We must respect all creatures big and small. Wow, that’s quite the statement, isn’t it? What does this mean?
Well, I guess this means basically that we must begin to truly protect the natural world. And that includes the bees, the bugs, the lowly cockroach, the insects, the mosquitos and all the rest of it.
Even the food we eat, the meat we eat, we should aspire to ensure that it is treated respectfully, if that is at all possible, whatever that means.
We have a young man who is redesigning our website, and he’s from India, he’s a Hindu, and he’s told me that in the belief in reincarnation in Hinduism, the human beings are the highest form of life.
So I started off perhaps as a lowly creature, whatever it was, and because of lessons I’ve learned along the way in my many lives, I eventually became Leon. I eventually became me.
And I’ve always been quite respectful, tried to be respectful of nature, but this really gave me pause, quite honestly.
So the other day, I have this full-length mirror in my bedroom, and I’m getting ready early in the morning to go off to teach, and I just noticed behind the mirror, there’s this tiny cockroach.
Now, my house is very clean, so there are virtually no cockroaches. I’m a bachelor and I live alone, so there’s no food to eat basically.
But given normal circumstances, I would have just found a tissue and I would have collected her from the wall, and I would have flushed her down the toilet, hoping that she survived the drop, so to speak.
I’m told that probably she would, but of course there are no guarantees. This time, however, I let the cockroach alone, because I thought to myself, gosh, that could have been one of my ancestors, so to speak.
Maybe in this life they had fallen out, and now they’re going to start again. And similarly, the next evening, I’m trying to sleep in my bed, and there’s a mosquito buzzing around my head, and I thought to myself, I’m going to kill this mosquito.
And then I realized, no, perhaps once again, the mosquito is associated with a being who’s trying to move along in their karmic journey, so I just put the blanket over my head, and I also let the mosquito live.
Now, where do these thoughts come from in the modern era? Well, I think most assuredly, Black Beauty, which was a book published in the 19th century by Anna Sewell. It’s a story about a horse.
Now today, this seems quite normal. We love horses, like we love dogs, we love cats. But in the 19th century, a horse was literally like a car.
It had no life in that sense. It was just a working vehicle. So beauty in the story, she starts off rather beautifully, but eventually she has a very difficult life and almost dies.
And eventually she’s found by a loving man and brought to a farm and lives out her days in retirement. So there’s a happy ending to the story. But that story had some effect in industrial England.
But what really made this story, curiously, was that it was actually stolen by some American publisher and it was reprinted, paying no royalties, no copyrights, nothing. And it became a best seller in the United States.
Bit ironic, I think, in a way, that the story that changed our perception of animals, certainly of horses, brought poor Anna Sewell very little money. I don’t really know what happened.
I’m sure there might have been lawsuits or whatever, but that is apparently the story, and this is the reason that we follow the story today.
So, you think to yourself now, if this is true, that I should look after all the creatures, large and small, this puts a different take on everything, doesn’t it? Because then I must become much more respectful for all creatures in the world.
So, the next time you’re walking along, as I was saying, look around at the animals around you, the insects around you, the bugs, the bees, everything else, and really have a different view.
Think to yourself, in a sense like the Guy Hypothesis, right? That I am a part of Mother Earth in all her machinations. And I must learn to protect nature, to not throw garbage on the ground.
And if I see someone throwing garbage or allowing their dog to defecate, I, in a very nice way, should say, No, you can’t do this. This is incorrect. To actually not think of nature in a living way, right?
Please pick up your garbage. And I’m sure, at times, this will provoke individuals. They’ll get quite annoyed and quite angry.
One time I confronted a man who parked in a handicap zone, a man about my age in a handicap zone with three other people in the car. It was the most convenient spot, for sure. And he became just so enraged as such, you know.
But, I mean, so be it. It had to be done, but it wasn’t very comfortable, to say the least. So think to yourself about all the creatures, big and small, and learn to protect them.
And you know what they say. You know what they say. Critical thinking is everything, especially when it comes to protecting Mother Earth.
And critical thinking is great, truly great. You take care. God bless. Bye bye.