Kanwardeep ji,
It all depend on interpretation if you are saying that root of survival is attachment then one can also say that even desire to live is attachment . If One old man who is suffering from terminally ill disease is trying to survive then one can say he is brave man fighting the illness ,the other may say that he is so much attached to life.
Or you may yourself say on another occasion, that he is afraid to die. Bravery then would be, not being so afraid because one understands the way things are and accepts it. Facing the pain with understanding is being brave, fighting the illness in order to escape from the pain is natural, but let us not call this brave.
Quote: You may have dropped some word out in the above or I am just too dense right now. But I am very curious to know what is behind the second meaning you mention above and how some Indian saints, Jains and rich people are the same in this regard. So please elaborate.
I don't understand what you don't understand in my argument .I don't think any abrahamic religion recommended vegetarianism yet they have concept of daya ,let other people live
You appear to be linking the idea of vegetarianism with that of killing / non-killing. If you are in fact saying that Abrahamic religions encourage killing and yet they can have compassion, you are correct. But this will be in spite of the human-cantered values and not because of it. But if you think that it comes from seeing man as the only worthy object of daya, this is quite a perversion of thought. Any supposed compassion arising must surely then be something else mistaken for the real thing, perhaps it is only pity. And pity is in fact a form of aversion, and aversion being conditioned by attachment, indicates that the relationship towards other human beings must be that of attachment. And taking this further, because in fact the attachment comes down to 'me' and 'mine', other people must then only be extensions of our own self. And so it becomes just a game of delusion.
But Some form, of Hinduism and jainism took this concept further too animals too.
So you are in fact saying that compassion can arise only with the perception of this particular hairless animal with two legs and two feet, (with or without clothes). And if someone felt something positive for hairy quadrupeds, feathered bipeds, scaly creatures swimming in the water or those crawling without any limbs, and thought that that was compassion, they are in fact fooled by a projected ideal.
Please tell me then, what is it about the image of "man" that qualifies him as worthy recipient for compassion and what is there in an animal which makes it impossible as object of compassion? Is it because you can relate to human beings and can't feel the same about some furry animal that can't speak but only know to make strange sounds? Is it because you can use "thy" and "thou" with regard to human beings whereas the animal will always remain an "it" to you?
Well if this is along the lines of what you really think, as far as I'm concerned, you have never known any compassion, not for any human being even. Because if you did, you'd know that compassion is aimed at the suffering of others and must in fact be preceded by kindness. If you have never experienced any kindness towards animals and if you have never perceived them as suffering beings, then you must be quite dead to anyone else's feelings. You only react to your own pleasant and unpleasant feelings. A human being is favored because he gives you pleasure and when something happens to him, it is not he that you care about, but the loss of your own pleasant feelings. What comes across as concern for the other is in fact the agitation which comes with aversion towards the new situation. In other words, it is all about YOU from beginning to end.
Quote: Are you saying here that those saints and rich people were wrong due to some perversion of thought and that the normal and sensible thing to do is to aim at survival?
Yes in my eyes they were wrong because they had limited view of world which they saw around them.None of the abrahamic prophet advocated vegetarianism because in their surrounding vegetarianism was impossible to apply
While vegetarianism in these cases is result of wrong understanding, however at some point there may actually have been genuine compassion towards animals. Advocating killing of animals on the other hand, can at no point ever be right! It can be made to appear justified through holding a particular view about things, one which is opposed to the limited view which those saints and rich people held, namely a comprehensive and all-encompassing view of the world.
And by this comprehensive view do you mean, thinking about plants, animals, humans, the environment, the earth through the eye of Darwin's theory of Natural Selection, and going further to relate this to the earth's place in the solar system, galaxy, universe and the cosmos? And what is man's place in relation all of this and how everything might be interconnected like a net of jewels? Or is it something even more? But let me ask you this:
When a mosquito bites you and you swat it, is this not because of aversion and not because you are thinking in terms of your and the mosquito's place in the scheme of things? When you chop off the chicken's head in order cook it for dinner, is it because you think in terms of natural selection, that you are motivated to do it, or is it that you think only about eating a tasty dish of chicken? It takes quite a bit of bullheadedness to deny what the real motivation for the killing is, and it takes a good deal of living in one's own head to then refer to an abstract idea such as 'the natural scheme of things', in order that the killing appear justified.
So thanks but no thanks for the kind of view which you think is superior.
If the Abrahamic prophets are claiming that killing for food is justified because the environment does not allow for vegetation, this is plain silliness on their part and foolish of you to agree with them. Animals kill for food but do so only enough to fill their bellies. They however do not entertain such silliness of view, one which makes man much more dangerous than any animal can ever be.
