“There is no mode of life that is superior to serving one’s mother.” -The Holy Mahabharata, Book 12 It is only due to the grace of our Mother that we exist. Had your Mother not made the choice to carry you within her being, to nurture you with her own body and to give her whole life to care for you, you simply would not be here. You would never have been given the opportunity to experience this gift of life…Your Mother is the one who has given you this gift. Without Mother there is no life. In honor of the upcoming Hindu holiday of Navratri, I feel it is imperative to bring to your attention the ongoing assault on Mothers that we share this planet with. Navratri is a time to acknowledge and celebrate our Divine Mother, in all Her forms. It is a time to seek blessings from Her and to also express our Love and gratitude for Her presence in our lives. It is like a Cosmic Mother’s Day…A beautiful festival of fruits, flowers, chanting, prayer and worship that lasts for nine glorious nights. Navratri truly is a beautiful and powerful experience. However, it always makes me sad to consider what is the reality for Mothers in this world. There are plenty of atrocities that happen to human Mothers, as you may well know, but I am speaking of the plight of cow Mothers, of chicken Mothers, of pig Mothers. They matter too. They are Mothers too, who carry their young within their own body and feed it from their own breast. They are conscious beings who think and feel. Many of us cannot begin to comprehend what these innocent creatures go through… it is overwhelming and unimaginable, but I am going to do my best to paint a very clear picture for you and help you to understand what we allow, what really goes on and what these beings are forced to endure. For many years I lived my life as a vegetarian, abstaining from meat and fish but still consuming milk, cheese and eggs. It’s not meat, right? I never wore or bought leather, fur, wool or anything like that but partaking in dairy was fair game for me. That was my awareness then, and don’t get me wrong, vegetarians are great, really… but being vegetarian is actually a stepping stone to committing to living completely cruelty free. If you are vegetarian for the sake of the animals, then how can you partake in the dairy and egg industry? What happens to dairy cows and egg-laying hens is horrific. See, I was not vegetarian for health reasons, no… I made my dietary decision out of compassion for the animals. It all started when I was having dinner with my parents in my backyard and we were having london broil on the grill… I was a teenager about 14 or 15 years old. It suddenly dawned on me that what was in my plate was once alive, walking, breathing, feeling…. I wondered how exactly this slab of death arrived at my dinner table. Thus began my search into what happens at the slaughterhouse. NewsFlash: THERE ARE NO HAPPY COWS! They do not graze naturally in a field and laugh when they are milked by hand by Old MacDonald. This is absolutely NOT the case. Slaughterhouses are exactly what they are called: Slaughter. Houses. They are places of fear, death, agony, pain… things you can’t even comprehend, and dairy farms are no different. The life of a Mother cow is sad, lonely, miserable and incredibly painful. Let me explain; Dairy cows are constantly made to be pregnant so they stay lactating. Bet you didn’t know that, huh? Yes, cows do not just naturally produce milk all the time. Like all Mothers, cows must be carrying a new life in order to produce milk to feed their baby. So, the dairy cow is artificially inseminated in order to result in a pregnancy. Now, having something unnaturally forced inside of you to become pregnant is rape; plain and simple. Cow, human, pig, it doesn’t matter; it’s rape. So the Mother cow carries this baby for nine months, just like human Mothers… She feels it inside her, bonds with it, Loves it. Cows are very maternal creatures, and it has been said that the cry of a dairy cow when her baby is taken from her is the worst scream you will ever hear. So, after this Mother cow gives birth to her baby calf, it is taken from her right then and there. Humans get the milk and the baby becomes veal. YES, if you support the dairy industry you DIRECTLY support the veal industry…. And you know what veal is, right? That baby calf is put into a small crate where he cannot move, in order to keep his flesh tender, and then he is slaughtered anywhere from one month old to twenty-four months old, depending on the type of veal he will become. Female baby cows are turned into dairy cows just like their Mother, living a life of rape, resulting in pregnancy after pregnancy and stolen baby after stolen baby, until they meet their final horrible fate at the slaughterhouse. Dairy cows go to slaughter at four or five years old, when they would naturally live to be about twenty-five years old. Oh and do you think that the Mother cows are grazing in a pasture, feeling the sunlight on their backs and being milked by hand by a sweet little old farmer? Well, they are not; not even close. Dairy cows are kept in stalls that are not even big enough for them to turn around. No windows, no sunlight. Their tender utters are hooked up to machines to pump out their milk, which causes injury and infection. Forget about the fact that these poor creatures are injected with hormones and antibiotics and then you drink these unnatural substances when you consume milk and cheese…Um, cancer much? This is bad enough and it is a whole other facet to this evil industry, but I am focused on telling you the cow’s point of view during all this… And milk comes from a grieving Mother. Egg laying hens face a similar, if not worse fate. They are kept in battery cages their entire life, no bigger than your desk drawer. They are forced to live in their own excrement, meanwhile if left in their natural habitat, chickens are relatively clean animals. The hens are packed into the cages about 5-10 hens per cage, resulting in extreme stress, feather loss, bruises and so on. Chickens are debeaked to prevent them from pecking at each other. Debeaked? Can you even imagine?! An egg is actually a hen period. Yes, it’s true. It is the menstrual cycle of a female chicken. To shock their bodies into an egg-laying cycle, hens are often starved to induce ‘force molting.’ Hens are subjected to mutilation, deprivation and confinement for their entire lives. They are normally very social, intelligent creatures but instead they are forced into a life of slavery, torture and death. Hell. On. Earth. There are so many other gross specifics that I could go into regarding the dairy and egg industry, but do you really need me to? Rape, stolen babies, murdered babies and the enslavement and torture of Mothers? Isn’t that enough for you to make the change? I understand that cheese is delicious and anything with milk or eggs is usually creamy and yummy but, please understand, that Her milk is not ours to take; Her womb is sacred… their bodies and babies belong to them alone. We are the ONLY species on this planet who consumes milk, not only in our adulthood but from another species! …Um, hello? Doesn’t that seem odd to you? Milk is for babies. Furthermore, we have so many other options! Rice milk, hemp milk, soy milk, coconut milk, almond milk…. and so many others… there is really no reason for the dairy industry to persist the way it is. We continue to consume milk and cheese and eggs because that’s how we were brought up and because it tastes good… Well, children are brought up to be killers and that doesn’t make it right and compassionate food is better and tastes better than cruelty filled food. Here’s why… Everything is energy, from your coffee table, to your sandwich, to your spouse. Everything in existence is just vibrating energetic matter. By now, we all understand that negative words, thoughts, emotions and so on vibrate at a very low rate and positive thoughts, words, emotions and so on vibrate at a very high rate. When we are feeling fearful, angry, sad, lonely, we are very low on the energetic spectrum and remember; like attracts like. Negative begets negative and positive begets positive. Simple law of attraction. So when you are consuming the bodily secretions of a fearful, sad, angry, lonely, miserable creature, who is in extreme pain, what exactly do you think you are putting into your body? What kind of energy is attached to that substance that you are eating or drinking? There is an age old saying that says ‘you are what you eat’…. So, why in the world are you eating death? Drinking unimaginable sadness? Snacking on another creatures pain? You know, before an animal is slaughtered it releases adrenaline into its body and this is a natural fear-based response… even humans have this fight or flight adrenal reaction. By eating meat, drinking milk, eating cheese or scrambling eggs, you are essentially eating another being’s fear. You are directly bringing feelings of fear into your energetic field….Again, milk comes from a grieving mother. It is colossal sadness; unspeakable grief; unbearable pain. How do you think this affects you? Your mood? Your thoughts? Hmmm… think about it. I apologize if I’ve ruined your lunch… Well…actually, no; I’m not sorry. These animals don’t have a voice and I am stepping up to be their voice. This has been going on for far too long and enough is enough. No more death. No more unnecessary suffering. No more rape. No more stolen babies. NO MORE. We are better than this. You needed to hear this. Vegetarians, you guys really needed to hear this. I applaud your efforts and I encourage you to continue on your path of compassion and…please consider going vegan. As long as you know how to eat to stay healthy and vibrant, it is easy! Lots of leafy greens, nuts, seeds, legumes, vegetables and fruits make your body happy! Mother Nature has provided us with everything we need in order to be healthy. She has given us foods that grow from the ground, that fall from the trees…Foods that don’t have a central nervous system, they don’t feel pain, they do not suffer. Yes everything is energy and plants and non-animal foods do possess a certain degree of consciousness but it’s very different from that which is in a human or animals. Humans and animals have THE SAME body parts; eyes, ears, stomach, liver, anus and so on…. Why would you think that their brains and hearts are any different than ours? And, coming back to my central point; Mothers are the same in all species. They carry their young in their womb, nurturing it and sustaining it and producing milk to feed it after birth. This attack on the Divine Feminine and this imprisonment and assault on Mothers needs to stop. We are living in an incredibly progressive and evolutionary time where these barbaric practices are no longer necessary. Everyone wants to live in a world of Love, compassion, happiness and freedom…The only way to ever even dream of attaining this is by ending the animal holocaust. By making the daily decision to respect Mothers and babies of all species and to not participate in their enslavement and suffering, you can make a difference. As the Buddha said, “Thousands of candles can be lit by a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened…” Your decision of Love and compassion has the power to change the world. Below is the mantra for compassion. We can chant this every day to remind ourselves of our unity with all beings on this planet and to send out intentions for an end to their suffering. Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu “May all beings everywhere be happy and free, and may the thoughts, words and actions of my own life contribute in some way to that happiness and to that freedom for all.”
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