Encounter is the Ground of Being:

Here

in the between -

Love's disclosure.

Vegetarianism and Loving-Kindness:

I have experienced that some of the cruelest, most proud, and pitiless people I have ever met have been vegetarians - whereas, some of the kindest, and most self-effacing have been meat-eaters: the following is born of these observations:

Vegetarianism/veganism, which should in fact be an expression, or a symptom, of the development of one's love for all beings, sometimes transpires to be little more than a fad, or, more commonly, is revealed as mere ritualistic acceptance, and/or a way of (often unconsciously) showing one's self-assumed moral and spiritual superiority.

For some Hindus, and others, it is enough to refrain from the consumption of meat, fish, and fowl, whilst holding the view, and demonstrating by one's behaviour, that our fellow brothers and sisters around the globe are lower than animals - sometimes even worthy of death at the hands of the 'righteous' - by dint of their religious or political beliefs, their castelessness, their nationality/race, their sexuality, or indeed, their diet!


(I have also seen a kindred type of misanthropy in non-Hindus, exhibited by people who are apt to cry over the fate of lab-mice, or balk at the idea of someone hunting and eating a pheasant - yet think nothing of the termination of a human life in the womb by it's mother.)

All of this is possible when our vegetarianism is not the the natural outcome of a growing tenderness towards all beings - or in other words, all difference as grounded in Being, who reveals Him/Herself in, as, and with every time/event and entity - but is only a matter of fashion, a phobia, or an obsession with purity, or some similarly small-minded sanctimoniousness, which conspires to take us far, far away from that incalculable life of Love, which is the birthright of humankind.

The Garden

 












At the heart of all of our dreams of Eternity - of our entry into Presence - one wish must take precedence, that no one be excluded from the atonement and Grace of the Absolute Person.

Remembering this, and understanding its existential significance, we become responsible - thus partaking in the redemptive process that manifests itself as a life centered in compassion.

No matter how hoary our ancestry - how noble our credentials, how sophisticated our philosophical discourse - how bright our scholarship, how fervent our prayer or austere or esoteric our sadhana, without this - a life dedicated in kindness, there is, as yet, no genuine touch from the Lord’s gentle hand.

Religious Communities founded upon, or that degenerate into, anything less are destined to become but congregations of shadows feeding upon the vicissitudes of institutional form and its mimetic compulsions. We need not look too far to witness this in action - and many of us have had first hand experience of such residence in the lands of the soulless.

Only that Communion which dares nurture a garden on the precipice of certainty and doubt, and instils through example the necessary courage to embody tender-heartedness, can truly hope to move forward into Relationship before the Face of  Divine Innocence.