If We Were They
Vegan Lifestyle Articles From All-Creatures.org

Vegan lifestyle articles that discuss ways of living in peace with humans, animals, and the environment.


FROM

Sun, Co-founder of Gentle World
November 2015

The vegan movement is in no way, shape or form, a fad, but nothing less than the evolution of our species, And, as evolution does, it is gathering steam with each new generation. Using the power of our will alone, we, the vegans of the world, are co-creating the first non-predatory culture on earth, in which empathy reigns supreme.

The innocent animals, whose bodies we use at our will and against theirs, although born into different physical bodies that have given them horns, tails, furry skin, and senses beyond our imagination, are, like us, victims of circumstance. Like all people, they are who we might have been, there but for we know not what. They too, are us, if we were they.

if we were they

Of the more than seven billion people who are alive on this earth as I write, not one, as far as any of us knows, asked to be born. To the best of our recollection, each of us arrived in this crazy world not by our own choice, but either by someone else’s choosing or by chance. None of us was informed beforehand as to who we would be, what our lives would be like or the reality of the world we would be entering, and then asked if those terms were agreeable to us. From the moment of conception, we were and remain, victims of circumstances seemingly beyond our control, and therefore, on some very real level, innocent of all that has followed.

There are many theories as to who we humans are and where we come from. Whether we believe that we are creations of one god or another, a biological phenomenon that just happened to happen, or some holographic creation that hasn’t yet been discovered, and however vigorously we defend our theories, even the most brilliant among us does not know with any certainty, the why or how of our existence.

What we do know is that, ever since we can remember, we have lived in a predatory world in which certain creatures subsist on the death of certain other creatures. Although we are grateful that we happen to be the predators, and even as we try not to think about the horrors our prey must bear, this frightening reality weighs heavily upon us all our lives. Embarrassed at our “over-sensitivity,” and overwhelmed by a problem for which we have been taught there is no solution, we shy away from even talking about it, and go about our lives pretending that because predation is a law of nature, it must be the right way to live.

But, our higher nature, which is our salvation, knows that predation requires violence and cruelty, which can never be right. And our higher nature intuits that we have the power to evolve nature’s laws, with our willingness to evolve ourselves. Our higher nature knows that there but for we know not what, any of us could have been any other of us; and that therefore, our highest purpose in this life is to cultivate our empathy toward all of us. The vegan inside us lives in our higher nature, far above the unjustifiable justifications for the predatory way of life.

And its voice is growing louder. Whereas not too long ago, the idea that killing is necessary to our survival was accepted as fact by most everyone, this is no longer true, as we are discovering that not only is the killing and subsequent ingestion of innocent animals unnecessary, it is killing us.

We, the vegans of the world, whose number is increasing every day, are living proof that it is possible to de-throne the predatory nature that has ruled the roost of our collective psyche ever since we can remember. And we are learning, some of us after decades of living that way, that not only is veganism not in any way to our detriment, but is in every way a boon and a catalyst for our greater health and happiness.

The vegan movement is in no way, shape or form, a fad, but nothing less than the evolution of our species, And, as evolution does, it is gathering steam with each new generation. Using the power of our will alone, we, the vegans of the world, are co-creating the first non-predatory culture on earth, in which empathy reigns supreme.

The innocent animals, whose bodies we use at our will and against theirs, although born into different physical bodies that have given them horns, tails, furry skin, and senses beyond our imagination, are, like us, victims of circumstance. Like all people, they are who we might have been, there but for we know not what. They too, are us, if we were they.


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