Episode #60

[Bring4th_Austin]

(Jade, I moved your post from the question submission thread to this one, just a heads up.)

I think I resonated well with Jim's answer that second density suffering exists to increase the opportunities for compassion for third density. I think where it missed the mark is that while there is discussion of horses, elephants, squirrels, whales, baboons, cats, dogs - but there is no mention of a single species of farm animal. We have about 3,000 captive whales and dolphins on this planet, there are less than half a million elephants left - meanwhile, 25,000,000 chickens died today, a horrible, brutal death after a short, torturous life - and that doesn't include the roosters that are born in the egg industry that are ground up alive immediately upon being born.

I also thought that maybe the conversation would have felt more cohesive if instead of discussing "How second density animals suffer and how it is different than us", to maybe discussing how we might experience suffering in similar ways.

There was certainly a huge gap in our discussion. We discussed suffering of animals in a very abstract sense, especially approaching the question of why they have the ability to suffer when they don't have the capacity to use that suffering as catalyst, like humans do. There was no accounting in our discussion about the suffering of animals inflicted by humans in our society (or even inflicted by other animals, and nature.)

I would view the addition of human-inflicted suffering into the equation as a subsequent discussion. Like, the question we discussed was an initial, "First, why is it even possible for animals to suffer in the first place, when they can't use it as catalyst?"

The subsequent discussion is far beyond what we discussed, and if taking what we discussed as a direct application to vegan activism, is quite inadequate and insensitive. At least for me personally, if we were talking about human-inflicted animal suffering, I would have approached things from a different angle.

For instance, the question of pointless suffering of livestock animals is inseparable from the pointless suffering of humans to me. Humans inflict great trauma upon other humans, creating conditions of non-viable catalyst either way. Sure, humans innately have a higher consciousness with the ability to process catalyst differently, but I do think there is a threshold here. A modicum of reflection and comfort must be available before it can be expected that a person even has the ability to process the suffering as catalyst for growth.

It's a topic that I honestly don't feel like the Law of One addresses adequately. Perhaps we can say that the plans of our sub-Logos went a bit awry in creating conditions for catalyst and there is a unintended depth of suffering created by humans.

Though, even then, I have a hard time coming to terms with the fact that even without humans, animals can suffer deeply. I imagine a prey animal that was maimed by a predator in a horrific way, but didn't die, suffering from permanent pain for the rest of its life. Even without a predator, imagine an animal that simply tripped and broke its leg, then the leg heals in the wrong way, causing permanent pain.

This is pain and suffering inflicted by the sub-Logos. It is inflicted by the Creator. The free will of humans cannot be blamed for the presence and ability of such pointless animal suffering (but can be blamed for making it worse on a grand scale).

It might be interpreted that this thinking is all a way to excuse humans inflicting pain and suffering on animals. If the Creator can do it, if other animals can do it, if it exists in nature already, it can't be a sin, can it? I am certainly not saying that. I will admit that this thinking has affected my view of human livestock production, but I do not in any way feel like it is an excuse.

I apologize if the post is emotional. I am just highly triggered by the perpetuation of the idea that second density beings don't suffer. It seems to be a slippery slope that shouldn't even be a slope in the first place - for instance, what about a human with a brain injury? Someone who becomes what we call a "vegetable"? Do they suffer? What if empirically they are not suffering by any estimation? What do we do then? Eat them? Or do we agree that suffering is suffering, and that when we see what our beings perceive as suffering, we will acknowledge it, instead of ignoring the being that is suffering. Otherwise, we are repressing the catalyst, and according to Ra, that is not ideal and can cause a lot of problems down the line.

I think your question of "What do we do then?" is the key to organizing this discussion. What we talked about in this podcast, to me, did not approach that question, but addressed the abstract way in which animals suffer and why it's possible for them to suffer in the first place. "What do we do then?" was a lacking component of the discussion.

I think that is why the discussion was approached from the differences perspective, rather than similarities. In order to discuss why the Creator and sub-Logos would create a creation in which animals can suffer at all, when suffering is useful as catalyst once we can consciously process catalyst, it's necessary to address why second-density beings would not have the ability to process suffering as catalyst. That was at the forefront of my thoughts in this podcast.