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Generations of men and women have wrestled with themselves, trying to find Truth in the world that surrounds them. We struggle to find the goodness within ourselves, and even when we stumble over it, living with it becomes a battle in and of itself. Do we Harm None, or should it be Eye for an Eye? And where is the limit to harming? Taken to an extreme, I could very well be harming people just by existing. Just because I don’t know about it, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. Will I get smacked in the head by Karma if I get a job that someone else might need more than me? Again, back in the “I may not know it, but it may still happen” category.
I haven’t even gotten to intentional harm. Let’s say a person is in a car accident, and they die as a result. Is the other driver going to slammed by Karma because of the accident? Let’s add another dimension. Perhaps the person who died was an abuser, a thief, or some other major drain on society as a whole. If this accident was Karma’s way of evening things out, will the other driver have to deal with good Karma (they did help with the balancing) or do they still get negative reverberations. Just because the result is good, doesn’t mean the action is. And then you have self-defense actions. As with most people, I have limits as to what harm I will allow to befall my family, before I step in and start causing harm. I don’t think I would flinch if I had to kill someone (although I would definitely have some issues after) to protect someone else. Whether it is good, bad, right, or wrong, I live in a world of them and us. Us being everyone I care about, and Them being everyone else. People may switch circles throughout my life, but they will be in one or the other. These are some pretty heavy questions, but I hope they illustrate how life isn’t just good and bad, and that harm takes many forms. I have another question. Who defines the word none? One of the arguments I have seen for vegetarianism is that people don’t want to kill an animal for food. Assuming that some of those people are coming from a Harm None perspective, why isn’t killing plants evil as well? What, plants aren’t sentient? Are cows? Prove to me that plants don’t feel things. I may not be a very Earth oriented person, but even I can feel life in plants. Why is the line drawn there? Why is it perfectly acceptable to eat an apple, but fried bull testicles make people cringe? It really is the same thing, eating the vessel through which the living thing procreates. From a biological point of view, you cannot exist without harming something, I suppose it just boils down to what you can justify in your conscience. But that being so, then how can people possibly attempt to dictate to others what is right, and what is wrong? Conscience is truly an internal function. You can ask others their opinions, but when it comes to the decision, it is merely you, and your conscience, deciding what you can live with. Throughout my life, I have been asked, “What do you believe?” countless times. Often it is someone who has no business asking, but sometimes, it is someone that I don’t mind confiding in. What I believe is in some ways very fluid. Recently, I have found myself evaluating what and whom I believe in. I am making a big step, in committing to a specific Deity. Something I have been trying to avoid just because of the questions I ask myself when I consider it. But whether I am seeing what I want to see, melding my reality to suit my subconscious, or whether it is as real as the computer I currently typing this on, I am going to take the leap. My conscience is guiding me, as it often does, and I can only hope that it does not steer me wrong. But I know I can live with eating meat, I can live with killing to protect my own, and I can live with the Karma that results. What I can’t live with, are people who are compelled to tell me what is, and is not real, and who wish for me to be a mindless drone that will simply regurgitate what they tell me.
Helen |