PETA URGES VEGANS TO SEE “THE INNOCENT PERFECTION” OF NON-VEGANS / {Activism Idea}
Flipping the conventional math of activism on its head, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sends a heartfelt email and press release from founder Ingrid Newkirk imploring its vegan constituency to set aside all judgment of perceived “non-vegan wrongdoing.”
“As vegans, we have an opportunity to look deeply at the ‘unconditionally kind intent’ of our own lifestyle choice,” says Newkirk. “We need to enact this philosophy in the broadest sense imaginable, deeper than the superficial illusion of so-called “material reality.” This means extending the notion of kindness to looking upon all “others” as perfect and innocent expressions of the one spirit, far beyond what the limited perceptual senses seem to show us, far more than seemingly separate, “bodies behaving badly.” To be an ambassador for peace at the deepest level is to be an agent of change at the only level where change can really happen. The mind.”
If one cannot understand how the suggestion to see everyone as innocent actually works on metaphysical or spiritual levels, no problem. Because it also works on the psychological level. Can you remember a long-standing view you might have held that you actually changed willingly – and for good? What did it take for you to make that change? Chances are, you had to have your own reasons. And believe in them. That’s because the only peaceful change that any one of us ever experiences or enacts is when we are inspired to make that change of our own free will. Most often, if we are guilted, shamed or judged into change, we not only dig in and resist, we feel a grievance against the party that is judging us. Why? Because deep down, the judgment hurts, because we feel condemned. And most often, we will protect this vulnerable feeling with anger. Then what? Nine times out of 10, we won’t make the change they think we ought to make. And if we do change, we will do so begrudgingly, harboring resentment and regarding the judging party as a divisive “other.” An other that is now our enemy.