A: There again, it’s a question of mixing up God the Spirit and our human sense of good. There is no question about it, that in divine consciousness, there is no such thing as the killing of anything. There is no such thing as the destruction of anything in God’s creation. That is why, as we rise high enough in consciousness, we no longer look upon snakes as venomous, poisonous, destructive. We no longer come in contact with wild beasts. In the kingdom of God, there is no such thing. Nor is there any such thing on earth, except as we, in our sense of separation from God, have labeled these such. We have labeled these—that is, the human world has. We have accepted that, and we find it so to be.
In the same way, we have built up this sense of requiring meat and fish, and we have it so. It has nothing to do with God’s kingdom. God never ordained that we should eat meat. On the other hand, while we are in this sense of existence, we will appear to require it. That doesn’t mean that many, many, many people haven’t given up the use of meat and fared well. Oh, certainly, meat is not an absolute necessity, even from the human standpoint, because there are plenty of foods that have all of the qualities of meat, and in giving up meat, one would not give up any of those qualities that are supposed to be in or of meat, and therefore, even humanly, meat is not essential; more so, spiritually.
As people rise higher and higher in consciousness, they require less and less of meat and ultimately find themselves not using it at all, and not even being concerned about substituting the equivalent, since there is a great mystery. This [mystery] has been covered in a Seattle class, in which the unfoldment came that consciousness embodies all food value, not food itself. Food is an effect, and food will have the effect upon us which we give it. That can be proven right here in this room by noting the people who are thin and eat the same food as those who are stout. The food that makes one thin makes another stout. The food that is food to one is poison to another. The food that is tasteful to one is distasteful to another. How can that be? How can the same piece of food be tasteful and distasteful? How can the same piece of food be fattening and not fattening?
It isn’t food that contains these qualities. It is our consciousness that contains these qualities, and the food reflects whatever power we give to it. And so it is, meat is not an essential. We give to meat its power. No other food is essential. As a matter of fact, we could reduce the amount of food we eat to a capsule-full and still derive the full amount of nourishment from it, because it is our consciousness that has the nourishment, not the food. You can watch that if you experiment with it.
Joel expands on this very same idea in Recording 191B, 1957 First Halekou Closed Class, “A Meditation on ‘I’”:
I have seen people who have come into the spiritual life and step by step rise in consciousness until they could not eat meat or fish of any kind. I have also seen in my own personal experience that there have been times of such high consciousness that I have gone for sometimes two weeks, and sometimes eight months, without one trace of meat touching my lips. Not because as a human, I have been able to get along without [it], but because during those periods of illumination, nothing of that nature would touch me.
Now, I do see this—that the eating of animal flesh has no place at all in spiritual life. If it is true that even our physical bodies require certain vitamins or certain minerals—and I haven’t any doubt that as long as we have this physical sense of body, it is true—I am sure that there are ways and means of getting them all without eating meat, without killing animals.
But let us remember this also: that in a society such as ours, it is not easy to abide in that, because it means giving up of company. It means giving up of guests. It even means changing the habits of our own family’s way of life, since they must have what they must have. And in traveling, it’s almost an impossibility to keep one’s strength on the food that’s served in restaurants for any great length of time, especially in this country, where the life has been taken out of the food before it’s served. Now, all of that is just excuses.
The point is, however, that spiritually, we are not meat eaters. Spiritually, no animal should prey upon another animal or live off of it, any more than one person has to live off of another. You see, once we attain our spiritual realization of our oneness with God, we don’t need each other economically. We don’t have to take from other people’s lack. We can receive from their abundance, but we don’t have to take from their lack. We don’t have to prey on them. We don’t have to take from those who can’t afford it. We don’t have to deprive anyone of anything. Why? Because we’re free of that form of living, and the higher you go in consciousness, the less dependent you will be on others, more especially those others who haven’t the means to be the avenue for you. So it is that the higher you go in this consciousness, the less dependent you are on human companionship, human pleasures, any of the sense attractions. They get less and less of a requirement and a need. And so it is.
Now, any one of you can prove that one animal does not have to prey upon another just by with your own cats or dogs, or your neighbor’s cats or dogs, give treatments. Do this prayer work, this communion or meditation work, until you yourself feel this Presence, and you’ll see that they’ll be freed of it. And then in time, you’ll know that somebody can pray for us too, and release us from the need of preying upon animals. No, no, no, it isn’t a part of God’s kingdom. God’s kingdom is that the lamb and the lion shall lie down together; the lion and the lamb shall lie down together, and they will do so.
Those who have a realization of this are already proving it in a great measure. Some in the hunters who “bring them back alive,” without the necessity of killing, and others in many other ways of proving that it is not necessary to destroy animal life or insect life. But the answer is, don’t try to bring that upon society, any more than you would try to take the army and navy away from your nation. That is its means of preserving its life, and until it grows out of that need, it must have it.
And so it is, we have no way at all of taking meat out of the life of the community until it has something to sustain itself with to take its place. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word.” And so it is, that in proportion as we have the Word, do we need less of this world’s attractions.
Somebody may want to know if he should or should not eat meat. For you to tell him that God is truth will not help him very much, but you might remind him that he can live only at the level of his own consciousness. If he is at a point where he enjoys meat or seems to require it, he should continue eating it. When it is no longer needed in his experience, the habit of eating meat will drop away, and he will not have to ask the question.
1This copyrighted excerpt is from Recording 53A: 1953 First New York Closed Class, “Questions and Answers.” It is posted with kind permission from the Estate of Joel Goldsmith, which holds the copy protection on the recorded classes and the copyright on the transcripts. The full transcript of this recording is available from The Infinite Way website or by calling 1-800-922-3195.
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