Gabriele Letter No. 4
The Word of God, the Law of Love and Unity
and Those of this Earth Without Right
Reading Sample 4
Admonishing voices over the millennia
There never was a lack of admonishing voices. This is why the following is a compilation of the statements of important men and women of their time, beginning with the great Old Testament prophet Isaiah, through whom God said, for example: "When you spread forth your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression ..." (Is. 1:15-17)
And: "He who slaughters an ox is like him who kills a man; he who sacrifices a lamb, like one who breaks a dog’s neck ... They have chosen their own ways, and their soul delights in their abominations." (Is. 66:3)
And the following words have been passed down from the prophet Hosea: "They love sacrifice; they sacrifice flesh and eat it; but the LORD does not delight in them. Now he will remember their iniquity, and punish their sins." (Hos. 8:13) What is here called "the punishment of God" is nothing more than the law of sowing and reaping, of cause and effect.
The Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras, who lived in the 6th century before Christ, was also familiar with the causal law. He warned: "Everything that human beings do to the animals comes back to them. The one who cuts the throat of a cow with a knife and remains deaf to its bellows of fear, the one who is able to slaughter the screaming little goat in cold blood and eat the bird which he himself has fed – how far is such a one still from crime?"
Laotse (c. 3 – 4 centuries before Christ), a Chinese philosopher, admonished: "Be good to people, to plants and to animals! Chase neither man nor animal, nor cause them suffering".
The great love and mercy of God came to this Earth with Jesus, the
Christ. Many statements and occurrences are passed down from Him that
proclaim His love for all creatures. Of course, nothing can be found about
this in the Bible. Contrary to this, many examples of Jesus’ love for the
animals can be found in "The Gospel of Perfect Life" and in the "Gospel of
Jesus", which since 1989 is a part of Christ’s great work of revelation
"This Is My Word":
"Jesus heals a horse
And it came to pass that the Lord departed from the city and went into the
mountains with His disciples. And they came to a mountain with very steep
paths. There they met a man with a beast of burden.
But the horse had collapsed, for it was overladen. The man struck it till the blood flowed. And Jesus went to him saying, ‘You son of cruelty, why do you strike your animal? Do you not see that it is much too weak for its burden and do you not know that it suffers?’
But the man retorted, ‘What have You to do therewith? I may strike my animal as much as it pleases me, for it belongs to me; and I bought it with a goodly sum of money. Ask those who are with You, for they are from my neighborhood and know thereof.’
And some of the disciples answered, saying, ‘Yes, Lord, it is as he said, we were there when he bought the horse.” And the Lord rejoined, “Do you not see then how it is bleeding, and do you not hear how it wails and laments?” But they answered saying, “No, Lord, we do not hear that it wails or laments.’
And the Lord became sad and said, ‘Woe to you; because of the dullness of your heart, you do not hear how it laments and cries to its heavenly Creator for pity; but thrice woe to the one against whom it cries and wails in its torment!’
And He went forward and touched the horse, and the animal stood up, and its wounds were healed. But He said to the man, ‘Go on your way now and henceforth strike it no more, if you, too, hope to find mercy.’"
"Woe to the Hunters!
As Jesus went with some of His disciples, He met a man who trained dogs to
hunt other animals. And He said to the man, ‘Why do you do this?’ And the
man answered, ‘Because I live from this. What sort of use have these
animals? These animals are weak, but the dogs are strong.’ And Jesus said to
him, ‘You lack wisdom and love. Behold, every creature that God has created
has its meaning and purpose. And who can say what good there is in it or
what use it is to you or to mankind?
And for your living, behold the fields, how they grow and are fertile, and the fruit-bearing trees and the herbs. What more do you want than what the honest work of your hands will give you? Woe to the strong who abuse their strength. Woe to the crafty who hurt the creatures of God! Woe to the hunters! For they themselves shall be hunted.’
And the man was very astonished and stopped training the dogs to hunt; and he taught them to save life, not to destroy it. And he embraced the teachings of Jesus and became His disciple."
Jesus also spoke against eating meat:
"But I say to you: Shed no innocent blood and eat no flesh. Be upright, love mercy and do right, and your days will endure in the land for a long time."
And He also said:
"I have come to put an end to the sacrifices and feasts of blood. If you do not cease to offer and consume the flesh and blood of animals, the wrath of God will not cease to come upon you, just as it came upon your ancestors in the wilderness, who indulged in the consumption of flesh and were filled with rottenness and consumed by pestilence."
One of the Church Fathers, Hieronymus (331-420 AD), still knew to write:
"The eating of animal flesh was unknown until the Great Flood. But since the Great Flood, the fibers and stinking juices of animal flesh have been stuffed into our mouths ... Jesus Christ, who appeared when the time was fulfilled, again joined the end with the beginning, so that we are no longer allowed to eat animal meat."
It was Paul who wrote in his letter to the Romans:
"We know that the whole of creation has been groaning in travail
together until now. For the creation waits with eager longing for the
revealing of the sons of God. Because the creature itself will be set free
from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of
God." (Rom. 8:22,19,21)
Johannes Chrysostomus (354-407 AD) described how a group of
Christians lived at that time:
"No streams of blood flow there; no flesh is slaughtered and cut into pieces ... – At their place one does not smell the awful fumes of a meal of meat ..., no racket and no dissolute noise are to be heard. They eat only bread, which they earn through their work. When they desire a lavish meal, their indulgence consists of fruit, and they enjoy it more than if they were at a king’s table."
Most people just live through their days. They go to church, and perhaps listen to a sermon. However, they do not gain any clarity about themselves. This is also why they seldom ask the question: What is a human being?
In Universal Life we learn to see the truth as a whole. This means: Where do I come from and where am I going? Particularly in Universal Life we also learn to understand the inviolable law of God and the creation that is anchored in it. In the creation of God, we recognize the will of God, which is unalterable and unavoidable.
We talk about matter, about density, and many feel they are part of it, as a child of matter, so to speak. From physics we know that ultimately all things are nothing more than vibrations and impulses of an invisible energy field and that every person is vibration. The seeming solidity that we call matter is thus based on nothing other than vibration.
The divine being is of fine-material substance; human beings are of coarse-material substance. As long as we do not turn to the Spirit in us and do not acknowledge and fulfill the absolute inviolable law, human beings and the world exist in a continuous process of densification.
Eternal creation also contains the laws of nature. In the mighty law of nature, every little blade of grass, every flower, every bush, every animal as well as every mineral is a component of life. Mother Earth with all her forms of life is in the Creator, in the law of nature. Creation, including the law of nature, is the perfection of God, which is inviolable.
People think they have to interfere in the law of nature. When we look at the world, which people have made the way it is today, we have to recognize and ultimately admit that human beings are harming themselves more and more. They are suffering under their own destructive selfishness. The human being cannot change the laws of nature; they are immutable. His offense is his fate.
Many, many offenses against the law of nature by people are based on disdain for the creatures of God, the animals, of which Charles Darwin (1809-1882) said: "Like human beings, the animals feel joy, pain, happiness and unhappiness."
The hunting and killing of animals is an especially reprehensible wrongdoing of human beings against the creation of God and against the laws of nature. Such a deed is in contradiction to the light-filled forces in the innermost part of the soul of people, forces that want to come to unfoldment during a life on Earth. A person who deliberately kills animals acts against his true being and degrades himself, that is, he forgoes his right to human dignity.
Erasmus von Rotterdam (1465-1536), humanist and author, characterized this with sharp words: "the hunting-crazed ones ..., who like nothing better than hunting animals and who think they feel an incredible enjoyment whenever they hear the obnoxious sound of the hunting horns and the baying of the hounds ... When they then taste a piece of the wild game, they think they are almost like nobles. While these people with their constant hunting and gluttony basically attain only their own decadence, they think they live like kings."
Other people with spirit and heart not only spoke out against hunting, but also commented on those who practice their pernicious deeds on defenseless creatures. Theodor Heuss (1884-1963), the first president of the Republic of Germany said: "Hunting is merely a cowardly circumlocution for the especially cowardly murder of fellow creatures who don’t have a chance. Hunting is a variant of human mental illness."
The following statement originated with George Bernard Shaw, the
Irish playwright, who received a Nobel Prize in 1950: "When a human wants
to kill a tiger, it is called sport. When a tiger wants to kill a human, it
is called bestiality." Shaw stated it simply: "Animals are my friends
and I don’t eat my friends."
Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), famous nature explorer, said the
following:
"Where one hunter lives, 10 shepherds, 100 farmers and a thousand gardeners could live. Cruelty to animals can exist neither with true education nor true learning. It is one of the most typical vices of a base and ignoble people."
Richard Wagner (1813-1883), German composer, expressed himself in the following way:
"If the sight of the bulls sacrificed to the gods became an
abomination to us, now, in clean slaughterhouses rinsed thoroughly with
water, a daily blood bath takes place unnoticed by those who at their midday
meal relish eating morsels of murdered animal carcass prepared and presented
beyond recognition and offered at the dinner table. It should henceforth be
our sole aim to provide fertile soil for cultivating a new religion of
compassion, in defiance of those who support the dogma of utilitarianism.
What can we expect from a religion when we exclude compassion for the
animals?"
Bertha von Suttner (1843-1914), Austrian pacifist; Nobel Peace Prize
1905:
"I am convinced that the time will come when no one will want to nourish himself with carcasses, when no one will be willing to do the work of slaughter. How many among us are there already who never would have eaten meat if they themselves had had to plunge the knife into the throat of the animal in question!?"
"From one hundred educated and sensitive people, already today ninety would never eat meat again if they, themselves, had to kill or stab to death the animal that they eat."
"The one who cannot hear the victims screaming or see them jerking, but who, as soon as he is far enough away not to see or hear, is indifferent to the fact that it screams and jerks, has nerves indeed – but he has no heart."
Apparently hunters are not disturbed by the torment of their fellow creatures that have been shot at and wounded or are dying a miserable death. This leads one to conclusions on the state of their nerves as well as their heart.
Here it is appropriate to include words from the French author and philosopher François Voltaire (1694-1778):
"Hunting is one of the surest means of killing people’s feelings for their fellow creatures."
The well-known German author Luise Rinser (1911- ) analyzed:
"It is the anonymity of our animal victims that makes us deaf to their screams."
"Today we no longer see anything of the torturous life and death of an animal raised for slaughter. It happens automatically. Now, still an animal, and in the next moment, already cut-up meat: our food. Our kind of cannibalism."
"It will take a long time until mankind comprehends that not only are the peoples of the Earth one people, but that human beings, plants and animals together are the ‘Kingdom of God’ and that the fate of the one is also the fate of the other."
This all makes clear on what level a person puts himself who harms animals, kills animals or abets this iniquity by eating meat or through his silence.
And so, Joseph von Görres (1776-1848), German author of the Romantic Era, said totally fittingly:
"The one who wants to go beyond normal life shuns bloody food and does not choose death for his dining master."
The following words are attributed to the Greek physician Empedocles, who lived during the third century before Christ:
"It is the greatest defilement to tear out life and to devour noble limbs."
Carl Anders Skriver (1903-1983), philosopher and author, spoke of the ethics of nourishment: This "is targeted at the purity of the hands from bloody deeds, the purity under the skin and the purity of the heart. But one cannot speak of the purity of the heart with an unclean eater of all, who gives no thought to, and has no pangs of conscience about, the cruel crimes against the animal world, which take place daily in the Christian world merely for the sake of food for people."
How essential one’s relationship to the animal world is for building one’s character, for clarity and the ability to make critical judgments can be concluded from the following words of Theodor Heuss:
"The sooner our youth learn on their own to view every brutality
against animals as reprehensible, the more they will take care that torment
does not develop from play and contact with animals, and the clearer their
ability will be later to distinguish between right and wrong in the world of
the prominent."
© by Publishing House
DAS WORT GmbH
Max-Braun-Str. 4, 97828 Marktheidenfeld, Germany
All rights of distribution and reproduction of excerpts are reserved.
You may also
order this book online there. (Order No.
g004en)
This book is also available in other languages.
Back to Table of Content | Literature