Meat … Dairy … Eggs. When we are not vegan, we grab them thoughtlessly from the supermarket shelf, hardly paying any attention to what we are actually doing — not realizing at all the immense cruelty we are directly supporting. Our actions do not connect with any awareness or empathy for those who are indeed OUR victims …

And even if we do occasionally feel a slight shiver of concern, we look around and see everyone else doing the same. We see smiley people on TV joking and chopping vegetables beside gory scenes that should make us retch instead of salivate … ‘It must be ok’, we think. ‘It’s normal. It’s the way things always have been, and it’s the way things are supposed to be’. Those and other insidious whispered reassurances we were taught as children surface to soothe our dismay … and we carry on.

Here’s an idea: The next time you are in the supermarket, have the courage to LOOK AGAIN. Have the courage to really look at each neat package of blood-drained flesh, at each container of milk or yogurt or cheese, at each carton of eggs … Have the courage to remember the very simple Truth that each & every one of them has a story to tell; a story of confusion — a story of sadness — a story of terror — a story of pain — a story of suffering.

Indeed, the stories our meat & our milk & our eggs tell are of their rightful owners; are of those whose lives WE destroyed just because we were taught in our youth that they are healthy to eat (they’re not) or necessary for our survival (they’re not) or delicious (that’s right — they’re actually not) … And if we only to stop and listen for even a few precious moments, theirs is an eloquent-yet-strident legacy; each telling an epic tale of desperation, a tale of grief, a tale of fear, a tale of mournful partings, a tale of desperation & helplessness — and ultimately telling a tale of murder.

My dear Friends, if our species is to survive, we simply MUST come to realize that as our own thoughtless hands arrange dismembered body parts on our plates, we are actually assembling a puzzle that depicts the private Hell of a desperate Soul; a being exactly like us in every relevant way — anguished & frightened; screaming & struggling & begging not to die … It is a truly unavoidable & a most inconvenient Truth that laid before us in our every nonvegan choice are lost lives; lives that once embodied thoughts and hopes and identities and personalities and memories — lost lives that once knew hope & joy & fear & love — lost lives that were robbed of their dignity, and given bloody, anguished, premature deaths instead.

It’s all there, my Friends. All we have to do is have the humility to LOOK. And then once we have looked, and have finally SEEN, we can then have the courage to ACT accordingly.

We can all live and thrive without being part of the machine of death & torture. So why not turn your back on it today? We can all live and thrive in lives based in Compassion instead of callousness, Virtue instead of violence, and Freedom instead of fear … My Friends, we can all live lives steeped in lasting Peace and bathed in deep-seated Joy …

And yet do so we must first choose to be vegan.

If not for the animals, then for the planet …
If not for the planet, then for your loved ones …
and if not for your loved ones,
… then at the very least for yourself.

Thank you … S

(inspired by There’s an Elephant in the Room)

Filed under: Sanctifying Sentience by Scaughdt