Indifference in a New Body
During a meditation session on March 1, 2020, Rishi Singh Gherwal happen to be in my psyche. While I established emergence in naad sound resonance and focus into the quieted intellect, he went downwards into a memory chamber where the incidences of my childhood were logged.
After fifteen minutes, Rishi came into the head of the subtle body. He explained some features about the indifference one has in an infant body. This conversation is a warning about the dangers of taking an embryo. It is advised that one do that with caution, knowing that one will lose the presently acquired sense of conscience regarding many actions. In a new body, one will lose the moral reference. Even though there will be instinct for approved and disapproved social acts, still that instinct will be far from perfect. It will cause one to innocently do many harmful actions to oneself and others.
Innocence for all it is made to be, includes rampant ignorance. For instance, as a child one may kill insects who are not a nuisance. One may kill small animals. One may harbor hard feelings towards the parents and teachers. One may do other things which are of no benefit to anyone.
To explain this further, Rishi brought an incidence from my memory. In childhood I was sent to a slaughterhouse to buy beef. I was sent there by an elder in the family. This was in Georgetown, Guyana, at the Abattoir, the official place for killing animals for human consumption.
Rishi showed that in the memory there was no idea of right or wrong action in regards to killing the animals. I was totally indifferent to it. This meant that my memory from the immediately previous life as a yogi was entirely absent. Even though that information was in my psyche in a subconscious compartment, I had no access to it.
This is evidence that one’s moral stance in relation to anything, will, more than likely, be disrupted if the yogi takes another embryo. He will again do unwanted acts because his basis for resisting such acts is to an extent based on memory, something which may not be accessible in an infant body, something which may not form into a strong enough instinct in his subtle form.
Even if there is a strong instinct in the infant body, still the person may, under circumstantial pressure from relatives and others, be force or influenced into doing those unwanted actions.
In the memory I went to the slaughter house. Due to the lack of restrictions at the place, and through curiosity to see how the animals were killed to change their living bodies into dead beef, I made my way into the room where the cows were killed.
There were two men there. One held a special broad barrel handgun. Another had two ropes. With one rope he tied the four feet of the cow. Then he tripped the cow to the ground. He took the other rope and strapped the horns of the cow. After that the other man placed the gun between n the eyes of the cow and fired once.
The cow for its part was stunned but its feet began jerking but they were tightly bound by the rope. After noticing the condition of the cow, the man with the gun, fired another bullet into the head of the animal. At this point the tongue of the animal stretched out of it mouth. The animal had two jerks through its body and died.
I noticed that the head of the cow was near a hole on the concrete floor. In the hole was a bucket. The man with the rope maneuvered the neck of the cow over the bucket. He used a sharp knife and cut through the throat of the animal. Several gallons of blood slushed out in a matter of seconds.
After this a winch which was overhead in one corner of the room was pulled over the hind part of the dead animal. This was lowered and chains were attached to the hind feet. The carcass was pulled up so that only its head touched the ground.
Another man came in with a bolo knife. He slit the animal’s abdomen. Its bowels including the organs fell out of the cavity. Another man took those inners. He pulled that to another part of the room where he separated the organs like the liver and spleen. He also squeezed any digested and undigested vegetation from the intestines.
Everything was parceled to be sold.
After seeing this and satisfying my curiosity, I remembered that I was sent to purchase beef and animal’s parts like the liver or heart. I procured some beef and an organ and went home.
There was no feeling of remorse. The only feature present in that memory as the basis for going to the slaughter room was my curiosity to see how the animals were killed and dismembered. The elder who sent me did so on the desire to purchase the beef.
My consciousness at that time may be compared to that of the male leaders of society in the era in Japan when there were frequent killings of human beings by samurai. In that situation the indifference was towards human killing but it was the same. Rebirth is risky. A yogi must consider its dire possibilities.
-
Thanks for sharing. Sounds like there are endless situations through our transmigrations that regress our sincere spiritual interests.
-
This post is bothersome to me. It's a negative trigger. Nonetheless, I always appreciate hearing of your past times as a boy.
Yet, I truly don't understand how anyone in their right mind can feel nothing when viewing something so horrifically cruel towards such a being?
As a child I was acutely aware of the suffering of the animals in the world. I knew the squirrels and rabbits and all outdoor animals were freezing like hell in the winter and it kept me awake with sympathy for how they must feel.
You're saying that in your last life as a samari you became absolutely indifferent to murder?
I don't understand how this paragraph works in:
This is evidence that one’s moral stance in relation to anything, will, more than likely, be disrupted if the yogi takes another embryo. He will again do unwanted acts because his basis for resisting such acts is to an extent based on memory, something which may not be accessible in an infant body, something which may not form into a strong enough instinct in his subtle form.
I'm confused. Does this mean that in your last life you were compassionate toward the suffering of beings or that you were not? It seems like it implies you were and then as a new child in Guyana you did not maintain the compassion.
Could you clarify?
What about our affinity toward Lord Krishna and his affinity toward the wonder of the cow? That doesn't stand up in this day and age? It does for some of us though.
I also don't understand, if you don't care about murder and the horrors of this dimension, why leave? Why work so hard to leave a place that doesn't bother you? Even witnessing the murder of our Lord's favorite animal and a favorite of many of us?
I do mind the horrors of this dimension, that's what motivates me to leave.
What motivates you then?
-
devaPriya’s original is in bold. Mine is in normal font.
~~~~~~~
You're saying that in your last life as a samari you became absolutely indifferent to murder?
MiBeloved:
I used Samuri as a comparison not to state that it was my experience in a past life but I can understand how a reader would imply that.
I don't understand how this paragraph works in:
This is evidence that one’s moral stance in relation to anything, will, more than likely, be disrupted if the yogi takes another embryo. He will again do unwanted acts because his basis for resisting such acts is to an extent based on memory, something which may not be accessible in an infant body, something which may not form into a strong enough instinct in his subtle form.
I'm confused. Does this mean that in your last life you were compassionate toward the suffering of beings or that you were not? It seems like it implies you were and then as a new child in Guyana you did not maintain the compassion.
Could you clarify?
MiBeloved:
Yes, in the past life there was that compassion, and then assuming the new body, that was absent from the moral parameters in the way the subtle body was adjusted.
The sufferings of beings, as you term it, really means the awareness of the sufferings of particular beings. It is not a universally applied meter towards all sufferings. First one has to be aware of a suffering of a particular being, then one has to apply empathy or dispassion or some other feelings.
Lord Mahavir, a Jain guru, establish radical compassion on a universal level, such that even today some Jains wear a cloth mask over their faces so as to not breathe microscopic creatures (virus and macrobacteria). Before modern times with microfilters, some Jains used to strain all water through cotton before using it.
Where does that end? What is the limit?
Am I aware of the insects under my foot or shoe whom I crush when I make every step? Rishabha (Ri-shab-ha) used to be wary about walking and also his son Bharata who later took a body as a fawn.
What about our affinity toward Lord Krishna and his affinity toward the wonder of the cow? That doesn't stand up in this day and age? It does for some of us though.
MiBeloved:
To answer about Krishna, one would have to first explain his instrumentality directly and indirectly through others in killing human beings and even in engineering assassinations. He caused the death of many people during his life on earth. Even a seasoned warrior like Arjuna was scared of Krishna’s lack of empathy towards the Kauravas.
His affinity for cows? Even that had a limit because he killed Vatsasura, a bull which was a nuisance animal, and he detachedly left Vrindaban and never went back to see the cows there whom he protected in his juvenile days.
-
I also don't understand, if you don't care about murder and the horrors of this dimension, why leave? Why work so hard to leave a place that doesn't bother you? Even witnessing the murder of our Lord's favorite animal and a favorite of many of us?
I do mind the horrors of this dimension, that's what motivates me to leave.
What motivates you then?
MiBeloved:
Motivation to leave this dimension?
That is important if for no other reason that the motivation acts as the engine of enthusiasm for the yogi/yogini. However as each of the selves are different. Each may have a different motivation.
Mine is simply that I know of other better places to be.
Even physically we see that people leave one country and go to another on the basis of some description which they learn about from others. That is natural.
For me, nature runs this place and it is really none of business how nature arranged this. If nature arranged this to be a dog-eat-dog situation, then that is just fine with me. But if nature has another bettter place, and if it is possible to qualify to transit there, I will endeavor to buy a ticket out of here.
My question about this place is not about the circumstances here but rather about if there are other arrangements of nature which are available. If such places exist, then I am ready to abandon this place. I do not see that anyone can change the way this place is set up, except superficially. I do not want to waste my time endeavoring to change something which cannot be adjusted ever in a permanent way. So it is best for me to find more suitable accomodations elsewhere.
Unlike the oneness philosophers, I am interested in a compatible environment rather than in no environment. I want to be with other compatible people, rather than to be in a people-less absolute energy. But certainly I respect the way this place is set up even though many of its aspects are not to my liking.
To perceive the anguish of a dying animal, one which was brutally murdered, one has to have certain perceiving equipment. As a coreSelf (atma) only one cannot perceive the death of anything. One has to have adjuncts and that psychic equipment must be configured and linked in a specific way.
This is called exposure. If I am exposed to cow slaughter and my adjuncts are configured in a certain way, then I will not be able to bear it. If it is configured in another way, I may be indifferent to it.
From that perspective, it is the combination of coreSelf and adjuncts which causes one person to react in this way and another person in that way.
Recently a medical professional took blood from my arm. He used a hypodermic needle. Because of the configuration of the adjuncts and how they were linked to the coreSelf, I could not bear to even look at the needle. I had to turn my head away. Once I could not see it, it did not cause anguish except for the expectation of pain when the needle was to be inserted.
This means that somehow, I have the sensitivity now which I did not have as a juvenile looking at a cow being slaughtered. That is what is meant by exposure.
-
-
If I may say:
Quote from the initial reply:
“Yet, I truly don't understand how anyone in their right mind can feel nothing when viewing something so horrifically cruel towards such a being?”
My experience/ my journey:
At that point, it is cultural and even environmental. As a young boy in Mali and from a Muslim family, I remember my uncle who was a university student explaining to us the group of onlooking kids, about the different parts of the lamb, once its throat was ceremoniously slit according to the kosher rites and for religious holiday celebration.
He was surgical about it and proceeding as learned from his biology professor. Regardless, it would look very odd for anyone to project those feelings on a random animal. However, there are cases of individuals not wanting to eat the flesh of the animal if for instance prior to its killing they felt a connection, while it was staying with the family. I know of personal stories between relatives and animals (not pets).
But cruelty to animals is widely condemned, to go along with the religious need for a "humane" death, accompanied by words of prayer to the dying animal, in consideration. Everyone is aware that they feel pain, but there are contexts for justifying human motivations.
Anecdotally, many years ago when I visited Mali, I traveled through the regions, following the recommendations by my aunt to go see an advanced soothsayer or shaman. It was pretty much just a very restricted group of elders in a particular village. I recall the last leg of the journey in a canoe across a pristine river with sparkling water as it reflected the sun rays by the zenith.
They were still holding on to the authentic and non-exploitative possibilities of these practices. I was called into the hut where three of them were sitting, as they were about to get started to tell me about my life and future, they had to first sacrifice a certain type chicken (based on feathering) right then and there in the hut as part of the process of divination.
However, they stopped short from doing it. They said that they can sense that killing this bird is something that does not agree with me, and therefore they cannot be of help. Even though I did not get service I was impressed by their competence.
Now, even here on ISY, there are some rare documentaries I struggle to watch. When I think about the pain in the world, I freeze and feel gloomy. As a child in this particular regard and in the cultural context, I didn’t have access to certain aspects of my subconscious in a deliberate or exercised manner.
I have to also live with the fact that I may have for similar reasons killed even other human beings!
So it is not easily said.
-
The quote from the initial reply was from me, just for clarity.
I read your response here, Surya, several times.
I think what you're saying is that you also feel compassion toward animal suffering?
That it is bothersome to you?
That the shaman sensed it?
And just one question, it seems you are saying your innate compassion was present, so what does this sentence mean? ""I didn’t have access to certain aspects of my subconscious in a deliberate or exercised manner.""
(Most children don't have full subconscious access, just like most adults. That's normal.)
An additional question for Michael.
Can you hypothesize as to whether or not you would have felt nothing if it would have been a human being being slaughtered as compared to the cow?
-
Can you hypothesize as to whether or not you would have felt nothing if it would have been a human being being slaughtered as compared to the cow?
I may have considered that to be an incidence. For example, once some British soldiers shot at rioters with high powered riffles. I witnessed one man being shot through his rear end. His flesh parted and it was sheer blood red. To my perception, it was an incidence. My interest was regarding how he experienced that as a consciousness experience.
I witnessed patients in a hospital when my body was about ten years of age. There again my interest was the experience for the person of say, a completely burnt body which had no skin and was on a bed alive with a mosquito curtain over him and with some gauze here and there for skin.
-
-
