ... and I am a sentient being too. It is an impossible scenario, when pursued to its ultimate conclusion.

And then there is the matter of one’s fellow human beings. Some of them – in fact at times a lot of them – are desirous of invading the country that one is living peacefully in, with the avowed intent of killing, torturing, raping, pillaging and subjugating oneself and one’s fellow citizens. If one holds a strong and passionate belief in not causing any pain and suffering to other sentient beings then one must be more than a fruitarian ... one must be a pacifist as well. This amounts to hanging out a sign – if everybody else in the country one lives in adopts this specific belief – which says, in effect: ‘Please feel free to invade us, we will not fight back, for we hold firmly to the principle of not causing pain and suffering to any sentient being whatsoever’ (the Tibetan situation is a particular case in point). Thus anarchy would rule the world ... all because of a belief system handed down by the Saints and the Sages, the Messiahs and the Avatars, the Redeemers and the Saviours, the Prophets and the Priests, century after century.

All this is predicated upon there being an enduring ‘I’ that is going to survive the death of the body and go on into the paradisiacal After-Life that is ‘my’ post-mortem reward for being a ‘good’ person during ‘my’ sojourn on this planet earth. It is ‘I’ who is the ‘believer’, it is ‘I’ who will cause this flesh-and-blood body to go into all manner of contorted and convoluted emotion-backed thoughts as to what is ‘Right’ and what is ‘Wrong’, what is ‘Good’ and what is ‘Bad’. If it were not for the serious consequences of all this passionate dreaming it would be immensely humorous, for ‘I’ am not actual ... ‘I’ am an illusion. And any grand ‘I’ that supposedly survives death by being ‘Timeless and Spaceless’, ‘Unborn and Undying’, ‘Immortal and Eternal’ am but a delusion born out of that illusion. Thus any After-Life is a fantasy spun out of a delusion born out of an illusion ... as I am so fond of saying.

When ‘I’ am no longer extant there is no ‘believer’ inside the mind and heart to have any beliefs or disbeliefs. As there is no ‘believer’, there is no ‘I’ to be harmful ... one is then free to not eat meat, or eat meat, as the circumstances permit. It is an act of freedom, based upon purely practical considerations such as the taste bud’s predilection, or the body’s ability to digest the food eaten, or meeting the standards of hygiene necessary for the preservation of decaying flesh, or the availability of sufficient resources on this planet to provide the acreage necessary to support the conversion of vegetation into animal protein. It has nothing whatsoever with sparing cattle any distress.

If you have followed this discussion thoroughly you will have seen for yourself that avoiding eating cattle is born out of holding on to a belief system that is impossible to live ... as all belief systems are. I am not trying to persuade you to eat meat or not eat meat ... I leave it entirely up to the individual as to what they do regarding what they eat. It is the belief about ‘causing harm’ by eating cattle that is insidious, for this is how you are manipulated by those who seek to control you ... they are effectively beating you with a psychological stick. And the particularly crafty way they go about it is that they get you to do the beating to yourself. Such self-abasement is the hall-mark of any religious humility ... a brow-beaten soul earns its way into some god’s good graces by self-castigating acts of redemption.

Holding fervently to any belief is a sure sign that one is being controlled.

RESPONDENT: I was just reading Richards reasons for thinking that eating meat is harmless.

RICHARD: Or, more accurately, you were just selectively reading one part of an explanation of mine as to why vegetarians, vegans, and fruitarians are essentially no different to pacifists ... to be superficially altering behavioural patterns is to be merely rearranging the deck-chairs on the ‘Titanic’.

RESPONDENT: So.

RICHARD: So you have missed the central point of that explanation ... to wit: to be superficially altering behavioural patterns – just as in pacifism (aka non-violence/ahimsa) – is but a bandaid solution ... to be treating the symptoms and not the disease itself.

RESPONDENT: They feel empathy (a dirty little emotion) for harmless animals that have not done anything to anyone and they do something about it.

RICHARD: As those animals, just like the human animal, are born with instinctual passions – such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire – per favour blind nature they are not harmless … as you acknowledge (albeit en passant) further below. Vis.:

• [Respondent]: ‘… if an *angry* marsupial comes after you than I suppose it is only fair to pull out an oozy and get to it’. [emphasis added].

Incidentally, empathy is usually considered to be a positive (aka a ‘good’) emotion and not a negative (aka a ‘bad’) one.

RESPONDENT: I think it is you who are rearranging deck-chairs on the ‘Titanic’ with these lame defences (something you don’t do) of your version of peace on earth and good will toward ... well man.

RICHARD: It is not my version of the hymnic ‘peace on earth/good will to all mankind’ which is on offer on The Actual Freedom Trust web site at all: it is, rather, the already always existing peace-on-earth of this actual world – as evidenced in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) – where it is startling obvious that it be something which no amount of behavioural pattern alteration will ever bring about.

*

RESPONDENT: Bottom line for him I suppose is that it is not done out of malice.

RICHARD: Put simply: it is not violence per se (as in physical force/ restraint) or the potential for violence which is the problem: it is ‘me’, as the emotions and passions, fuelling the violence, or fuelling the potential for violence, who begets all the misery and mayhem. Violence itself (as in physical force/ restraint) is essential lest the bully-boys and feisty-femmes would rule the world. And if all 6.0 billion peoples were to become happy and harmless overnight (via altruistic ‘self’-immolation) it would still be essential lest the predator animals should have the human animal for its next meal.

RESPONDENT: What did a kangaroo kick your ass or something.

RICHARD: As kangaroos are not predator animals your query is doubly-irrelevant (it being also non-germane whether or not one particular human animal has been subject to predation).

RESPONDENT: When is the last time an animal stalked you for it’s prey.

RICHARD: Again, whether such predation has happened to one human animal in particular, or not, is beside the point.

RESPONDENT: No one has said anything about self defence, this is entirely novel to the discussion thus far.

RICHARD: If I may point out? In that explanation of mine (as to why vegetarians, vegans, and fruitarians are essentially no different to pacifists), which you were just selectively reading, there are at least three paragraphs regarding the question of self-defence. Vis.:

• [Richard]: ‘(...) What will one do – as a fruitarian causing no pain or the taking of life of anyone or anything – about those pesky things like mosquitoes, sand-flies, cockroaches, rats, mice and other ‘vermin’ that invade my house? Put up screens? What about outside? Will I slap them dead ... or just shoo them away? What will one do if attacked by a snake, a crocodile, a shark, a lion and so on? Do as the revered scriptures say and turn the other cheek? Will I humbly submit to my fate and be mauled severely myself – or even killed – simply because of a religious injunction, a moral scruple, a noble ideal, a virtuous belief, a passionate opinion, a deeply held ethical theory? In other words, have animals and insects been given the right, by some inscrutable god, to do with me whatsoever they wish? Is my survival dependent upon the non-existent benevolence of all those sentient beings that I am not going to cause distress to?
What then about germs, bacteria, bacillus, microbes, pathogens, phages, viruses and so on? Are they not entitled to remain alive and pain free? If one takes medication for disease, one is – possibly painfully – killing off the microscopic creatures that one’s body is the host too. Some religions – the Jain religion in India, for example – has its devout members wearing gauze over their nose and mouths to prevent insects from flying in and they even carry small brooms to sweep the path as they walk so that they will not accidentally step on some creature. It can really get out of hand. For instance, small-pox has been eradicated from the world by scientists as a means of saving countless human lives ... is this somehow ‘Wrong’? What is ‘Right’ in regards to what I do in order to stay alive? If I do none of these things then I will be causing pain and suffering to myself ... and I am a sentient being too. It is an impossible scenario, when pursued to its ultimate conclusion.
And then there is the matter of one’s fellow human beings. Some of them – in fact at times a lot of them – are desirous of invading the country that one is living peacefully in, with the avowed intent of killing, torturing, raping, pillaging and subjugating oneself and one’s fellow citizens. If one holds a strong and passionate belief in not causing any pain and suffering to other sentient beings then one must be more than a fruitarian ... one must be a pacifist as well. This amounts to hanging out a sign – if everybody else in the country one lives in adopts this specific belief – which says, in effect: ‘Please feel free to invade us, we will not fight back, for we hold firmly to the principle of not causing pain and suffering to any sentient being whatsoever’ (the Tibetan situation is a particular case in point). (...)’.

RESPONDENT: But if an angry marsupial comes after you than I suppose it is only fair to pull out an oozy and get to it.

RICHARD: I will draw your attention to what you say (further below in this e-mail of yours):

• [Respondent]: ‘This is not about death per se, rather the manner of death and the capacity of the animal to experience pain’.

As you suppose it is only fair to kill a predating animal, in self-defence, with a submachine gun then the very basis of what you have to say, in your vegetarians versus omnivores diatribe, is rendered null and void.

*

RESPONDENT: I was just reading Richards reasons for thinking that eating meat is harmless.

RICHARD: Or, more accurately, you were just selectively reading one part of an explanation of mine as to why vegetarians, vegans, and fruitarians are essentially no different to pacifists ... to be superficially altering behavioural patterns is to be merely rearranging the deck-chairs on the ‘Titanic’.

(...)

RESPONDENT: ... if an angry marsupial comes after you than I suppose it is only fair to pull out an oozy and get to it.

RICHARD: I will draw your attention to what you say (further below in this e-mail of yours): [Respondent]: ‘This is not about death per se, rather the manner of death and the capacity of the animal to experience pain’. [endquote]. As you suppose it is only fair to kill a predating animal, in self-defence, with a submachine gun then the very basis of what you have to say, in your vegetarians versus omnivores diatribe, is rendered null and void.

RESPONDENT: And this boys and girls is how you make people think you are smart. Evade the real question. Evade kids. If it is ok to kill in one instance it is ok to kill in all instances.

RICHARD: I was, of course, responding to what you delineated as being [quote] ‘the heart of the issue’ [endquote] in the very e-mail my above words are in response to ... namely:

• [Respondent]: ‘You have once again succeeded in entirely evading *the heart of the issue*. Your very participation in eating meat is perpetuating a cruel and thus harmful institution of animal slaughter. Not microscopic organisms that you would like to lump in the same category. This is not about death per se, rather *the manner of death and the capacity of the animal to experience pain*. [emphasises added]. (Friday 2/09/2005 2:11 PM AEST).

I do see, however, that you have provided an explanatory note to another just recently:

• [Respondent]: ‘I have put the question of eating meat to Richard and he evaded the real heart of the question. I know that you are not big on morality (...) but I have a problem with someone who claims to be free of malice yet indulges in a malice practice’. (Wednesday 7/09/2005 5:44 AM AEST).

If the [quote] ‘real heart of the question’ [endquote] is indeed morality – or ethicality for that matter – then you are on the wrong mailing list as this one is about facts and actuality ... as evidenced in the first two paragraphs of that explanation of mine you were just selectively reading. Vis.:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘Neither is eating a hamburger [harmless]. Just ask the cattle.
• [Richard]: ‘Actually, I was talking about having eliminated malice – what is commonly called evil – from oneself in its entirety. That is, the ‘dark side’ of human nature which requires the maintenance of a ‘good side’ to eternally combat it. By doing the ‘impossible’ – everybody tells me that you can’t change human nature – then one is automatically harmless ... which does not mean abstaining from killing. It means that no act is malicious, spiteful, hateful, revengeful and so on. It is a most estimable condition to be in.
As for killing cattle: the very fact that one is alive means consuming nutrients ... and staying alive means that something, somewhere, must die in order to supply these nutrients. This is a fact of life ... and the marvellous thing about a fact is that one can not argue with it. One can argue about a belief, an opinion, a theory, an ideal and so on ... but a fact: never. One can deny a fact – pretend that it is not there – but once seen, a fact brings freedom from choice and decision. Most people think and feel that choice implies freedom – having the freedom to choose – but this is not the case. Freedom lies in seeing the obvious, and in seeing the obvious there is no choice, no deliberation, no agonising over the ‘Right’ and ‘Wrong’ judgment. In the freedom of seeing the fact there is only action’.

RESPONDENT: As for my being a non-vegetarian, I see no reason why I should bow to the un-liveable highly selective ethics based on the beliefs of a particular religious grouping.

Just because some religion says something about vegetarianism does not make it per-se a un-liveable highly selective ‘ethics’. Why do you bring religion into the picture? I was talking about being vegetarian.

PETER: The reason I brought religion into the picture is quite straightforward. I was born in a meat-eating society and the notion that eating meat was somehow wrong was only introduced to this country in the 1970’s on the back of a wave of a burgeoning interest in Eastern religions. Now that Eastern religion has gained such widespread acceptance in this country its followers now make such a virtue out of their belief in Ahimsa that those who do not bow to their belief are deemed to be evil (as in your ‘I won’t be in the same room with you’ comment?)

Can we evaluate vegetarianism on its own merits (or de-merits)?

PETER: The problem with evaluating the merits of vegetarianism is that any such evaluation is inevitably based upon social, as in cultural/ religious/ generational evaluations of right and wrong, good and bad – all of which are human-animal emotional reactions to the fact that the only way life on earth has germinated, and can survive, is by feeding off other life. If however, one moves past the moral and ethical objections to this fact of life then one can come across a deeper more visceral reaction such as revulsion … what one discovers is that one is being revolted by a fact of life – the very cycle of birth, sustenance and death that I, as a flesh and blood mortal body, am inextricably a product of.

A little clear-eyed investigation will throw some light on the nature of this revulsion – am I revolted by the birds outside my window gaily chirping away while they busily swoop down into the garden in order to kill and eat insects, am I revolted by the dolphins off the cape killing and eating other fish, am I revolted by other animals hunting for prey and eating their catch? If I am able to clearly see all this happening as a fact of life then I am also able to clearly see that whether or not some human beings see merit or find fault in being selective in what other life forms animals eat in order that they can dissociate themselves from the fact that all this life-feeding-off-life is going on all the time under their very noses, or in their very noses, matters not a fig in the vast scope of things.

*

PETER: Given that it is a fact of life that life feeds off life and given that as an intelligent human animal I am able to make a choice, I choose to devote my time, energy and passion on becoming free from the animal instinctual passions in order that I could be harmless, i.e. to be without malice, towards my fellow human beings.

Does it take any energy to refrain from eating meat?

PETER: I went through a period of being a vegetarian in my spiritual years, although for some reason an occasional meal of fish was deemed to be an acceptable transgression, and the one cut of meat I did miss was bacon. Speaking personally I do like the smell of fried bacon. Needless to say when I gave up my spiritual beliefs I also gave up my vegetarian beliefs and now enjoy bacon whenever the whim takes me.

I do like the down-to-earth befits of no longer being hobbled by belief. In contrast to the constant energy required in order to maintain and defend, each of one’s beliefs, once one frees oneself from a particular belief, the subsequent freedom is effortless.

RESPONDENT: I am not sure I understand the actualist attitude toward vegetarianism.

RICHARD: As one can eat meat, or not eat meat, and still classify themself as an actualist there is no [quote] ‘actualist attitude’ [endquote] to either understand or not understand ... as clearly expressed in the explanation of mine which that vegetarians versus omnivores diatribe you are buying into was cooked-up out of. Vis.:

• [Richard]: ‘I am not trying to persuade you to eat meat or not eat meat ... I leave it entirely up to the individual as to what they do regarding what they eat’.

I even give examples of what such a choice might be based upon:

• [Richard]: ‘It is an act of freedom, based upon purely practical considerations such as the taste bud’s predilection, or the body’s ability to digest the food eaten, or meeting the standards of hygiene necessary for the preservation of decaying flesh, or the availability of sufficient resources on this planet to provide the acreage necessary to support the conversion of vegetation into animal protein’.

And that ‘act of freedom’ I speak about there refers back to the second paragraph in that explanation:

• [Richard]: ‘... the very fact that one is alive means consuming nutrients ... and staying alive means that something, somewhere, must die in order to supply these nutrients. This is a fact of life ... and the marvellous thing about a fact is that one can not argue with it. One can argue about a belief, an opinion, a theory, an ideal and so on ... but a fact: never. One can deny a fact – pretend that it is not there – but once seen, a fact brings freedom from choice and decision. Most people think and feel that choice implies freedom – having the freedom to choose – but this is not the case. Freedom lies in seeing the obvious, and in seeing the obvious there is no choice, no deliberation, no agonising over the ‘Right’ and ‘Wrong’ judgment. In the freedom of seeing the fact there is only action’.

RESPONDENT: Once the predator within is no longer extant ...

RICHARD: That explanation of mine is all about malice being no longer extant. Vis.:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘Neither is eating a hamburger [harmless]. Just ask the cattle.
• [Richard]: ‘Actually, I was talking about having eliminated malice – what is commonly called evil – from oneself in its entirety. That is, the ‘dark side’ of human nature which requires the maintenance of a ‘good side’ to eternally combat it. By doing the ‘impossible’ – everybody tells me that you can’t change human nature – then one is automatically harmless ... which does not mean abstaining from killing. It means that no act is malicious, spiteful, hateful, revengeful and so on. It is a most estimable condition to be in’.

Has it not occurred to you that in order for an act to be classified as [quote] ‘a malicious act’ [endquote] it must, perforce, contain malice? For example:

• ‘malicious: given to, arising from, or characterised by malice [active ill will or hatred]’. (Oxford Dictionary).

And here are some synonyms:

• ‘malice: malevolence, maliciousness, malignity, malignance, evil intentions, ill will, ill feeling, animosity, animus, hostility, enmity, bad blood, hatred, hate, spite, spitefulness, vindictiveness, rancour, bitterness, grudge, venom, spleen ...’. (Oxford Thesaurus).

RESPONDENT: ... I would have thought the main reasons we cause unnecessary suffering to our fellow sentient beings would go with them.

RICHARD: No domesticated animal need ever suffer (let alone unnecessarily) – and I speak from first-hand knowledge here as I was born and raised on a farm – nor any animal hunted in the wild, either, for that matter (and again I speak from personal experience).

RESPONDENT: Are feeling/belief the only reasons to want to spare a fellow mammal the experience of an abattoir? I don’t get this.

RICHARD: There is nothing to get ... that entire vegetarians versus omnivores diatribe you are buying into is/was a beat-up from the very start.

RESPONDENT: Harmlessness; what is the actualist definition of harmlessness?

PETER: How about – ‘Effortlessly living with one’s fellow human beings in utter peace and harmony’. That’s the challenge I set myself and I started with proving that it was possible to do this with one person and then I worked on the other issues that prevented me from living in utter peace and harmony with all of my fellow human beings.

RESPONDENT: Do you eat meat and therefore kill life to sustain your own? Do you unsuspectingly step on insects or do you unintentionally hurt someone?

PETER: I was a vegetarian in my spiritual years – it was the ‘done thing’ to do – but when I stopped believing in spiritualism I stopped believing in vegetarianism. It then became obvious to me that the most conspicuous carnage that has occurred and is still occurring on this planet is the carnage that is wrought by human beings on other human beings as well as that which human beings inflict upon themselves. I then set my sights higher than conforming to righteous dietary ethics and focussed my attention on the more pertinent issue – stopping being antagonistic towards my fellow human beings.

RICHARD: You are way out of your depth when it comes to the subject of enslavement, addictions and attachments.

RESPONDENT: This physical organism rebels, not because of any belief, but because it has its own intelligence about what it will tolerate and what it will not.

RICHARD: Whereas this flesh and blood body, having zero tolerance to alcohol, does not foist its particular allergy onto others as if it be a universal characteristic of freedom ... least of all dressing it up as being ‘its own intelligence’.

RESPONDENT: Cigarette smoking is completely intolerable to a sensitive body, as is eating carrion.

RICHARD: As the word ‘carrion’ (rotting or putrefying bodies) has a different meaning to the word ‘meat’ (the flesh of animals used as food, nourishment) are you interested in having a genuine discussion regarding enslavement, addictions and attachments so as to uncover one of the benefits of an actual freedom from the human condition ... the discovery of the intelligence which becomes apparent of its own accord upon freedom from prejudice (synonyms: prejudgement, preconception, predetermination, preconceived idea, preconceived notion)?
Or is an authentic exploration into the appalling mess that is the human condition of no genuine concern to you?

*

RESPONDENT: And, I used the word ‘carrion’ specifically for the meat consumed for food because the bacterial decomposition of an animal begins immediately upon its death – other words, it begins to rot. Those are not prejudices. They are facts.

RICHARD: As it is a fact that all living organisms begin to decay, to rot, upon their death (which includes all fruit and vegetables) your fact becomes a prejudice when you choose vegetarianism over omnivorism on this account. The word ‘carrion’ refers to meat that is past being suitable for human consumption ... to the point of containing those bacteria injurious to humans (but not to animals such as vultures or hyenas and so on).

I am sure you would not eat a carrot or a zucchini, for example, once it reaches the point of decay equivalent to when meat becomes carrion ... have you never had to toss out vegetables because they are ‘too far gone’ to be edible? Furthermore ... do you eat bread once it has turned blue or blue-green with fungus?

I could go on ... but that will suffice for now.

RESPONDENT: The organism can be desensitised to just about anything.

RICHARD: No ... not to ptomaine poisoning or e-coli bacteria, for instance.

RESPONDENT: You eat meat; you are responsible for of the practice of animal mistreatment and ecosystem destruction.

RICHARD: More prejudices (synonyms: prejudgement, preconception, predetermination, preconceived idea, preconceived notion) ... what about you being responsible for the practice of vegetable ‘mistreatment and ecosystem destruction’? Just because a carrot does not scream audibly when it is pulled from the ground (its source of nourishment) does not mean it is not being mistreated ... and any kind of gardening is ecosystem destruction at some level.

In a similar manner to what I said in another post (which you found very funny) ... just about everything short of wandering naked through the forests hunting and gathering can be construed as ‘mistreatment and ecosystem destruction’. You have merely set an arbitrary level to suit your particular brand of prejudice ... and then chastise others from your supposed high moral ground (all the whilst saying ‘I am not judging’).

I was a fruitarian for a short while in my five years application of the traditional ways of being free of enslavements, addictions and attachments ... and fruitarianism is a higher moral stance than the one you have taken.

Even so ... it is shot-full of inconsistencies and hypocrisies too.

RESPONDENT: I’m not saying that is ‘good’ or ‘bad’.

RICHARD: Uh oh ... having delivered the sermon (prefaced with ‘I am not judging’) now come the platitudes.

RESPONDENT: I am just saying that is the way it is.

RICHARD: You may have gathered by now, if you have read my responses, that you are not ‘saying that is the way it is’ at all, eh?

RESPONDENT: You concern yourself only with the physical dimension, and that is fine with me if that is all that you know and care to know.

RICHARD: More platitudes ... coupled with amazing inaccuracy. I know the metaphysical dimension intimately having lived in it, night and day, for eleven years.

RESPONDENT: I wish you well.

RICHARD: Why? I am already always ‘well’.

RESPONDENT: If only you could love, you would be changing the ‘appalling mess that is the human condition’.

RICHARD: Yet night and day, for eleven years, there was only love (and compassion) ... you are not speaking to some mere tyro here.

RESPONDENT: Love transforms all things.

RICHARD: Aye ... ‘transforms’ is the key-word: but as it does not eliminate ‘all things’ therein lies the rub.

RESPONDENT: If I may ask you a question, pertaining to diet; is not an actualist supposed to be harmless, but eating meat won’t he still be participating in harmfulness? I say this because of my background, particularly with animals ... for example, I know of a parrot which expresses pain linguistically; and I’ve always been fond of ‘Leonardo DaVinci’ and ‘Socrates’ who both were, to my knowledge, vegetarians.

VINEETO: When I watch the various reports, travel logs and news clippings on television, I am always surprised how most human beings care much more about animals than they care about their fellow human beings. An enormous amount of money is spent studying and protecting an ever increasing number of so-called endangered species of animals in all parts of the world whereas in other parts of the world human beings don’t have enough to eat to survive the next week.

I have been a vegetarian for half of my life for spiritual reasons – I believed that eating meat would pollute my soul with the karma of ‘innocent’ animals. In hindsight, I regard this belief as providing an easy pretext to feel harmless by sparing animals while ignoring the difficult task of tackling the malice I was feeling, and the harm I was doing, towards my fellow human beings. My choosing to take the moral high ground of being a vegetarian did not make me harmless at all – I was still quarrelling in my relationships, I was at times mean and competitive, arrogant and spiteful, aggressive and argumentative. I enjoyed nasty gossip, I took advantage of others for my own gain, I enjoyed power over others, I was raged by jealousy – in short, like everyone else, I nourished malice in my bosom.

As for choosing what to eat – when you look at life on this planet, every living thing is feeding on other living things, be it bacteria, fungi, plants, insects, birds, reptiles or mammals. The very basis of the sustenance of life on this planet is that life feeds life – it is the way it is and there is nothing anyone can do about it. What I can do as a human being, however, is address myself to the task of being actually harmless towards my fellow human beings – not molluscs, fish, chickens, cows, pigs, kangaroos … or fungi and plant life for that matter.

If you are interested, here are two links to Richard’s conversations on this topic.

RESPONDENT: Second, I have been following this thread and find easy agreement with much of what you are on about. What though is to be made of the idea of morality being raised up to an exercise in relative functionality? It seems from here that if it is sensibility and silliness that are to be the pans of balance on which actions are weighed, where then would the scale fall when the entire enterprise of ‘being alive’ is put to it. What sense is there in being alive at all?

RICHARD: Oh, every sense in the universe ... which means infinite sense. You cannot get bigger than that, now, can you? You see, I am this very material universe experiencing itself in all its magnificence as a sensate and reflective human being ... that is the sense of being alive. Also, as me, this universe can be intelligent ... and that is very sensible in view of the proliferation of solipsists these days.

RESPONDENT: That which is alive can hardly breath without bringing harm or destruction to some aspect of the environment, yes? The whole exercise of personal existence must be a heavy measure on the side of silliness when a larger view is taken toward its effect. Does it not seem silly that this body should eat while another starves?

RICHARD: The very fact that one is alive means consuming nutrients ... and staying alive means that something, somewhere, must die in order to supply these nutrients. This is a fact of life ... and the marvellous thing about a fact is that one can not argue with it. One can argue about a belief, an opinion, a theory, an ideal and so on ... but a fact: never. One can deny a fact – pretend that it is not there – but once seen, a fact brings freedom from choice and decision. Most people think and feel that choice implies freedom – having the freedom to choose – but this is not the case. Freedom lies in seeing the obvious, and in seeing the obvious there is no choice, no deliberation, no agonising over the ‘Right’ and ‘Wrong’ judgement. In the freedom of seeing the fact there is only action.

When it comes to the consumption of nutrients there are many and various beliefs one can hold dearly to. There are people who will not eat red meat at all ... only white meat and fish. Then there are people who will not eat any flesh of warm-blooded animals at all ... only fish and reptiles. Then there are people (vegetarians) who will not eat any meat at all, but will consume eggs and dairy products. Then there are people (vegans) who will eat only vegetables, grain and seed. Then there are people (fruitarians) who will only eat fruit. Then – as we go into myth and fantasy – there are those who live on water and air ... and finally those who live on air only.

Some vegetarians maintain that as a carrot (for example) does not scream audibly when it is pulled from the ground there is no distress caused by the consumption of vegetables. Yet the carrot indubitably dies slowly by being extracted from its life-support system – the ground is its home – and is this not distressing on some level of a living, growing organism? It all depends upon the level, or degree, of ‘aliveness’ that one ascribes to things. Vegans, for instance, will not consume eggs as this prevents an incipient life from being born. Fruitarians go one step further and say that, as the consumption of carrots prevents them from going to seed and sprouting new life, vegetables are to be eschewed entirely. Then, as the eating of grain and seeds also prevent potential life-forms from growing, they will eat only the flesh of the fruit that surrounds the kernel and plant out the embryo plant-form (I have been a fruitarian so I know full well what I am speaking of.)

The obvious fact is clearly demonstrated by taking all this to its ultimate consideration. What will one do – as a fruitarian causing no pain or the taking of life of anyone or anything – about those pesky things like mosquitoes, sand-flies, cockroaches, rats, mice and other ‘vermin’ that invade my house? Put up screens? What about outside? Will I slap them dead ... or just shoo them away? What will one do if attacked by a snake, a crocodile, a shark, a lion and so on? Do as the Revered Scriptures say and turn the other cheek? Will I humbly submit to my fate and be mauled severely myself – or even killed – simply because of a religious injunction, a moral scruple, a noble ideal, a virtuous belief, a passionate opinion, a deeply held ethical theory? In other words, have animals and insects been given the right, by some inscrutable god, to do with me whatsoever they wish? Is my survival dependent upon the non-existent benevolence of all those sentient beings that I am not going to cause distress to?

What then about germs, bacteria, bacillus, microbes, pathogens, phages, viruses and so on? Are they not entitled to remain alive and pain free? If one takes medication for disease, one is – possibly painfully – killing off the microscopic creatures that one’s body is the host too. Some religions – the Jain religion in India, for example – has its devout members wearing gauze over their nose and mouths to prevent insects from flying in and they even carry small brooms to sweep the path as they walk so that they will not accidentally step on some creature. It can really get out of hand. For instance, small-pox has been eradicated from the world by scientists as a means of saving countless human lives ... is this somehow ‘Wrong’? What is ‘Right’ in regards to what I do in order to stay alive? If I do none of these things then I will be causing pain and suffering to myself – and I am a sentient being too. It is an impossible scenario, when pursued to its ultimate conclusion.

And then there is the matter of one’s fellow human beings. Some of them – in fact at times a lot of them – are desirous of invading the country that one is living peacefully in, with the avowed intent of killing, torturing, raping, pillaging and subjugating oneself and one’s fellow citizens. If one holds a strong and passionate belief in not causing any pain and suffering to other sentient beings then one must be more than a fruitarian ... one must be a pacifist as well. This amounts to hanging out a sign – if everybody else in the country one lives in adopts this specific belief – which says, in effect: ‘Please feel free to invade us, we will not fight back, for we hold firmly to the principle of not causing pain and suffering to any sentient being whatsoever’ (the Tibetan situation is a particular case in point.) Thus anarchy would rule the world – all because of a belief system handed down by the Saints and the Sages, the Messiahs and the Avatars, the Redeemers and the Saviours, the Prophets and the Priests, century after century.

All this is predicated upon there being an enduring ‘I’ that is going to survive the death of the body and go on into the paradisiacal After-Life that is ‘my’ post-mortem reward for being a ‘good’ person during ‘my’ sojourn on this planet earth. It is ‘I’ who is the ‘believer’, it is ‘I’ who will cause this flesh-and-blood body to go into all manner of contorted and convoluted emotion-backed thoughts as to what is ‘Right’ and what is ‘Wrong’, what is ‘Good’ and what is ‘Bad’. If it were not for the serious consequences of all this passionate dreaming it would be immensely humorous, for ‘I’ am not actual ... ‘I’ am an illusion. And any grand ‘I’ that supposedly survives death by being ‘Timeless and Spaceless’, ‘Unborn and Undying’, ‘Immortal and Eternal’ am but a delusion born out of that illusion. Thus any After-Life is a fantasy spun out of a delusion born out of an illusion ... as I am so fond of saying.

When ‘I’ am no longer extant there is no ‘believer’ inside the mind and heart to have any beliefs or disbeliefs. As there is no ‘believer’, there is no ‘I’ to be harmful ... and one is harmless only when one has eliminated malice – what is commonly called evil – from oneself in its entirety. That is, the ‘dark side’ of human nature which requires the maintenance of a ‘good side’ to eternally combat it. By doing the ‘impossible’ – everybody tells me that you can’t change human nature – then one is automatically harmless ... which does not mean abstaining from killing. It means that no act is malicious, spiteful, hateful, revengeful and so on. It is a most estimable condition to be in. One is then free to kill or not kill something or someone, as the circumstances require. Eating meat, for example, is an act of freedom, based upon purely practical considerations such as the taste bud’s predilection, or the body’s ability to digest the food eaten, or meeting the standards of hygiene necessary for the preservation of decaying flesh, or the availability of sufficient resources on this planet to provide the acreage necessary to support the conversion of vegetation into animal protein. It has nothing whatsoever with sparing sentient beings any distress.

Thus ‘Right and Wrong’ is nothing but a socially-conditioned affective and cognitive conscience instilled by well-meaning adults through reward and punishment (love and hate) in a fatally-flawed attempt to control the wayward self that all sentient beings are born with. The feeling of ‘Right and Wrong’ is born out of holding on to a belief system that is impossible to live ... as all belief systems are. I am not trying to persuade anyone to eat meat or not eat meat ... I leave it entirely up to the individual as to what they do regarding what they eat. It is the belief about being ‘Right or Wrong’ that is insidious, for this is how you are manipulated by those who seek to control you ... they are effectively beating you with a psychological stick. And the particularly crafty way they go about it is that they get you to do the beating to yourself. Such self-abasement is the hall-mark of any religious humility ... a brow-beaten soul earns its way into some god’s good graces by self-castigating acts of redemption. Holding fervently to any belief is a sure sign that there is a wayward ‘I’ that needs to be controlled.

Give me ‘silly’ and ‘sensible’ any day.

*

RICHARD: And then there is the matter of one’s fellow human beings. Some of them – in fact at times a lot of them – are desirous of invading the country that one is living peacefully in, with the avowed intent of killing, torturing, raping, pillaging and subjugating oneself and one’s fellow citizens. If one holds a strong and passionate belief in not causing any pain and suffering to other sentient beings then one must be more than a fruitarian ... one must be a pacifist as well. This amounts to hanging out a sign – if everybody else in the country one lives in adopts this specific belief – which says, in effect: ‘Please feel free to invade us, we will not fight back, for we hold firmly to the principle of not causing pain and suffering to any sentient being whatsoever’ (the Tibetan situation is a particular case in point.) Thus anarchy would rule the world – all because of a belief system handed down by the Saints and the Sages, the Messiahs and the Avatars, the Redeemers and the Saviours, the Prophets and the Priests, century after century. All this is predicated upon there being an enduring ‘I’ that is going to survive the death of the body and go on into the paradisiacal After-Life that is ‘my’ post-mortem reward for being a ‘good’ person during ‘my’ sojourn on this planet earth.

RESPONDENT: This hardly need be the case. I am both a vegan and a pacifist and gladly wear a sign that says, ‘I will do you no harm’.

RICHARD: You can eat whatever you choose as far as I am concerned ... but know full well that by being a pacifist in this world as it is with people as they are then you are relying upon other human beings to risk their lives to protect you and your ilk. Skulking behind the most enormous military machine in the world and wearing a pacifist badge is but a public demonstration of hypocritical idiocy. Not to mention the State Police troopers, the FBI agents, the CIA operatives and so on who go out of their way to enable you to sleep somewhat peacefully in your bed at night. These are all people behind the badge ... your fellow human beings. There is a word in the Australian lexicon that is apt when it comes to describing pacifists ... they are wankers.

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