A wise person said, “The worst sin against other sentient beings is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them. That is the essence of inhumanity.”
It is a certain fact that we can gradually cultivate and deepen practical compassion for animals within ourselves.
An artificial border created by civilization, completely meaninglessly divides animals in our incoherent understanding into those that deserve our compassion - such as dogs, cats, horses, or some “interesting” exotic animals, and others that we have - in our ignorance and under pressure of civilizational stereotypes - sidetracked to such categories as “economic, utility, experimental, harmful ...”. We do not know and prefer not to know the lives and sufferings of these poor nameless animals - but it is precisely this blindness that causes a terrible life, pain and often completely unnecessary death to these sentient beings.
Can we imagine bloodied corpses of dogs, cats or chimpanzees hanging on slaughter hooks? A disgusting idea? Of course, yes, but a calf, pig, carp, horse or rabbit, feel as much pain as a dog or a cat!! Even a goat, sheep or duck feels a great desire to live!!
Animals have not been created so that we imprison them, fatten them, and then (in a buck-passing way - through the hands of butchers) cut them down, shoot them, rip them apart, eviscerate their intestines and finally eat their legs, ribs, or hearts.
Animals have been created for their own free life, with natural rights to be supremely fulfilled!
We humans are free to admire the life of animals, learn from it and marvel at it as a great mystery of life - but we never have any right to interfere in it without reason and by force!
So, what can we do to find more natural respect for animals?
Above all, let us try to observe the animal world really consciously on any occasion. Let us empathize deeply and repeatedly in their lives. Let's calm our thoughts and with an open heart observe for example birds in the forest – as they with the touching concern build their nests, with what care and with all their might they fly to feed their chicks … Let´s also observe deer in the meadow and perceive their calm dignity and the noble look of their eyes... Let's watch hares on balks - their cheerful hopping and innate modesty shall be our inspiration. If we are honest enough, our inner feeling will no longer allow us to eat sliced bodies of a roe deer, hare, or pheasant.
Let´s observe the life of fish in a creek with an open mind - how ingeniously they are equipped for life in the water element, how perfectly their body, their perception, movements and senses, which have been formed throughout the ages, are adapted. Then being amazed at all this we will no longer be able to eat dead bodies of fish.
For example, whoever of us has ever stroked a calf over its velvety soft fur and looked long into his big beautiful eyes with long lashes, whoever has seen its peace and modesty while grazing grass, or whoever of us has had his hand licked by such a calf with his tongue as a sign of greeting, he can never eat a part of his dissected body for lunch again.
Such a person perceived the soul of this sentient being and internally understood that any such animal kept for slaughter, whether in large or small farms, was in fact beautiful and dignified being, and that it should not have been born to be murdered and ripped apart for utterly unnecessary satisfaction of distorted human tastes.
So, let's honestly, long and repeatedly empathize with the life of each individual animal. This will gradually create a true, unadulterated and lasting compassion in each of us. We will realize the depth of the context, open our eyes and understand that a calf is not a “steak”, that a forest animal is not “harmful”, that a rat is not an “experimental object”, that a parrot is not an "exotic commodity", that a mink is not a “fur coat” or that the bear is not a “circus attraction”.
So - let's consider animals being our friends. Ethical veganism and animal protection will then become our natural, inner quality and need, the necessity of which we will urgently spread. Then the ways out of all suffering will gradually and surely open up for the animals. As we know: “Where there is a will, there is a way.”!!