[Debrah]

You also said:

I believe that everything is consciousness, and that everything is in contact at a non-physical level................This includes non-physical beings as well as all physical kingdoms. Death doesn't exist as a tragic act, as it just is a wake up into another reality, to one's whole-self.

If everything is consciousness and in contact at the non-physical level, that would include all the animals, the trees, rocks, mountains, etc. Would you accept that? And if everything is consciousness and the animals have their own emotions that we can recognize simply by watching them, that suggests definitively, that we are All One (with that same over-arching Consciousness that energizes us all. And to follow that to the logical conclusion, to hurt one of them is to hurt us all.

There are all kinds of Bible verses too, that tell us to be careful for our animals interests. Coupled with the original admonition that we all eat plants and taking into consideration that the New Earth will see the 'wolf lay down with the lamb and the leopard will eat straw like the ox', it's pretty obvious to see how the Biblical God (the Oneness, the Source of All That Is) had planned for animals to exist in the hierarchy of Creation.

Ecclesiastes 3:18-21
18 I also said to myself, “As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. 19 Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath[c]; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. 20 All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. 21 Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?” (and that's a question that is obviously meant to challenge the notion that we might have a different destination than the animals)

The question as I see it, then remains, how can any of us preordain the existence of another, force them live in squalor and terror and then take the one thing that is theirs, particularly if we have the understanding that we all have the same Source and will return to to that Source at death.

When I've tried to understand Source and Oneness, the easiest picture that I've been able to come up with, is that it's like a lava lamp. There's a Universe of Love just overhanging this world and periodically, little bits and blobs of that Love separate for a time and move into this relativistic world, bounces around gaining experiences through our humanity until the time comes for it to return to the greater Universe of Love where it blends right back in with it's original Source. As you've already agreed that we are all consciousness, it seems reasonable then to accept that the animals also 'blend right back in with their original Source'. Which begs the question then, why would we want to injure ourselves (we are all One) over and over and over again as we infringe on the free will of other parts of Ourself. Does not make a whole lot of sense and especially as we now know how to live without doing that, especially if our goal is to live in spiritual harmony.