Observations placeholder
The Means of achieving spiritual experience - Shaivism – 12 Don’t hurt and compassion
Identifier
022584
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
In the following text we see the true meaning of the ‘sacrifice’. It is worth noting that Shaivism allows the eating of meat, but only if it has been humanely reared and humanely killed. Compassion, empathy, all are included in the idea that one revers life.
A description of the experience
Sadhu Shambhudasa – Advice to a Mleccha [The Mimansa]
It is essential to sanctify the sacrifice. Man lives only by sacrificing life; whether he is vegetarian or carnivorous, he kills.
He must consider this act as a sacred act.
In principle, he must himself participate in the act of killing the animal that he eats. He must avoid the hypocrisy that pretends ignorance of the horror of slaughterhouses. He must oppose all torture practiced in the mass raising of animals and never nourish himself with tortured flesh.
The wise man asks pardon of the spirit of the tree, whose branch he must cut and offer, before eating, the first morsel of food to the gods.