In regards to eating meat

[Diana]

Either/or statements don't allow for shades of gray. Many people feel compassion for their own pets, but not for other animals. Some people feel compassion for cows, but not sardines. A few people feel compassion for both cows and sardines. Hardly anybody (that I know of) feels compassion for cockroaches.

I do.

It is the underlying principle.

Compassion is like love: it can be conditional or unconditional.

Conditional compassion, like conditional love, is a step toward unconditional compassion (or love), and the awareness that all life is equal and sacred, that everything has life and is part of intelligent infinity.

(And before someone jumps in with this: of course, meat-eaters are part of intelligent infinity and are loved unconditionally, and I have compassion for meat-eaters. I did think that all here on this site were big girls and boys, and could discuss something potentially vital to growth, without defaulting continually to saying the vegetarians are trying to change them.)

How does one separate feeling compassion for one being and not another? Separation! In the mind of one who thinks/feels this way, all are not one. Is this not a goal worthy of trying to attain . . . the recognition that all is one? Not that all humans are one; that everything is one.