"Your question regarding animals is rather complicated. Certainly, the killing of harmless animals for the sake of food, when the whole of nature provides us with plenty of other sustenance which is bloodless, cannot be excused in principle. But then, life is so complex! It is impossible to bring to Earth immediately all the conditions of the higher worlds. Our Earth and its population are not yet ready to accept higher laws and higher conditions. Therefore, one is obliged to tolerate the present customs and circumstances, striving at the same time to improve and ennoble them as much as possible. But in order not to be entirely lost in this labyrinth of most complicated and at times almost insoluble problems, we have to bear in mind the following rule, which should become our guiding principle: "From two kinds of evil, select the lesser; from two kinds of good, the greater.""