Veganism/judgement

[Nathan]

There's an excerpt in Leo's video about wisdom in which judgement is deemed essentially out of touch and infantile, or that's the way I perceived it. 

I judge people that exploit animals for personal gain to the 9th degree to the point that I've had watershed moment arguments with relatives and loved ones about that topic of the exploitation of animals and have cut them out of my life. 

I struggle to let go of judgement, why do you think that is? Ideally with some emphasis on the subject matter? 

 

[Tim R]

4 minutes ago, Nathan said:

I struggle to let go of judgement, why do you think that is?

We judge others to make ourselves feel better about our own  perspective. Therefore naturally, it's difficult to let go of judgement, because judgement is such an easy way of indirectly promoting our own position to ourselves. 

We do it because deep down we are insecure about ourselves and our positions and therefore feel the need to justify and endorse our own position to ourselves, which we do through the route of judging others. By judging someone else, we put them down in relation to us, you see? Because if I judge you, I'm above you (otherwise I couldn't judge you).

In your case you judge other people because you think that you hold the truth about the way people should conduct their eating habits. But because you're insecure about your position, you naturally feel the need to prove to yourself that you're right, which you accomplish by putting other peoples diet and/or way of living down. 

If you'd truly know that you're right, you wouldn't feel the need to prove it to yourself by constantly putting them down by judging them.

So to struggle to let go of judgement really comes down to a struggle of letting go insecurities about oneself. 

[preemo]

In the Simpsons episode "Lisa the Vegeterian" this problem is nicely shown. Lisa discovers vegetarianism and starts judging and blaming her family for eating meat. I dont want to give you spoilers, but the end of this story is kind of wise. 

[Scholar]

Most people here are non-vegans so they will not understand this position at all. To them veganism is just about a lifestyle, when fundamentally it is about the expansion of identity.

See, if you are a racist, you do not care about what happens to a person of another race. You do not judge your own race for enslaving and mistreating other races. In this context it is effortless to be non-judgemental, because to not judge people for something you do not care about is not really a big deal. If I don't care about children, why would I care about what pedophiles do to them?

As identity expands, people start to care about more and more things. They expand their circle of care. This is natural and this is inevitable. This is good and this is healthy. Someone who starts caring about children will naturally start to judge the pedophiles.

 

See, it is better to care about the animals than to care about bacon. The difference between you and most people on this forum is that they do not care about the animals, but they do care about their bacon. So what they will do is, they will judge you for your judgement. They do this to protect their bacon, and you judge them to protect the animals.

Genuine compassion is integral to your evolution as an individual. This stage you are in is natural, and you should embrace it for what it is. Can you see that the apathy so hailed sometimes by the spiritual community quite often leads to inaction?

God does not care about apathy, God cares precisely as much as you do. He changes the world through your will, it is inevitable. And in this way he acts, as is appropriate.

 

The right action here is not to scrutinize your beliefs as a vegan, infact most people here should be scrutinizing their beliefs about bacon. What you need to have is compassion for yourself. Understand that you are judgemental because of your compassion. Surpressing your emotions into a state of apathy will do the opposite of good.

Many people belief that veganism is about eating habits, when it is about establishing a new moral baseline and expanding our identity to include animals. From that point of view, contributing to the commodification of animals becomes untenable, as much as to anyone in this forum the commodification, breeding and slaughter of human children is untenable. Nobody here would be non-judgemental about child rape if they saw it happen infront of their eyes, yet they completely accept the same happening to their animal brothers and sisters. This is because they fundamentally do not care about their brothers and sisters, not because they are somehow more developed than the rest of us.

You care, and this is beautiful. What needs to change is your expression of your care. Caring means suffering. Infact, God cares so much about each and every one of his children that he will experience every bit of suffering they are experiencing. He has compassion to the highest possible degree. He will take the suffering of his children onto himself. Embodiment of this is called the Passion of Christ, not the Apathy of Christ.

 

Christ lived with full compassion in his heart. He cared about his brothers and sisters. But he cared so much that he was able to see that all of his brothers and sisters simply were blind. This is what you must realize. Those who you judge, they are simply ignorant. They do not know what they are doing. If you truly realize this, you will not be able to judge them.

 

 

So this is not about veganism, this is not about you caring about animals. This is fundamentally about you not having enough compassion for your fellow brothers and sisters, who are blind, who need Love, who are defined by their fear and suffering.

 

The concept of the selfish carer is fundamentally flawed. We do not simply care because we want to validate ourselves. We care because we recognize ourselves in the other. That is fundamentally what compassion and empathy is. People here misunderstand vegans because they fundamentally lack compassion for both the animals and the vegans. I know my brother or sister that you do not judge them to prove something to yourself, but simply because you care so much about your animal brothers and sisters, that it pains you to see them suffering, and to see others contribute to that suffering.

 

Can you recognize this pain? The pain you feel when you open your heart to your animal brothers and sisters? This pain is overwhelming, is it not? If you had true compassion for all the suffering in this world, imagine the amount of pain you would need to carry. How could you face this kind of pain without falling into apathy? How could you carry this weight without crumbling? The answer is Love and acceptance. To accept the pain does not mean for the pain to disappear, nor to stop caring about it. To accept it means to embrace your compassion, to open your heart fully.

To carry the cross, in other words. This is what it means, this is what radical embodiment is. It is to care about the suffering of all of your brothers and sisters, while remaining full of Love and open-heartedness. This is the true challenge, atleast from your current point of view.

 

 

But first have compassion for yourself, for your own judgement. Do not judge yourself for your own judgement. Accept your judgement, recognize it's beauty and necessity, it's perfection. If you do so, beautiful things will happen my brother. You yourself should recognize your own blindness, your fear and suffering. This is why you judge, because you suffer and because you fear. Because you care. And now expand your care. See the suffering, the fear, the pain in your brothers and sisters. Can you see how they are blind, how they are suffering, just like you do?

 

Love to you and all of our brothers and sisters.

[ilja]

You have to let go of the stiff judgment for the sake of the animals. It is okay to challenge the meat eating habits of carnism and recall the holocaust behind it, but to achieve it better connection to people is important.

However there can be some people which are plainly a waste of time, but do not grudge over them, spare that energy for something that helps the cause.

[Scholar]

This is actually interesting, a study showing how vegans are being discriminated against and that there are severe biases against them. When we talk about judgment, I think it is important to understand both sides of the coin. In my experience many vegans become judgmental after they feel marginalized and judged by their friends and family for being vegan. In fact our culture is so biased against veganism that simply going vegan for many is difficult out of the fear for discrimination. Vegans are humans like everyone else, I think it is very unfair to put the entire pressure on them. "Well just accept the meat eaters for who they are, sure they think you are a soyboy and make fun of you all the time, but be nice anyways!"

 

https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/1368430215618253

 

[ilja]

@Scholar Error 404 Not Found

[Scholar]

@ilja The link works fine for me.

Here is an excerpt, one of the tablets:

 

[BipolarGrowth]

You’re judging based on relative good and bad. The easiest way to at least partially extinguish that is to have a direct awakening to God’s perspective on human notions of good and evil. This is ultimately a bit difficult to replicate, but setting the intention to discover this immediately before a high dose psychedelic trip might be one of the most probable ways to do this. I’ve found that knowing that good and evil are human creations is one thing, but a direct awakening does far more to force your ego to submit to this truth. 
Good & Evil from God’s Perspective
https://youtu.be/7RW0n-KgvZs

[Scholar]

This is also a good example:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4574806/vegan-schoolboy-louie-tom-fenton-hanged-himself-bullies-threw-meat-at-him/

 

This is how this attitude and culture of "Vegans are so annoying and judgemental!" leads to in the extremes. Imagine you are the boy, you love animals and you hate that other people pay for animals to be abuse. Imagine someone came to you and told you "Man, stop being so judgmental, no wonder you are bullied you are such a typical vegan!", can you see how this lacks compassion? This kid wasn't vegan because he wanted to feel superior to others, he probably just loved animals.

The child most likely had a more expansive identity than all the other kids in his class. He was more sensitive towards life and had more compassion for others. Yet many people in here would focus their judgment on this kid, and tell him about how veganism is all about being judgmental and that he should stop being so strict with caring about animals.

As always:

Quote

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?  How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

 

[vladorion]

You judge people who eat animals and then you judge yourself for judging those people, which doesn't help.

I think it would help to forgive yourself for being judgemental.

[Scholar]

6 minutes ago, Kalo said:

When you judge, you only judge yourself in the end.

God cannot judge anything cuz God is always and only itself. ONE. TOTAL. God knows that He is everything and everyone.

The ego however hates itself, others and God and Truth.

It thinks itself to be God, but is merely an illusion created by God.

It thinks itself immortal, but like any illusion, it will perish into the only Real.

Ilusion is illusion. 

The Supreme Formless Godhead itself is above all it's manifestations and creations, be they illusory or otherwise.

While this is true, Nathan probably has already heard this, and it probably does not help him much in terms of overcoming his suffering. We have to give our brothers and sisters more specific advice for the point at which they currently are, I think.

Yes it is more effort, but I think helping one person properly can do more healing than helping 10 people in a cookie cutter way.

[Carl-Richard]

Take the individual and trace their life back to when they were just a child. At which point along that line did they become a responsible adult deserving of judgement?

[intotheblack]

21 hours ago, Scholar said:

Most people here are non-vegans so they will not understand this position at all. To them veganism is just about a lifestyle, when fundamentally it is about the expansion of identity.

See, if you are a racist, you do not care about what happens to a person of another race. You do not judge your own race for enslaving and mistreating other races. In this context it is effortless to be non-judgemental, because to not judge people for something you do not care about is not really a big deal. If I don't care about children, why would I care about what pedophiles do to them?

As identity expands, people start to care about more and more things. They expand their circle of care. This is natural and this is inevitable. This is good and this is healthy. Someone who starts caring about children will naturally start to judge the pedophiles.

 

See, it is better to care about the animals than to care about bacon. The difference between you and most people on this forum is that they do not care about the animals, but they do care about their bacon. So what they will do is, they will judge you for your judgement. They do this to protect their bacon, and you judge them to protect the animals.

Genuine compassion is integral to your evolution as an individual. This stage you are in is natural, and you should embrace it for what it is. Can you see that the apathy so hailed sometimes by the spiritual community quite often leads to inaction?

God does not care about apathy, God cares precisely as much as you do. He changes the world through your will, it is inevitable. And in this way he acts, as is appropriate.

 

The right action here is not to scrutinize your beliefs as a vegan, infact most people here should be scrutinizing their beliefs about bacon. What you need to have is compassion for yourself. Understand that you are judgemental because of your compassion. Surpressing your emotions into a state of apathy will do the opposite of good.

Many people belief that veganism is about eating habits, when it is about establishing a new moral baseline and expanding our identity to include animals. From that point of view, contributing to the commodification of animals becomes untenable, as much as to anyone in this forum the commodification, breeding and slaughter of human children is untenable. Nobody here would be non-judgemental about child rape if they saw it happen infront of their eyes, yet they completely accept the same happening to their animal brothers and sisters. This is because they fundamentally do not care about their brothers and sisters, not because they are somehow more developed than the rest of us.

You care, and this is beautiful. What needs to change is your expression of your care. Caring means suffering. Infact, God cares so much about each and every one of his children that he will experience every bit of suffering they are experiencing. He has compassion to the highest possible degree. He will take the suffering of his children onto himself. Embodiment of this is called the Passion of Christ, not the Apathy of Christ.

 

Christ lived with full compassion in his heart. He cared about his brothers and sisters. But he cared so much that he was able to see that all of his brothers and sisters simply were blind. This is what you must realize. Those who you judge, they are simply ignorant. They do not know what they are doing. If you truly realize this, you will not be able to judge them.

 

 

So this is not about veganism, this is not about you caring about animals. This is fundamentally about you not having enough compassion for your fellow brothers and sisters, who are blind, who need Love, who are defined by their fear and suffering.

 

The concept of the selfish carer is fundamentally flawed. We do not simply care because we want to validate ourselves. We care because we recognize ourselves in the other. That is fundamentally what compassion and empathy is. People here misunderstand vegans because they fundamentally lack compassion for both the animals and the vegans. I know my brother or sister that you do not judge them to prove something to yourself, but simply because you care so much about your animal brothers and sisters, that it pains you to see them suffering, and to see others contribute to that suffering.

 

Can you recognize this pain? The pain you feel when you open your heart to your animal brothers and sisters? This pain is overwhelming, is it not? If you had true compassion for all the suffering in this world, imagine the amount of pain you would need to carry. How could you face this kind of pain without falling into apathy? How could you carry this weight without crumbling? The answer is Love and acceptance. To accept the pain does not mean for the pain to disappear, nor to stop caring about it. To accept it means to embrace your compassion, to open your heart fully.

To carry the cross, in other words. This is what it means, this is what radical embodiment is. It is to care about the suffering of all of your brothers and sisters, while remaining full of Love and open-heartedness. This is the true challenge, atleast from your current point of view.

 

 

But first have compassion for yourself, for your own judgement. Do not judge yourself for your own judgement. Accept your judgement, recognize it's beauty and necessity, it's perfection. If you do so, beautiful things will happen my brother. You yourself should recognize your own blindness, your fear and suffering. This is why you judge, because you suffer and because you fear. Because you care. And now expand your care. See the suffering, the fear, the pain in your brothers and sisters. Can you see how they are blind, how they are suffering, just like you do?

 

Love to you and all of our brothers and sisters.

this was really beautiful to read 

 

[Nathan]

2 hours ago, intotheblack said:

this was really beautiful to read 

 

23 hours ago, Scholar said:

Most people here are non-vegans so they will not understand this position at all. To them veganism is just about a lifestyle, when fundamentally it is about the expansion of identity.

See, if you are a racist, you do not care about what happens to a person of another race. You do not judge your own race for enslaving and mistreating other races. In this context it is effortless to be non-judgemental, because to not judge people for something you do not care about is not really a big deal. If I don't care about children, why would I care about what pedophiles do to them?

As identity expands, people start to care about more and more things. They expand their circle of care. This is natural and this is inevitable. This is good and this is healthy. Someone who starts caring about children will naturally start to judge the pedophiles.

 

See, it is better to care about the animals than to care about bacon. The difference between you and most people on this forum is that they do not care about the animals, but they do care about their bacon. So what they will do is, they will judge you for your judgement. They do this to protect their bacon, and you judge them to protect the animals.

Genuine compassion is integral to your evolution as an individual. This stage you are in is natural, and you should embrace it for what it is. Can you see that the apathy so hailed sometimes by the spiritual community quite often leads to inaction?

God does not care about apathy, God cares precisely as much as you do. He changes the world through your will, it is inevitable. And in this way he acts, as is appropriate.

 

The right action here is not to scrutinize your beliefs as a vegan, infact most people here should be scrutinizing their beliefs about bacon. What you need to have is compassion for yourself. Understand that you are judgemental because of your compassion. Surpressing your emotions into a state of apathy will do the opposite of good.

Many people belief that veganism is about eating habits, when it is about establishing a new moral baseline and expanding our identity to include animals. From that point of view, contributing to the commodification of animals becomes untenable, as much as to anyone in this forum the commodification, breeding and slaughter of human children is untenable. Nobody here would be non-judgemental about child rape if they saw it happen infront of their eyes, yet they completely accept the same happening to their animal brothers and sisters. This is because they fundamentally do not care about their brothers and sisters, not because they are somehow more developed than the rest of us.

You care, and this is beautiful. What needs to change is your expression of your care. Caring means suffering. Infact, God cares so much about each and every one of his children that he will experience every bit of suffering they are experiencing. He has compassion to the highest possible degree. He will take the suffering of his children onto himself. Embodiment of this is called the Passion of Christ, not the Apathy of Christ.

 

Christ lived with full compassion in his heart. He cared about his brothers and sisters. But he cared so much that he was able to see that all of his brothers and sisters simply were blind. This is what you must realize. Those who you judge, they are simply ignorant. They do not know what they are doing. If you truly realize this, you will not be able to judge them.

 

 

So this is not about veganism, this is not about you caring about animals. This is fundamentally about you not having enough compassion for your fellow brothers and sisters, who are blind, who need Love, who are defined by their fear and suffering.

 

The concept of the selfish carer is fundamentally flawed. We do not simply care because we want to validate ourselves. We care because we recognize ourselves in the other. That is fundamentally what compassion and empathy is. People here misunderstand vegans because they fundamentally lack compassion for both the animals and the vegans. I know my brother or sister that you do not judge them to prove something to yourself, but simply because you care so much about your animal brothers and sisters, that it pains you to see them suffering, and to see others contribute to that suffering.

 

Can you recognize this pain? The pain you feel when you open your heart to your animal brothers and sisters? This pain is overwhelming, is it not? If you had true compassion for all the suffering in this world, imagine the amount of pain you would need to carry. How could you face this kind of pain without falling into apathy? How could you carry this weight without crumbling? The answer is Love and acceptance. To accept the pain does not mean for the pain to disappear, nor to stop caring about it. To accept it means to embrace your compassion, to open your heart fully.

To carry the cross, in other words. This is what it means, this is what radical embodiment is. It is to care about the suffering of all of your brothers and sisters, while remaining full of Love and open-heartedness. This is the true challenge, atleast from your current point of view.

 

 

But first have compassion for yourself, for your own judgement. Do not judge yourself for your own judgement. Accept your judgement, recognize it's beauty and necessity, it's perfection. If you do so, beautiful things will happen my brother. You yourself should recognize your own blindness, your fear and suffering. This is why you judge, because you suffer and because you fear. Because you care. And now expand your care. See the suffering, the fear, the pain in your brothers and sisters. Can you see how they are blind, how they are suffering, just like you do?

 

Love to you and all of our brothers and sisters.

 Massively appreciate this post and feel as though it's what I needed to read. Gonna work on unpacking this for the foreseeable, going to try to grapple with my reaction to this paradigm shift, forgive myself for my own reaction to all of this and forgive others, I recognise that people simply haven't been exposed to certain experiential states that I have regarding this and it's unfair to demonise people for a lack of understanding. I demonise myself for a lack of understanding too. Nobody has everything figured out. All my gratitude guys

 

• 23 hours ago, ilja said:

  1.  

[EddieEddie1995]

@Scholar Wow! ?

[StarStruck]

[freejoy]

I'm a whole food plant based vegan.

So what they eat meat!

A lot of animals are able to have a life because we eat them.

What one eats has nothing to do with spirituality. 

Just drop the judgement and try to love them best you can. 

Do you think you are better than them? The ego likes thinking it's better than others.

[Codrina]

@Scholar  Beautiful read.

I'm a whole-food vegan myself. I gave up meat 11 years ago. And gave up milk and eggs 3 years ago.

I took and take a lot of judgement from others because of it, but I didn't judge others for eating meat.

Everyone is doing what they think it's best for them. Who am I to know what's best for them?

I had a boyfriend at the time who wasn't vegetarian, and I used to cook meat for him.

I actually ate meat a few times during these years, at family gatherings, out of respect, and sometimes at work, as I didn't want to give the chefs extra work just for me. I can't do it anymore, as I have noticed if I eat meat my mood changes. It veils awareness to a consistent degree.

If you find yourself judging, accept your judgement, and with your innocent curiosity seek where it's coming from. Ask yourself "Why the judgement?" and listen. 

All the best!

Edited to add this:

If you want to convince someone, just make them watch "Earthlings" - after I've seen this documentary I decided to give up meat and was buying my eggs and milk from the farmer's market - so I knew the animals were properly taken care of. 

 

Edited March 2, 2021 by Codrina

[VeganAwake]

It's becoming more common with the younger generation and thus less awkward more and more.

I think there'll be a big shift in the way most eat in the next 10 or 20 years.

"Three things cannot be hidden for long the Sun the moon and Truth"