SPIRITUAL PEST CONTROL©
by Lonny J. Brown • Peterborough, NH

Non-violence is a noble sentiment with a distinguished history, from Buddha and Christ to Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. In garden ecology, proactive non-violence encourages companion planting and natural predators in lieu of toxic pesticides. Animal rights debates highlight the growing awareness of our aggressive approach to other species. But where do we draw the line in the spirit of cooperation with the wild kingdoms? Reverence for life is fine, but co-habitation with insects and rodents? No thanks.

How then to be “spiritually correct,” when the great doctrine of harmlessness is at odds with good hygiene?
For fifteen years I lived in a cabin in the woods of New Hampshire, with plenty of opportunity to reflect on the man-versus-nature conundrum. My little space was besieged in turn by black flies, mosquitoes, wasps, mice, spiders, moths by the millions, and an insidious microscopic biting gnat locally dubbed “no-see-ums,” that easily cruised right through the tightest screens. Each Spring, this army of invaders offered me their perennial challenge: capitulate or fight … mayhem or murder. After much experimentation with a wide variety of defensive and offensive tactics, a certain philosophy of pest-control has emerged.

First, it helps to see other living creatures as kindred spirits. In truth they are neither enemy nor dispensable in the great scheme of things. All life is sacred and important within Creation’s living matrix. Also, the presence of household pests may be telling us something about our households. The ants in my kitchen wouldn’t be there if my crumbs were not. Indeed, I needed to thank them for teaching me to keep it clean!

Like most swarming species, individual ants are relentlessly stupid, but as a group often exhibit remarkable intelligence. They have not yet evolved to the soul-stage of individuation, but instead participate in a collective over-entity (“deva”) of that colony. It is this over-soul which receives the information relayed automatically from its many members, and responds with behavioral modifications. Address the colony as a whole, its members as replaceable parts. If a few individuals are inadvertently extinguished during your clean-up, it’s an unfortunate but temporary loss of a minor regenerative appendage. Convey your regrets and hopes for cooperation and resolution. Accordingly, the group consciousness learns the necessary consequences of trespassing on your territory. Aside from direct confrontation, other means of dissuasion include pet/predators and off-site compost piles. Wildlife invariably takes the path of least resistance.

Still, there are the air-born carnivores that are after your blood, not your leftovers. What can you do after you’ve cleaned, screened, ignored and implored, and still the little suckers refuse to allow you a decent night’s rest?

In the East, there are numerous accounts of saintly beings using “etheric immunity” to ward off threatening creatures of every kind. Thousands once witnessed one of India’s dreaded king cobras glide through a fast-parting crowd directly to the feet of Mahatma Gandhi, only to pause and bask in his esteemed presence, then retreat back to its forest habitat. In his classic Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda recalls being tormented by a swarm of bloodthirsty mosquitoes while only a few feet away sat his Guru, unmolested, in peaceful meditation. It is unclear whether such masters accomplish these feats by generating some kind of electromagnetic animal repellent, or through direct telepathy with the creatures.

Intruding pests reveal much about our conditioning and fears, and sometimes about our powers. A certain sensitivity is in order during our encounters with “nuisance” species. Our evolutionary juniors, they provide us with the opportunity to practice compassion, a much-needed commodity in today’s world. Insects are especially appreciable as survival artists of the highest ingenuity. They demonstrate bio-chemical and sonar-communications, geo-navigation, and many other technical achievements worthy of imitation.

Only after all lessons have been appreciated, and all means of pest control have been attempted, can killing be justified. This decision should be conscious, and considered as often as necessary to prevent a callous attitude toward the taking of life. (In colonial times, butchers were routinely excluded from juries, because they were too accustomed to killing.) The Indians and Eskimos lived in intimate harmony with nature, with a respect for all life, even - or perhaps especially - during the act of taking it. At that moment (and it matters little whether we’re sacrificing a buffalo or a bug), we can kill with compassion or we can kill with a vengeance. Both the choice and the consequences are ours. One experience opens the heart, the other poisons it.

To properly spiritualize a sacrifice, deliberate invocations are often chanted at the moment of death. In Tibetan Buddhism, it is said that any creature that so much as hears the sacred mantra Om Mani Padme Hum is assured of a rebirth in a higher realm. By this selfless intent, a mere extermination becomes a charitable act that hopefully benefits both you and your victim! The late Isabel Hickey, the great grandmother of modern American esoteric astrology -- who was on a strictly first-name basis with the Creator - would always utter the injunction “Go to God,” just before smashing a mosquito!

But there can be no one correct formula for the taking of life. Wise persons of every tradition have agreed that there is a Truth higher than conventional morality, but to be in tune with it, we must be totally awake to the uniqueness of every situation, and the sacredness of each living thing.

Every day millions of microbes, insects, plants and animals die so that you may continue to live on this planet. This constant sacrifice is not trivial; each creature gives completely the only thing it has – its life. To be worthy of the gift, and continue to evolve, we must create out of the life and death struggle a meaning that is redeeming in purpose, and transcendent in scope and vision. Only then will the knowing of what must be done be in perfect union with the doing.

Excerpted from Enlightenment In Our Time by Lonny J. Brown. www.LonnyBrown.com.
www.BookLocker.com/LonnyBrown.