posted August 23, 2008 10:42 AM         

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Question: Beloved Osho, You were just talking about food, and now in the west food is a big cult. It's one of the things coming in as a basis of spirituality. You said if we're natural, we'll know what to eat and when to eat, but now we are out of touch with our childlike nature. Also, many religions say that the food you eat does make a difference to one's spiritual path. Is there anything you can tell us about food?

Response: It is the other way round: food cannot make you spiritual, but if you are spiritual your food habits will change.

Eating anything will not make much difference. You can be a vegetarian and cruel to the extreme, and violent; you can be a non-vegetarian and kind and loving. Food will not make much difference.
In India there are communities who have lived totally with vegetarian food; many Brahmins have lived totally with vegetarian food. They are non-violent but they are not spiritual.
And Jains are the most materialistic community in India, the most attracted by possessions, accumulation; that's why they have become the wealthiest. They are the Jews in India. But a non-vegetarian world in the West is not in any way different from these vegetarian communities in India.

Rather, on the contrary, a very important thing has to be remembered: if you are violent and your food is vegetarian, then your violence will have to find some other way of expression. It is natural, because eating non-vegetarian food gives release to your violence.

So if you know some hunters you may have come to realize that hunters are the most loving people. Their whole violence is released in hunting, they are most friendly, loving. But a businessman vegetarian has no way for his violence to be released so his whole violence becomes a search for wealth and power; it becomes narrowed down.

But it happens the other way round. It happened to Mahavira. Mahavira came from a warrior family, he was a Kshatriya. Violence must have been easy for him, and then a deep meditative effort, a twelve-year-long silence changed his inner essence. When the essence changed the expression changed; when the innermost being changed, his character changed. But that character change was not basic, it was a consequence. So I say to you, if you become more meditative you will become more and more vegetarian automatically. You need not bother about it.

And only if this happens, that through meditation vegetarian food comes into you not through mind manipulation, it is good.But manipulating by the mind, argument, reasoning that vegetarian food is good, that it will help you to gain spirituality, is not going to help anything. Your clothes, your food, your habits of life, your style, everything will change; but this change is not basic. The basic change is going to be in you and then everything else follows.

If you meditate long enough, deep enough, it is impossible for you to hurt anybody for food; it is impossible. It is not a question of argument, it is not a question of scriptures, it is not who says what, it is not a question of calculating that if you take vegetarian food you will become spiritual; it is automatic. It is not a question of cunningness, you simply become spiritual. The whole thing seems so absurd. Just for food, killing animals, birds, seems so absurd, it falls down.

Your clothes change automatically; by and by you like looser and looser clothes. The more relaxed you are inside - loose clothes. Automatically I say; there will be no decision on your part. By and by, if you use tight clothes you will feel uneasy. Tight clothes belong to a tense mind, loose clothes belong to a relaxed mind.

But the inner change is the first thing and everything else is just a consequence. If you reverse the order you will miss then you will become a food addict.

One man came to me. He was just lean and thin and pale, and any moment he could die, and he said, "I want to live only on water because everything else is a hindrance to spirituality. Now I want to live on pure water."

This man is going to die. There have been a few people who have lived on pure water but that happened to them naturally, it cannot be practised. They were freaks, accidents; their body mechanism and chemistry worked differently. It has happened - somebody can survive on water but nobody can practise it.

Someday science may be able to find the basic chemical change and then everybody will be able to survive on water; then science will change your body chemistry and you will survive just on air. It is possible but you cannot practise it. And the whole effort is meaningless and the whole suffering is unnecessary, but there are mad people who try things like that. It has never happened by effort.

There was one woman in Bengal - she lived forty years without food, but it simply happened. Her husband died and she couldn't eat for a few days.just out of misery, out of sorrow, she couldn't eat. But suddenly she realized that without eating she was feeling better than ever. Then she realized that in the past whenever she was eating, she was always ill, and suddenly she became healthy as she never was. Then she lived for forty years without eating anything, just the air was the food. And this has happened in many cases.

There was one woman in Europe - for thirty years she lived without eating. She became a saint because Christians thought it a miracle. They examined her with every scientific instrument to see what was happening and they couldn't find out anything; then it seemed a miracle. It was not a miracle.

Yoga says there is a possibility of a body change, of a body chemistry change. Right now you are doing the same just by an intermediary. You cannot eat sunrays directly because your body chemistry is not in such a state; the mechanism is not such that it can absorb sunrays directly. So first the fruit of the tree absorbs the sunrays, it becomes vitamin B in the fruit, then you eat the fruit, then the vitamin B goes into your body. The fruit is just an intermediary; the fruit is working just as your agent to absorb the sunrays and then give them to you. You can absorb them through the fruit, not directly.

But if the fruit can absorb directly, why not you? So someday there is going to be a scientific discovery that some body changes will help you to absorb directly, and then fruit will not be needed. In the future - and I think not very long, fifty years - science is bound to discover it.It has to be discovered, otherwise humanity is going to die because food will not be possible. And birth control is not helping, nothing is helping; the population goes on growing. Some way has to be found so food can be dropped and direct absorption of cosmic rays becomes possible. It has happened in individual cases but it was by accident. If it can happen to one individual, it can happen to every individual but not as an accident; it will happen as a scientific change.

But don't try such things, they are not spiritual. Even if you eat sunrays directly there is nothing spiritual. What is spiritual? Just by dropping the intermediary of fruit you become spiritual? If you live only on water, nothing is spiritual.

What you eat makes no difference; what you are is a totally different phenomenon. And when that changes, everything will change; but that change will not be from the mind, it will be from the innermost being. Then things will change automatically.

Sex will disappear by and by. So I don't say be a brahamachari, be a celibate. That is foolish, because if you force celibacy you will become more and more sexual in the mind and your whole mind will become ugly and dirty; you will think only of sex and nothing else. That is not the way. you will go crazy and insane. Freud says that ninety percent of madmen are mad because of repressed sexuality.

I don't say change sex, I don't say change food; I say change your being and then things will start changing.

Why is so much sex needed? Because you are tense, sex becomes a release. Your tensions are released through it - you feel relaxed, you can go to sleep; if you repress it, you remain tense. And if you repress sex - the only release, the only possibility of release - what will happen? You will go mad. Where will you release your tensions then?

You eat food; it is needed by the body, and the body rejects only things which are not needed. Whatsoever you are eating is somehow needed by the body. If you are taking animal food, if you are taking non-vegetarian food, your mind, your body, your whole being is violent. And it is needed. don't change it otherwise your violence will have to find another channel.

Change yourself and food will change, clothes will change, sex will change. But change should come from the innermost core, it should not come from the periphery. And all turmoil is on the periphery; deep down there is no turmoil. You are just like the sea - go and watch the sea. All the turmoil, all the waves clashing, is just on the surface; deep, the deeper you go, there is more and more calm. At the deepest part in the sea there is no turmoil, not a single wave.

First go deeper into your sea so you achieve a calm crystallization, so you achieve the point where no disturbance ever reaches. Stand there. From there every change comes, every transformation comes. Once you are there you have become a master; Now whatsoever is unnecessary can be dropped, and can be dropped without any struggle and fight.

Whenever you drop something by fight, it is never dropped. You can drop smoking by fighting, and then you will start doing something else which will become a substitute. You may start chewing gum, it is the same; You may start chewing pan, it is the same, there is no difference. You need something to do with your mouth - smoking, chewing, anything. When your mouth goes on working, you feel at ease because through the mouth tensions are released. So whenever a man feels tense he starts smoking. Why is it that through smoking or chewing gum or tobacco tensions are released?

Just look at a small child. Whenever he feels tense he will put his hand in his mouth, he will start chewing his own hand. This is his substitute for smoking. And why does he feel good when his thumb is in his mouth? Why does the child feel good and go to sleep? This is the way of almost all children. Whenever they feel sleep is not coming they will put the thumb inside the mouth, feel at ease, and fall asleep. Why? The thumb becomes a substitute for the mother's breast, and food is relaxing. You cannot go to sleep on a hungry stomach, it is difficult to get sleep. When the stomach is full you feel sleepy, the body needs rest. So whenever the child takes the breast in his mouth, food is flowing, warmth, love. He is relaxed, he need not worry; tensions are relaxed. The thumb is just a substitute for the breast; it is not giving milk, it is a false thing, but still it gives the feeling.

When this child grows, if he takes his thumb in public you will think he is foolish, so he takes a cigarette. A cigarette is not foolish, it is accepted. It is just the thumb, and more harmful than the thumb. It is better if you smoke your thumb, go on smoking to your grave; it is not harmful, it is better. No harm is done but then people think you are childish, juvenile, then people think what you are doing is stupid. But there is a need so it has to be substituted.

And in countries where breast-feeding has stopped, more smoking will automatically be there. That's why the West smokes more than the East - because no mother is ready to give her breast to the child because the shape is lost. So in the West smoking is increasing more and more; even small children are smoking.

I have heard that one mother said to her child, "I don't want neighbors to tell me that you have started smoking. Be truthful and whenever you start smoking, tell me." The child said, "Don't bother Mom, I have already stopped. It is one year now, that I have stopped smoking. It is one year now so don't you bother, don't you get worried about it."

Small children smoking, and the mother is not aware that it is because the breast has been taken away.

In all primitive communities a seven-year-old child, or even an eight or nine-year-old child, will continue breast-feeding. Then there is a satisfaction and smoking will not be so necessary. That's why in primitive communities men are not so much interested in women's breasts; there is no problem that somebody will attack them. Nobody looks at the breasts.

If you had been given the breast for ten years continuously, you would get fed up and bored, you would say, "Stop now!" But every child has been taken away from the breast prematurely, and that remains a wound. So all civilized countries are obsessed with breasts. Even an old man, dying, is obsessed with breasts, goes on searching for breasts.

This seems mad, and it is, but the basic cause is there - children should be given the breast otherwise they will become addicted to it, the whole life they will be in search of it.

You cannot stop smoking directly because it has many related things, implications. You are tense, and if you stop smoking you will start something else and the other may be more harmful. Don't go on escaping problems, face them. The problem is that you are tense, so the goal should be how to be non-tense, not, smoking or not smoking.

Meditate. Relax your tensions without any object into the sky, allow catharsis to happen. When you are non-tense these things will become absurd, foolish, and they will drop. Food will change, your styles of living will change.

But my insistence is on you. Character is secondary, behavior is secondary, the essential you is the primary thing. Don't pay too much attention to what you do, pay much attention to what you are; being should become the focus, and doing should be left to itself. When being changes, doing follows.

From: Osho, A Bird on the Wing

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posted October 02, 2008 05:05 AM         

The truth is that eating flesh can be detrimental for several reasons...

For one thing, it is simply barbaric to breed animals for the purpose of slaughtering them.
And the conditions in which most of these creatures are kept are deplorable, to say the least.
Whether or not there are repercussions to our physical and/or spiritual health,
the mere ethical considerations provide more than enough reason for some of us.

I, for one, believe the doctrines I have heard
which say that the flesh carries with it the vibrations of the animal;
the vibrations surrounding both his torturous life, and his torturous death.
They say we are, in a sense, haunted by the souls of the animals we've consumed.
There is some good information on this in the teachings of White Eagle.

Our violence is not released, when we consume flesh, but encouraged,
just as the addiction to alcohol is not released when we drink, though the withdrawal is.
Incidentally, there ought to be a 12-Step program for meat-eaters
(the first step is admitting you have a problem).

As for the question of how changes are made...

All things are connected.

When making changes, we should begin with what is easiest.
For some people, it is easier to change from the outside in,
for others, or at other times, it works best in the reverse.
Some begin with diet, some with exercise, some with affirmations, some with study...
Begin where you are, and find what works for you.

Also...

We would not attempt to reform ourselves at all had there not already been a corresponding inner change.
A few false starts are perfectly natural when making major changes, so dont be discouraged.
Every fresh attempt makes it a little easier.

I recommend starting small and working your way up.
Give up beef, pork, and lamb, to begin with. Chicken next, then dairy and fish.
Make sure you are getting adequate protein, and remember to congratulate yourself
on not contributing to the murder of another animal. You can do it!

posted October 02, 2008 05:27 AM         

"I do feel that spiritual progress does demand at some stage that we
should cease to kill our fellow creatures for the satisfaction of our
bodily wants." -Gandhi

"Vegetarian food leaves a deep impression on our nature. If the whole
world adopts vegetarianism, it can change the destiny of humankind."
-Albert Einstein

"If man wants freedom why keep birds and animals in cages? Truly man
is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds them. We live by the
death of others. We are burial places! I have since an early age abjured
the use of meat." -Leonardo-da-Vinci

"Flesh eating is simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an
act which is contrary to moral feeling: killing. By killing, man
suppresses in himself, unnecessarily, the highest spiritual capacity,
that of sympathy and pity towards living creatures like himself and by
violating his own feelings becomes cruel." "As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields." -Leo Tolstoy

"My refusing to eat flesh occasioned an inconveniency, and I was frequently chided for my singularity,
but, with this lighter repast, I made the greater progress, for greater clearness of head and quicker comprehension"
"Flesh eating is unprovoked murder." -Benjamin Franklin

"I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals." -Henry Thoreau

"I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being" -Abraham Lincoln

"How can man be possessed of kindness who, to increase his own flesh,
eats the flesh of other creatures. As those possess no property who do
not take care of it, so those possess no kindness who feed on flesh."
"Like the (murderous) mind of him who carries a weapon (in his hand),
the mind of him who feasts with pleasure on the body of another
(creature), has no regard for goodness."
"Man did not weave the web of life: he is merely a strand in it.
Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. To harm the earth is to
heap contempt on its creator." -Red Indian Chief (1854)

"If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals." -Albert Einstein

"There is something so very dreadful, so satanic in tormenting those who have never harmed us, and who cannot defend themselves, who are utterly in our power, who have weapons neither of offence nor defense, that none but very hardened persons can endure the thought of it." - Cardinal Newman

"There will come a time...when civilized people will look back in horror on our generation and the ones that preceded it: the idea that we should eat other living things running around on four legs, that we should raise them just for the purpose of killing them! The people of the future will say "meat-eaters!" in disgust and regard us in the same way we regard cannibals and cannibalism"
-Dennis Weaver

"We pray on Sundays that we may have light/To guide our footsteps on
the path we tread;/We are sick of war, we don't want to fight,/And yet
we gorge ourselves upon the dead." -George Bernard Shaw

Genesis 1:29 "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." -God

"In that day the wolf and the lamb will lie down together, and the leopard and goats will be at peace. Calves and fat cattle will be safe among lions, and the little child shall lead them all. The cows will graze among bears; cubs and calves will lie down together, and lions will eat grass like the cows. . . Nothing will hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, for as the waters fill the sea, so shall the earth be full of the knowledge of the Lord." -Isaiah 11:6-10

"There will never be any peace in the world as long as we eat animals." -Isaac Bashevis Singer

"Not having known anything better does not alleviate the suffering of the animal. Its fundamental desires remain and it is the frustration of those desires that is a great part of its suffering. There are so many examples: the dairy cow who is never allowed to raise her young, the battery hen who can never walk or stretch her wings, the sow who can never build a nest or root for food in the forest litter, etc. Eventually we frustrate the animal's most fundamental desire of all - to live." -David Cowles-Hamar.

"In all the round world of utopia there is no meat. There used to be. But now we cannot stand the thought of slaughterhouses. And in a population that is all educated and at about the same level of physical refinement, it is practically impossible to find anyone who will hew a dead ox or pig. We never settled the hygienic aspect of meat-eating at all. This other aspect decided us. I can still remember as a boy the rejoicings over the closing of the last slaughterhouse." - H.G. Wells

"Awareness is bad for the meat business. Conscience is bad for the meat business. Sensitivity to life is bad for the meat business. DENIAL, however, the meat business finds indispensable."
-John Robbins, Diet for a New America

"When a man has pity on all living creatures then only is he noble." -Buddha (563? - 483? B.C.)

"Cruelty to animals is as if humans did not love God."
-Cardinal John Henry Newman

"...many vivisectors still claim that what they do helps save human lives. They are Iying. The truth is that animal experiments kill people, and animal researchers are responsible for the deaths of thousands of men, women and children every year."
-Dr. Vernon Coleman, Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, UK.

"We stopped eating meat many years ago. During the course of a Sunday lunch we happened to look out of the kitchen window at our young lambs playing happily in the fields. Glancing down at our plates, we suddenly realized that we were eating the leg of an animal who had until recently been playing in a field herself. We looked at each other and said, "Wait a minute, we love these sheep--they're such gentle creatures. So why are we eating them?" It was the last time we ever did."
-Linda and Paul McCartney (musicians)

"To be non-violent to human beings and to be a killer or enemy of poor
animals is Satan's philosophy. In this age there is always enmity
against animals, and therefore the poor creatures are always anxious.
The reaction of the poor animals is being forced on human society, and
therefore there is always the strain of cold or hot war between men,
individually, collectively or nationally...
"The earth affords a lavish supply of riches, of innocent foods, and
offers you banquets that involve no bloodshed or slaughter; only beasts
satisfy their hunger with flesh, and not even all of those, because
horses, cattle, and sheep live on grass. As long as men massacre
animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seeds of
murder and pain cannot reap joy and love."
-Pythagoras

"To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. I should be unwilling to take the life of a lamb for the sake of the human body." -Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948)

"Until he extends the circle of compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace."
-Albert Schweitzer

"Out of 135 criminals, including robbers and rapists, 118 admitted that when they were children they burned, hanged and stabbed domestic animals." -Ogonyok(1979) (Soviet anti-cruelty magazine)

"I abhor vivisection with my whole soul. All the scientific discoveries stained with innocent blood I count as of no consequence." Mahatma Gandhi

"Animals are my friends...and I don't eat my friends." -George Bernard Shaw

"The human body has no more need for cows’ milk than it does for dogs’ milk, horses’ milk, or giraffes’ milk." -Michael Klaper, MD, author of Vegan Nutrition: Pure & Simple

"In every respect, vegans appear to enjoy equal or better health in comparison to both vegetarians and non-vegetarians." -T. Colin Campbell, PhD Professor of Nutrition, Cornell University (letter dated 3/29/98)

"If you step back and look at the data, the optimum amount of red meat you eat should be zero."
-Walter Willett, M.D., of Brigham and Women's Hospital, director of a study that found a close correlation between red meat consumption and colon cancer.

"When we kill the animals to eat them, they end up killing us because their flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for human beings." -William C. Roberts, M.D., editor of The American Journal of Cardiology

"The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of this century, all natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined. If beef is your idea of `real food for real people,' you'd better live real close to a real good hospital." -Neal D. Barnard, M.D., President, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Washington, D.C

posted October 02, 2008 11:00 AM         

RTFP

He is for vegetarianism but not to jump in to it all of a sudden.Jeez another cheapshot at Osho. You are too dumb to comprehend his greatness. And take a look at your own dude who hangs on the cross with a nappy. He could very well have eaten meat throughout his life.

Also read facts about your so called true teachers before producing sound bytes of them. For instance take a look here:

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During his Noakhali tour of 1946, Gandhi used to sleep with the nineteen-year-old Manu. When Nirmal Bose, his Bengali interpreter, saw this he protested, asserting that the experiments must be having bad psychological effects on the girl. In his Book My Days with Gandhi, published in 1953 with great difficulty and at his own expense, he offers a Freudian interpretation to Gandhi's experiments.

It is generally believed that Gandhi started sleeping with women toward the close of his life. According to Sushila Nayar, he started much earlier. However, at the time he called it 'nature cure.' She told Mehta, 'long before Manu came into the picture I used to sleep with him just as I would with my mother. He might say my back aches. Put some pressure on it. So I might put some pressure on it or lie down on his back and he might just go to sleep. In the early days there was no question of calling this a brahamacharya experiment. It was just part of nature cure. Later on, when people started asking questions about his physical contact with women, the idea of brahamacharya experiments was developed. Don't ask me any more questions about brahamacharya experiments. There is nothing to say, unless you have a dirty mind like Bose.'

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I can defrock every one of your true teachers that you quoted, but enough for today

posted October 03, 2008 03:03 AM         

It's all about appearances. Some people want to appear to be spiritual so they eat this or don't eat that, wear this or don't wear that, live here or there, etc.

posted October 03, 2008 05:18 AM         

Why do you believe that stuff about Gandhi,
but you reject the reports of Osho's abuses?

The Gandhi stuff sounds completely harmless to me.

From what you wrote, he didnt lay a hand on them.

Osho groped women, and made them very uncomfortable.

I welcome you to try and "defrock" any of those names.

Eleanore,

We can take a cynical approach to everyone's motives, if its convenient...

Despite the fact that we are really in no position to know for sure whats in another's heart.

But, whatever a person's motives, the end result is rather important, wouldnt you agree?

Even if they do it for the wrong reasons, at least they do the right thing.

If I was in a cramped cell, about to be slaughtered for my meat,
and you decided to set me free, I wouldnt give a hoot for your motives.

posted October 09, 2008 03:24 PM         

As someone who isn't Jewish, this is enough for me to give this guy the finger.

It is unhelpful for me to be vegetarian. I went six months where I had no interest in eating meat. This was right after my family ate venison the few months previous. For the first two months, I felt cleaner and better. After that, I got to the point where I spent the majority of my day sleeping. I'd yawn in class, walk 5 miles home, go to sleep, wake up, have dinner, go to sleep, wake up, do an hour of homework, go to sleep, wake up and do homework, go to sleep, etc. until the next day. By the time it was the next semester, I had to drop out, 20 pounds heavier.

Carbohydrates store up in my body and put me in a dreamlike state. I start to feel the energy of everyone around me, I get very anxious and I get very depressed. I'd cry every week at the drop of a hat and feel so drained the next day that I couldn't go anywhere.

I stick to a more low carb diet now. Meat, cheese and veggies. Everyone needs vegetables for their fiber content and vitamins, but I can't be strictly vegetarian.

posted October 11, 2008 12:52 AM         

I love this topic. I've been a raw meat obsessed carnivore, a loyal follower of vegan macrobiotics and just about everything in between.

Obviously a meat based diet is heavier - it pulls us toward the earth. For an extremely emotional/hyper-sensitive person, possibly this could have a positive and, lets be honest, sometimes very needed grounding effect? The reaction to a veggie diet that Lynx described is so common - the initial "clean" feeling, followed by fatigue, lightheadness, emotionalism, an inability to concentrate, a sort of spaced out feeling etc etc. I've been there and I've seen it in others.

Although, much like fasting, being a vegetarian does seem to me able to assist a soul already having set out on the journey, I think the idea that a vegetarian diet can somehow lead to a spiritual awakening is silly. It's been my observation that, more often than not, as we refine ourselves we then naturally feel best avoiding meat.

posted October 11, 2008 05:36 PM         

You make some good points. Fanaticism and self-righteousness are HUGE problems for anyone who considers themselves in possession of any higher spiritual knowledge or way of life. You know I see it all the time, too. But it's very hard to distinguish a fanatic from a person with right priciples, or a self-righteous person from someone with a healthy pride. I wont deny that I am proud of not murdering any peaceful beasts of burden. There are a lot of things I do that are less than noble, and plenty of noble things that I neglect, but it is without a doubt a mark in my favor that I have not contributed to the murder of any cows, pigs, lambs, or any other mammals in the past few months. We all know that it is not as simple as just "not eating meat"; you have to make a real effort to get sufficient protein from other sources, -- otherwise, the ungrounded effects you speak of are very likely to be pronounced. Personally, I think that, even if abstaining from murder necessarily rendered a person light-headed and spacey, it would be a small price to pay for not taking part in that barbarism. Having priorities means making sacrifices, and it would appear to be the right thing to sacrifice oneself for many others, rather than many others for oneself, no? I suppose, even if I was a vampire, and had to suck human blood in order to stay alive, I dont think I would do it. I think the right thing to do in that instance would be to sacrifice myself. Or, if I did have to kill, I think maybe I would only kill and eat other carnivores (like yourself), and leave the harmless animals in peace. I'm sure that if I was a vampire and had to kill you in order to live, or just to ground, you, at least, would see the logic in that and hold no grudge.

posted October 11, 2008 08:16 PM         

Yes, I see that you are concentrating on the moral and ethical reasons for a vegetarian diet. It was a major reason I gave up meat, as well. I could talk your poor ear off all night on the evils of factory farms. (not to worry I'll control myself) What I'm questioning is the proposition that a meat free diet alone will open your chakras and help you ascend the Mountain, so to speak. I'm also questioning whether abstaining from meat is always a righteous choice. Very often it is a self aggrandizing choice, clothed in nobility and compassion. Again, I don't deny it may assist spiritual development. Gandhi was a vegetarian. So was Hitler. It goes without saying that Hitler didn't give a damn about the plight of cows. Gandhi was an essentially moral man. Hitler was not.

That the symptoms I briefly described above are very often the result of eliminating meat from your diet, is not due merely to a lack of protien. Spiritual forces are, as always, at work here.

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But it's very hard to distinguish a fanatic from a person with right priciples, or a self-righteous person from someone with a healthy pride.

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No, I don't think it's hard at all. The more carefully and honestly we explore our own sins, the more easily we recognize them in others. Gratefully, when the exploration is morally centered, we learn compassion and patience as well. Or so they promise me

quote:

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...but it is without a doubt a mark in my favor that I have not contributed to the murder of any cows, pigs, lambs, or any other mammals in the past few months.

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Why?

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Personally, I think that, even if abstaining from murder necessarily rendered a person light-headed and spacey, it would be a small price to pay for not taking part in that barbarism. Having priorities means making sacrifices, and it would appear to be the right thing to sacrifice oneself for many others, rather than many others for oneself, no?

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hmmmm interesting theory. I choose to believe the Almighty has devised a better system. And is the cow allowed to make that choice?

quote:

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I suppose, even if I was a vampire, and had to suck human blood in order to stay alive, I dont think I would do it. I think the right thing to do in that instance would be to sacrifice myself. Or, if I did have to kill, I think maybe I would only kill and eat other carnivores (like yourself), and leave the harmless animals in peace. I'm sure that if I was a vampire and had to kill you in order to live, or just to ground, you, at least, would see the logic in that and hold no grudge.

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You're just looking for a good excuse to kill me.
It would pleasant to think that cattle are fed a vegetarian diet. Sadly, that isn't the case. Cattle are very often fed meat. This makes them carnivores. So, have a hamburger, Stephen. It's ok.

And you've assumed I'm a carnivore.

posted October 12, 2008 04:52 PM         

You?

Did you see "Fast Food Nation"?
Richard Linklater is a great director any day of the week,
but that is definitely one to see, if this stuff interests you.
Maybe nothing you've not heard before, but he brings an artist's touch.

quote:

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What I'm questioning is the proposition that a meat free diet alone will open your chakras and help you ascend the Mountain

---

Okay. I'm with you on that one.

quote:

---

I'm also questioning whether abstaining from meat is always a righteous choice.

---

I'm with you there, too. I covered all this in my posts.
And, like I said, whatever the motive, its a good thing.
Sure, Hitler was a vegetaria; for health reasons, I think.
But, again, whatever the reasons, we can at least say,
there was one holocause he did not contribute to.

quote:

---

That the symptoms I briefly described above are very often the result of eliminating meat from your diet,
is not due merely to a lack of protien. Spiritual forces are, as always, at work here.

---

Could you elaborate, or, do you just mean the slef-righteousness and all that?
I tend to think that people who do it for that reason, or who get that result,
would manage to find any number of means to promote that feeling of self-satisfaction.
I still say this is one of the least harmful ways to do it, so, good for them.
I have heard people dismiss charitable activities by saying,
"Oh, people just do that to satisfy their consciences,".
Well, people do things for all sorts of reasons, and,
when you really look at it, everything is motivated by "selfishness".
The Dalia Lama talks about that a lot, and its nice to hear him repeat my ideas.
The person who has enlarged his or her circle of empathy and compassion
will care for others simply because he identifies with them,
just as a more limited person cares only for himself,
because he does not empathize and identify with others.
So, really, its all selfishness, and it all results in feeling good about yourself,
whether or not that feeling is masking a greater self-conflict,
but, really, I would have to argue that all of this is very far from the point.
Whatever your reasons for not killing innocent creatures, they are good ones.

quote:

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No, I don't think it's hard at all. The more carefully and honestly we explore our own sins, the more easily we recognize them in others. Gratefully, when the exploration is morally centered, we learn compassion and patience as well. Or so they promise me.

---

I think its hard to tell, over the internet, but maybe that because I havent honestly and carefully explored my own sins; that was your point, yes? Compassion is what its all about, and patience is also a virtue, but patience should not be confused with a passive and ineffectual frame of mind.

quote:

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quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
...but it is without a doubt a mark in my favor that I have not contributed to the murder of any cows, pigs, lambs, or any other mammals in the past few months.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why?

---

You really need me to break this one down for you, TINK?
What if I was talking about people, rather than animals;
would that make a difference in how you conceive the matter?
A man who refrains from murder, whether or not the world is murderous,
refrains from commiting an atrocity, and this is something in his favor.
Whereas a murderer, whatever his reasons, and however we may sympathize,
is someone who ought to be locked up and segregated from civilized society.
I would consider that a mark against him, in some sense. Wouldnt you?

quote:

---

hmmmm interesting theory. I choose to believe the Almighty has devised a better system.

---

People are always looking to the Almighty,
to excuse themselves from taking their part in His creation.
But I'm interested to hear what you mean when you say that.

quote:

---

And is the cow allowed to make that choice?

---

No, a cow is not self-conscious to the extent that we are,
and, even if he/she was, cows are in captivity,
forced to eat what is given to them by their keepers.

quote:

---

It would pleasant to think that cattle are fed a vegetarian diet. Sadly, that isn't the case. Cattle are very often fed meat. This makes them carnivores. So, have a hamburger, Stephen. It's ok.

---

Haha. Clever. See my response to the above question.

quote:

---

And you've assumed I'm a carnivore.

---

Haha, yup, you got me there.
Always keeping yourself a mystery,
and I fall right into assumptions.
Got to be careful with you.
Yes I do.

quote:

---

Your views on Kosher and Halal laws?

---

Can't say I'm very familiar.
Care to enlighten me?

posted October 14, 2008 06:43 AM         

Honestly, it is so difficult to say what the effects are.

For most of my life, I've eaten meat,
and it didnt prevent me from being neurotic.
Rather, the guilt I felt contributed to my neurosis.

But I have also allowed myself to make concessions to vice,
in order to calm my emotions, and not kill myself;
I collect disability, rather than work a soul-crushing job, because,
in my experience, these have brought me to the edge of suicide.

posted October 14, 2008 10:17 AM         

I have the choice between being my psychiatrist's guinea pig or eating a lo-carb diet. Eating meat might not effect your neurosis, but your body works differently.

I've already written poetry...dozens...when I was most miserable. I've already met my maker...when I needed their guidance the most. I shouldn't have to live like that.

I don't consider it a guilty pleasure to live a normal life. As of right now, giving into the temptation of sweets or processed food would be a "vice;" one I wont get into. My conscience is clean.

posted October 14, 2008 05:08 PM         

Compiled by Dr. Will Tuttle

For over forty years, from the late nineteenth century into the 1930's, Charles Fillmore, co-founder of the Unity School of Christianity, wrote passionately about the physical, mental, social, and spiritual harmfulness of eating animal foods, and the necessity of a plant-based diet for anyone serious about developing spiritual maturity and contributing to world peace. He and his wife Myrtle, the other cofounder of Unity, were conscientious vegetarians and encouraged their students to be so. Charles's writings on this subject have been rather neglected, but in the hope that they may be of benefit to sincere spiritual aspirants, a small sampling of them is reproduced here following. They are excerpted from the original sources which are in the library at Unity Village in Missouri.

I can say about flesh eating that the Spirit has shown me repeatedly that I could not refine my body and make it a harmonious instrument for the soul, so long as I continued to fill it with the cells of dead animals.

-- "The Vegetarian," May, 1920

The desire to demonstrate the Love Universal is lifting thousands out of every form of cruelty that selfishness has claimed is necessary to man's well being. Therefore, in the light of the Truth that God is love, and that Jesus came to make his love manifest in the world, we cannot believe it is his will for men to eat meat, or to do anything else that would cause suffering to the innocent and helpless.

-- "Vegetarianism," June, 1915

The master on the spiritual plane is not a slave driver. He does not use force. The only law that he recognizes is love. To this law he must be true in all its ramifications throughout the universe of forms. He must love every creature, every beast of the field, every fowl of the air. His love must flowforth in protecting streams when any creature is in danger of violence or destruction. Thus he cannot in any way sanction the killing of animals for food, nor can he give passive assent by eating the flesh of those slain by the hands of ignorant men. He recognizes the right of every creature to fill out the full measure of its years, without interference on the part of men. This is a quality of mercy and justice which quickly falls into the mind opened toward God.

-- "Flesh-Eating Metaphysically Considered," May, 1910

We need never look for universal peace on this earth until men stop killing animals for food. The lust for blood has permeated the race thought and the destruction of life will continue to repeat its psychology, the world round, until men willingly observe the law in all phases of life, "Thou shalt not kill."

-- "The Vegetarian," May, 1920

Every animal will fight for its life. What then can be the mental condition of the animal that has been cruelly forced into contracted pens and cars, and finally deprived of its body amid the most terrifying surroundings?-- Can it be otherwise than that its entire consciousness is permeated by violent vibrations of terror that act and react upon all planes of animal life with which they come into contact. You think that you eat a material thing called meat, but the fact is there is no such thing in reality. The flesh may seem to your outer sense to be a dead, inert mass, but, could your soul eye be opened, you would behold mental currents pervading its every atom, acting and reacting upon each other in a wild, bewildered manner, like the animal of whose body it formed a part. You are taking into your temple elements that will unsettle it, elements that you will have difficulty in harmonizing.

-- "Flesh-Eating Metaphysically Considered," May, 1910

Societies for the prevention of cruelty to dumb animals flourish, and large sums of money are given to them annually by those who daily eat the flesh of animals that have been cruelly carried to slaughterhouses, and knocked in the head, their throats cut and the skin stripped from their quivering bodies, all that the savage appetite of man shall be satisfied. The invisible psychic agony of. millions of cruelly slaughtered animals saturates our earth's atmosphere and the whole race suffers in sympathy. We make intimate mental contact with these psychic terrors of our little sisters and brothers of the animal world when we devour their fear-shattered bodies. Our vague fear of impending danger, our troubled sleep, our dread of the future, and numerous other unidentified mental complexes may and often are the echo fears of the brutes whose flesh we have entombed in our stomach.

-- "Eating and Drinking," November, 1931

The idea and object of Unity Inn is to demonstrate that man can live, and live well, on a meatless diet.

-- "The Unity Vegetarian Inn"

Paul says, "it is good not to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor to do anything whereby thy brother stumbleth." (Rom 14:21) "Wherefore, if meat causeth my brother to stumble, I will eat no flesh forevermore." (I Car. 8:13) The eating of flesh does cause your brother to stumble. To meet the demand of the flesh eater's ferocious appetite thousands of men are daily steeped in blood and beer. These men are made to cultivate the cruel side of their natures in slaying defenseless animals in horribly inhumane ways. No man or woman "liveth unto himself" alone (Rom. 14:7), and you are responsible for this stumbling of your brother in the slaughterhouse.

-- "The Twins: Eating and Drinking," June, 1915

When I began the study of Truth I was told that it made no difference what I ate if I was in the right thought. This seemed to prove true up to a certain point in my experience. While my spiritual development was confined to the conscious mind there seemed no special need of food discrimination. But gradually a new phase set in.

-- "As to Meat Eating," October, 1903

Again, it is proven by experiment that certain negative states of consciousness peculiar to the animal accompany its flesh in all its journeys through the body of-man. All the upbuilding life goes out with the soul of the animal when it gives up its body, but the fears, the violence, the ignorance, the anger, the lust, and all that pertains to the error side of consciousness hovers around the dead cells. In San Francisco a number of years ago many people were made violently ill from eating meat bought at a certain shop. Physicians investigated and they found that the carcass of a certain steer was the source, and it was presumed that it was diseased. Further inquiry developed this to be an error--the animal was unusually healthy and vigorous--in fact so vigorous and forceful that he fought for his life for over an hour after the attempt to kill him began. He was in a frenzy of terror and anger; his eyes were bloodshot and he frothed at the mouth while the butchers were trying to slay him. The physicians decided that the anger and terror of this steer poisoned his meat in a manner similar to that of the angry mother her milk, which is well known to make the infant sick.

This instance was but an exaggeration of conditions that exist in a milder form in all animal flesh offered for food in our markets. Before they are slain these Door brutes are maltreated in ways almost beyond enumeration. Visit shipping pens, stock-trains, stock-yards and packing houses, if you want evidence of the sufferings of the poor beasts of the field. And these very sufferings are through the law of sympathetic mental vibrations transferred to the flesh of those who eat the bodies of these animals. The undefined fears, the terrors of the nightmare, and the many disturbances in stomach and bowels that man endures may be in a measure traced to these unsuspected sources.

-- "As to Meat Eating," October, 1903

Good reasons for a vegetarian diet are many, and those who look into the matter have abundance of logic and sound sense arguments to sustain them in advocating the total exclusion of animal products as food. In discussing this question the humanitarian consideration should have first place, because it is farthest removed from selfishness; then follows the moral effect upon those who do the killing of animals; next the consideration of the various diseases that even doctors admit are caused by meat eating. All these points have been thoroughly handled - by various writers. But there is a further consideration of meat eating that does not receive the attention which it deserves from either temperance advocates or vegetarians, and that is the relation which flesh eating has to strong drink.

The assertion has been made, and we have not heard it disproved, that there never was a vegetarian drunkard. Here then, is a remedy for intemperance far more effective than all the drug cures that men take. That the discontinuance of flesh eating will also carry off the craving for strong liquids, like beer, whiskey, wine, tea and coffee, anyone can test for himself. Stop eating meat for even one month and that unnatural thirst which accompanies and follows a diet of flesh will disappear. There is a physiological reason for this. Meat is always in a certain degree of putrefaction, and the decay is increased when it is introduced into the stomach. The juicy steak which lovers of flesh smack their lips over is saturated with salty urea, which in the stomach calls for liquid. Physiologists say that this juice in the steak is the urine of the animal arrested on its way to the kidneys. In eating this mess man not only makes his system a sewer for the corrupting animal flesh, but he also puts into his stomach an irritant that demands a cooling solvent at once.

With this constant fever of rotting flesh in the stomach calling for a cooling draught, if is marvelous that any escape drunkenness. Blot out flesh eating and men will soon become temperate without the enactment of a single law. No one who eats the food that Nature prepared will have any desire for strong drink, not even tea or coffee. Then the sure cure for the drink habit is to stop eating meat and all animal products. This includes butter and eggs. Cereals, vegetables, nuts and oils have all the elements necessary to the body's sustenance.

-- "The Twins: Eating and Drinking," June, 1915

(Compiled by Dr. Will Tuttle. For more information, contact Will at 1083 Vine Street, Healdsburg, CA 95448. 800.697.6614 or 707.723.1005. Also, see vegetarian websites such as vegsource.com and veganoutreach.org)

posted October 14, 2008 05:14 PM         

"By All Means, Be a Vegetarian"
~ By Supreme Master Ching Hai

Health and Nutrition

Studies of human evolution have shown that our ancestors were vegetarian by nature. The structure of the human body is not suited for eating meat. This was demonstrated in an essay on comparative anatomy by Dr. G. S. Huntingen of Columbia University. He pointed out that carnivores have short small and large intestines. Their large intestine is characteristically very straight and smooth. In contrast, vegetarian animals have both a long small intestine and a long large intestine. Because of the low fiber content and high protein density of meat, the intestines do not require a long time to absorb nutrients; thus, the intestines of carnivores are shorter in length than those of vegetarian animals.

Humans, like other naturally vegetarian animals, have both a long small and large intestine. Together, our intestines are approximately twenty-eight feet (eight and a half meters) in length. The small intestine is folded back on itself many times, and its walls are convoluted, not smooth. Because they are longer than those found in carnivores, the meat we eat stays in our intestines for a longer period of time. Consequently, the meat can putrefy and create toxins. These toxins have been implicated as a cause of colon cancer, and they also increase the burden on the liver, which has the function of getting rid of toxins. This can cause cirrhosis and even cancer of the liver.

Meat contains a lot of urokinase protein and urea, which add to the burden on the kidneys, and can destroy kidney function. There are fourteen grams of urokinase protein in every pound of steak. If living cells are put into liquid urokinase protein, their metabolic function will degenerate. Furthermore, meat lacks cellulose or fiber, and lack of fiber can easily create constipation. It is known that constipation can cause rectal cancer or piles.

The cholesterol and saturated fats in flesh also create cardiovascular disorders. Cardiovascular disorders are the number one leading cause of death in the United States, and now in Formosa.

Cancer is the second leading cause of death. Experiments indicate that the burning and roasting of flesh creates a chemical element (Methylcholanthrene) which is a powerful carcinogen. Mice given this chemical develop cancers, such as bone tumors, cancer of the blood, cancer of the stomach, etc.

Research has shown that infant mice fed by a female mouse having breast cancer will also develop cancer. When human cancer cells were injected into animals, the animals also developed cancer. If the meat which we eat daily comes from animals that originally have such disorders, and we take them into our body, there is a good chance we will also get the diseases.

Most people assume that meat is clean and safe, that there are inspections done at all butcheries. There are far too many cattle, pigs, poultry, etc. killed for sale every day for each one to actually be examined. It's very difficult to check whether a piece of meat has cancer in it, let alone check every single animal. Currently, the meat industry just cuts off the head when it has a problem, or cuts off the leg which is diseased. Only the bad parts are removed and the rest is sold.

The famous vegetarian, Dr. J. H. Kellogg said, "When we eat vegetarian food, we don't have to worry about what kind of disease the food died of. This makes a joyful meal!"

There is yet another concern. Antibiotics as well as other drugs including steroids and growth hormones are either added to animal feed or injected directly into the animals. It has been reported that people eating these animals will absorb these drugs into their bodies. There is a possibility that antibiotics in meat are diminishing the effectiveness of antibiotics for human use.

There are some people who consider the vegetarian diet not sufficiently nourishing. An American surgical expert, Dr. Miller, practiced medicine for forty years in Formosa. He established a hospital there, where all the meals were vegetarian, for staff members as well as the patients. He said, "The mouse is one kind of animal which can support its life with both a vegetarian and non-vegetarian diet. If two mice are segregated, with one eating flesh and the other vegetarian food, we find that their growth and development are the same, but that the vegetarian mouse lives longer and has greater resistance to disease. Furthermore, when the two mice got sick, the vegetarian mouse recovered quicker." He then added, "The medicine given to us by modern science has improved greatly, but it can only treat illnesses. Food, however, can sustain our health." He pointed out that, "Food from plants is a more direct source of nutrition than meat. People eat animals, but the source of nutrition for the animals we eat is plants. The lives of most animals are short, and animals have nearly all the diseases that mankind has. It is very likely that the diseases of mankind come from eating the flesh of diseased animals. So, why don't people get their nutrition directly from plants?" Dr. Miller suggested that we only need cereals, beans and vegetables to get all the nourishment we need to maintain good health.

Many people have the idea that animal protein is 'superior' to plant protein because the former is considered a complete protein, and the latter is incomplete. The truth is that some plant proteins are complete, and that food combining can create complete proteins out of several incomplete protein foods.

In March 1988 the American Dietetic Association announced that: "It is the position of the ADA that vegetarian diets are healthful and nutritionally adequate when appropriately planned."

It is often falsely believed that meat eaters are stronger than vegetarians, but an experiment conducted by Professor Irving Fisher of Yale University on 32 vegetarians and 15 meat-eaters showed that vegetarians had more endurance than meat eaters. He had people hold out their arms for as long as possible. The outcome from the test was very clear. Among the 15 meat-eaters, only two persons could hold out their arms for fifteen to thirty minutes; however, among the 32 vegetarians, 22 persons held out their arms for fifteen to thirty minutes, 15 persons for over thirty minutes, 9 persons for over one hour, 4 persons for over two hours, and one vegetarian held his arms out for over three hours.

Many long distance track athletes keep a vegetarian diet for the time preceding competitions. Dr. Barbara More, an expert in vegetarian therapy, completed a one hundred and ten mile race in twenty-seven hours and thirty minutes. A woman of fifty-six years of age, she broke all the records held by young men. "I want to be an example to show that people who take a whole vegetarian diet will enjoy a strong body, a clear mind, and a purified life."

Does the vegetarian get enough protein in his diet? The World Health Organization recommends that 4.5% of daily calories be derived from protein. Wheat has 17% of it's calories as protein, broccoli has 45% and rice has 8%. It is very easy to have a protein rich diet without eating meat. With the additional benefit of avoiding the many diseases caused by high fat diets such as heart disease and many cancers, vegetarianism is clearly the superior choice.

The relationship between over consumption of meat, and other animal source foods containing high levels of saturated fats, and heart disease, breast cancer, colon cancer and strokes has been proven. Other diseases which are often prevented and sometimes cured by a low fat vegetarian diet include: kidney stones, prostate cancer, diabetes, peptic ulcers, gallstones, irritable bowel syndrome, arthritis, gum disease, acne, pancreatic cancer, stomach cancer, hypoglycemia, constipation, diverticulosis, hypertension, osteoporosis, ovarian cancer, hemorrhoids, obesity, and asthma.

posted October 14, 2008 05:16 PM         

Raising animals for meat has its consequences. It leads to rain forest destruction, global heatrising, water pollution, water scarcity, desertification, misuse of energy resources, and world hunger. The use of land, water, energy, and human effort to produce meat is not an efficient way to use the earth's resources.

Since 1960, some 25% of Central America's rain forests have been burned and cleared to create pasture for beef cattle. It has been estimated that every four ounce hamburger made from rain forest beef destroys 55 square feet of tropical rain forest. In addition, raising cattle contributes significantly to the production of three gases which cause global warming, is a leading cause of water pollution, and requires a staggering 2464 gallons of water for the production of each pound of beef. It only takes 29 gallons of water to produce a pound of tomatoes, and 139 gallons to produce a one pound loaf of whole wheat bread. Nearly half of the water consumed in the United States goes to the growing of feed for cattle and other livestock.

Many more people could be fed if the resources used to raise cattle were used to produce grain to feed the world's population. An acre of land growing oats produces 8 times the protein and 25 times the calories, if the oats are fed to humans rather than to cattle. An acre of land used for broccoli produces 10 times the protein, calories and niacin as an acre of land producing beef. Statistics like these are numerous. The world's resources would be more efficiently utilized if the land used for livestock production was converted to raising crops to feed people.

Eating a vegetarian diet allows you to "tread more lightly on the planet." In addition to taking only what you need and reducing excess, it will feel better when you know that a living being doesn't have to die each time you eat a meal.

World Hunger

Nearly one billion people suffer from hunger and malnutrition on this planet. Over 40 million die each year of starvation, and most of them are children. Despite this, more than one third of the world's grain harvest is diverted from feeding people to feeding livestock. In the United States, livestock consume 70% of all the grain produced. If we fed people instead of livestock, no one would go hungry.

Animal Suffering

Are you aware of the fact that more than 100,000 cows are slaughtered every day in the United States?

Most animals in Western countries are raised on "factory farms." These facilities are designed to produce the maximum number of animals for slaughter at the minimum expense. Animals are crowded together, disfigured and treated like machines for the conversion of feed into flesh. This is a reality that most of us will never see with our own eyes. It has been said that, "One visit to a slaughterhouse will make you a vegetarian for life."

Leo Tolstoy said, "As long as there are slaughterhouses there will be battlefields. A vegetarian diet is the acid test of humanitarianism." Although most of us do not actively condone killing, we have developed the habit, supported by society, of eating meat regularly, without any real awareness of what is being done to the animals we eat.

The Company of Saints and Others

From the beginning of recorded history we can see that vegetables have been the natural food of human beings. Early Greek and Hebrew myths all spoke of people originally eating fruit. Ancient Egyptian priests never ate meat. Many great Greek philosophers such as Plato, Diogenes, and Socrates all advocated vegetarianism.

In India, Shakyamuni Buddha emphasized the importance of Ahimsa, the principle of not harming any living things. He warned His disciples not to eat meat, or else other living beings would become frightened of them. Buddha made the following observations: "Meat eating is just an acquired habit. In the beginning we were not born with a desire for it." "Flesh eating people cut off their inner seed of Great Mercy." "Flesh eating people kill each other and eat each other ... this life I eat you, and next life you eat me ... and it always continues in this way. How can they ever get out of the Three Realms (of illusion)?"

Many early Taoists, early Christians and Jews were vegetarians. It is recorded in the Holy Bible: "And God said, I have provided all kinds of grain and all kinds of fruit for you to eat; but for the wild animals and for all the birds I have provided grass and leafy plants for food." (Genesis 1:29) Other examples forbidding the eating of meat in the Bible: "You must not eat meat with blood in it, because the life is in the blood." (Genesis 9:4) "God said, Who told you to kill the bullock and the she goat to make an offering to me? Wash yourselves from this innocent blood, so I may hear your prayer; otherwise I will turn my head away because your hands are full of blood. Repent yourselves so I may forgive you." St. Paul, one of Jesus' disciples, said in his letter to the Romans, "It is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine." (Romans 14:21)

Recently, historians have discovered many ancient books that have shed new light on the life of Jesus and His teachings. Jesus said, "People who have animals' flesh become their own tombs. I tell you honestly, the man who kills will be killed. The man who kills living things and eats their meat is eating the meat of the dead men."

Indian religions also avoid the eating of flesh. It is said that, "People can't get flesh without killing things. A person who hurts sentient beings will never be blessed by God. So, avoid taking flesh!" (Hindu Precept)

The holy scripture of Islam, the Koran, forbids the "eating of dead animals, blood and flesh."

A great Chinese Zen Master, Han Shan Tzu wrote a poem which was strongly against flesh eating: "Go quickly to the market to buy meat and fish and feed them to your wife and children. But why must their lives be taken to sustain yours? It's unreasonable. It will not bring you affinity with Heaven, but make you become dregs of Hell!"

Many famous writers, artists, scientists, philosophers, and eminent men were vegetarians. The following people have all embraced vegetarianism with enthusiasm: Shakyamuni Buddha, Jesus Christ, Virgil, Horace, Plato, Ovid, Petrarch, Pythagoras, Socrates, William Shakespeare, Voltaire, Sir Isaac Newton, Leonardo Da Vinci, Charles Darwin, Benjamin Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Emile Zola, Bertrand Russell, Richard Wagner, Percy Bysshe Shelley, H. G. Wells, Albert Einstein, Rabindranath Tagore, Leo Tolstoy, George Bernard Shaw, Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer, and more recently, Paul Newman, Madonna, Princess Diana, Lindsay Wagner, Paul McCartney, and Candice Bergen, to name a few.

posted October 14, 2008 05:19 PM         

Q. Eating animals is killing living beings, but isn't eating vegetables a kind of killing, too?

M: Eating plants is also killing living things and will create some karmic hindrance, but the effect is very minimal. If one practices the Quan Yin Method for two and a half hours every day, one can get rid of this karmic effect. As we have to eat in order to survive, we choose food which has the least consciousness and suffers the least. Plants consist of 90% water, thus their level of consciousness is so low that it hardly feels any suffering. Furthermore, when we eat many vegetables we don't cut their roots, but rather we help their asexual reproduction by cutting branches and leaves. The end result can actually be beneficial to the plant. Therefore, horticulturists say that pruning vegetation helps them grow large and beautiful.

This is even more evident with fruit. When fruit ripens, it will attract people to eat it by its fragrant smell, beautiful color and delicious taste. It is in this way that fruit trees can achieve their purpose of propagating their seed over a wide area. If we do not pick and eat them, the fruit will become overripe and will fall to the ground to rot. Its seed will be shaded from sunlight by the tree above them and will die. So, eating vegetables and fruit is a natural tendency, which brings to them no suffering at all.

Q. Most people have the idea that vegetarians are shorter and thinner, and flesh eaters are taller and bigger. Is this true?

M: Vegetarians are not necessarily thinner and shorter. If their diet is balanced, they can also grow tall and strong. As you can see, all big animals like elephants, cattle, giraffes, hippopotamuses, horses etc. eat only vegetables and fruit. They are stronger than carnivores, very gentle and beneficial to mankind. But flesh eating animals are both very violent and of no use. If human beings eat many animals, they will also become affected with animal instinct and quality. Flesh eating people are not necessarily tall and strong, but their life span is very short on the average. Eskimos are almost totally flesh eating, but are they very tall and strong? Do they have a long life? This I think you can understand very clearly.

Q. Can vegetarians eat eggs?

M: No. When we eat eggs we are also killing beings. Some say that commercially available eggs are unfertilized, so eating them is not killing living things. This is only seemingly correct. An egg remains unfertilized only because the appropriate circumstances for its fertilization have been withheld, so the egg can not complete its natural purpose of developing into a chicken. Even though this development has not occurred, it still contains the innate life force needed for this. We know that eggs have innate life force; otherwise, why is it that ova are the only type of cells which can be fertilized? Some point out that eggs contain the essential nutrients, protein and phosphorus, essential for human bodies. But protein is available from bean curd, and phosphorus from many kinds of vegetables such as potatoes.

We know that from ancient times till now, there have been many great monks who did not eat meat or eggs and still had a long life span. For instance the Ying Guang Master ate only a bowl of vegetables and some rice each meal, and yet he lived up to the age of eighty. Furthermore, egg yolks contain a lot of cholesterol, which is a major cause of cardiovascular disorders, the number one killer in Formosa and America. No wonder we see that most patients are egg eaters!

Q. Man raises animals and poultry, such as pigs, cattle, chickens, ducks, etc. Why can't we eat them?

M: So? Parents raise their children. Do parents have the right to eat their children? All living things have the right to live, and no one should deprive them of this. If we have a look at the laws in Hong Kong, even killing oneself is against the law. So, how much more unlawful would killing other living beings be?

Q. Animals are born for people to eat. If we don't eat them, they will fill the world. Right?

M: This is an absurd idea. Before you kill an animal, do you ask it if it wants to be killed and eaten by you or not? All living beings desire to live and are afraid to die. We don't want to be eaten by a tiger, so why should animals be eaten by humans? Human beings have only existed in the world for several tens of thousands of years, but before mankind appeared, many species of animals had already existed. Did they overcrowd the earth? Living things maintain a natural ecological balance. When there is too little food and space is limited, this will cause a drastic reduction in population. This maintains the population at an appropriate level.

Q. Why should I be vegetarian?

M: I am vegetarian because the God inside me wants it. Understand? Eating meat is against the universal principle of not wanting to be killed. We ourselves don't want to be killed, and we ourselves don't want to be stolen from. Now, if we do that to other people, then we are acting against ourselves, and that makes us suffer. Everything that you do against others makes you suffer. You can not bite yourself and you shouldn't stab yourself. In the same way you should not kill, because that is against the principle of life. Understand? It would make us suffer, so we don't do it. It doesn't mean we limit ourselves in any way. It means we expand our life to all kinds of life. Our life will not be limited within this body, but extended to the life of animals and all kinds of beings. That makes us grander, greater, happier, and limitless. Okay?

Q. Would you speak on vegetarian eating and how this can contribute to world peace?

M: Yes. You see, most of the wars that happen in this world are due to economic reasons. Let's face it. The economic difficulties of a country become more urgent when there is hunger, lack of food, or a lack of equal distribution of food among different countries. If you took the time to read magazines and research the facts about the vegetarian diet, then you would know this very well. Raising cattle and animals for meat has caused our economy to go bankrupt in all aspects. It has created hunger throughout the world, at least in the third world countries. It's not I who is saying this. It is an American citizen who did this type of research and wrote a book about it. You can go to any book shop and read about vegetarian research and food processing research. You can read "Diet For a New America" by John Robbins. He is a very famous ice cream millionaire. He gave it all up in order to be a vegetarian, and to write a vegetarian book against his family tradition and business. He lost a lot of money, prestige and business, but he did it for the sake of Truth. That book is very good. There are many other books and magazines which can give you a lot of information and facts about the vegetarian diet and how it can contribute to world peace. You see, we bankrupted our food supply by feeding cattle. You know how much protein, medicine, water supply, manpower, cars, trucks, road construction and how many hundreds of thousands of acres of land have been wasted before a cow is good enough for one meal. Understand? All these things could be distributed equally to underdeveloped countries, then we could solve the hunger problem. So now, if a country is in need of food it probably invades the other country just to save its own people. In the long run, this has created a bad cause and retribution. Understand? "As you sow, so shall you reap." If we kill someone for food, we will be killed for food later, in some other form the next time, the next generation. It's a pity. We are so intelligent, so civilized and yet most of us do not know the cause of why our neighboring countries are suffering. It is because of our palate, our taste, and our stomach. In order to feed and nourish one body we kill so many beings, and starve so many fellow human beings. We aren't even talking about the animals yet. Understand? Then this guilt, consciously or unconsciously, will weigh down upon our conscience. It makes us suffer from cancer, tuberculosis and other kinds of incurable diseases, including AIDS. Ask yourself, why does your country, America, suffer the most? It has the highest rate of cancer in the world, because the Americans eat a lot of beef. They eat more meat than any of the other countries. Ask yourself why the Chinese or communist countries don't have that high a rate of cancer. They don't have as much meat. Understand? That is what the research says, not I. Okay? Don't blame me.

Q. What are some spiritual benefits that we get from being vegetarians?

M: I'm glad you asked the question in this manner, because it means you only concentrate on, or care about, spiritual benefits. Most people would care about health, diet and figure when they ask about the vegetarian diet. The spiritual aspects of a vegetarian diet are that it is very clean and nonviolent. "Thou shalt not kill." When God said this to us, He did not say do not kill human beings, He said do not kill any beings. Didn't He say that He made all animals to befriend us, to help us? Did He not put the animals in our care? He said, take care of them, rule over them. When you rule over your subjects, do you kill your subjects and eat them? Then you would become a king with nobody else around? So now you understand when God said that. We must do it. There is no need to question Him. He spoke very clearly, but who understands God except God? So now you have to become God in order to understand God. I invite you to be God-like again, to be yourself, to be no one else. To meditate on God doesn't mean you worship God, it means that you become God. You realize that you and God are one. "I and my Father are one," didn't Jesus say so? If He said He and His father are one, we and His father can also be one, because we are also children of God. And Jesus also said that what He does we can even do better. So we may be even better than God, who knows? Why worship God when we don't know anything about God? Why use blind faith? We must first know what we are worshipping, just like we must know who the girl is we're going to marry before we marry her. Nowadays, it's customary that we don't marry before we date. So why should we worship God with blind faith? We have the right to demand that God appears to us, and to make Himself known to us. We have the right to choose which God we would like to follow. So now you see that it is very clear in the Bible that we should be vegetarians. For all health reasons, we should be vegetarians. For all scientific reasons, we should be vegetarians. For all economic reasons, we should be vegetarians. For all compassionate reasons, we should be vegetarians. As well, to save the world, we should be vegetarians. It is stated in some research that if people in the West, in America, eat vegetarian only once a week, we would be able to save sixteen million starving people every year. So be a hero, be vegetarian. For all of these reasons, even if you don't follow me, or don't practice the same method, please be a vegetarian for your own sake, for the sake of the world.

Q. If everyone eats plants, will it create a food shortage?

M: No. Using a given piece of land to grow crops provides fourteen times as much food as using the same piece of land to grow fodder to feed animals. Plants from each acre of land provide 800,000 calories of energy; however, if these plants are used to raise animals which are then eaten as food, the animals' meat can only provide 200,000 calories of energy. That means that during the process 600,000 calories of energy are lost. So the vegetarian diet is evidently more efficient and economical than the meat diet.

Q. Is fish all right to eat for a vegetarian?

M: It's all right if you want to eat fish. But if you want to eat vegetarian, fish is not a vegetable.

Q. Some people say that it is important to be a good hearted man, but it is not necessary to be a vegetarian. Does this make sense?

M: If one is truly a good hearted person, then why does he still eat another being's flesh? Seeing them suffer so, he should not be able to bear to eat them! Flesh eating is unmerciful, so how can this be done by a good hearted man? Master Lien Ch'ih once said, "Kill its body, and eat its meat. In this world there is no one more cruel, malevolent, atrocious and evil than this man." How can he ever claim that he himself has a good heart? Mencius also said, "If you see it alive, you can't bear to see it die, and if you hear it groaning you can not bear to eat its meat; so the real gentlemen keep far from the kitchen." Human intelligence is higher than that of animals, and we can use weapons to make them unable to resist us, so they die with hatred. The kind of man who does this, bullying small and weak creatures, has no right to be called a gentleman. When animals are killed, they are terribly stricken with agony, fear and resentment. This causes the production of toxins that stay in their meat to harm those who eat it. Since the frequency of the vibration of animals is lower than that of mankind, they will influence our vibration, and affect the development of our wisdom.

Q. Is it all right just to be a so-called "convenient vegetarian?" (Convenient vegetarians do not strictly avoid meat. They would eat vegetables out of a mixed vegetable and meat dish.)

M: No. For example, if food is put into a poisonous liquid and then removed, do you think it will become poisonous or not? In the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, Mahakasyapa asked Buddha, "When we beg and are given vegetables mixed with meat, can we eat this food? How can we clean the food?" Buddha replied, "One should clean it with water and separate the vegetables from the meat, then one can eat it." From the above dialogue we can understand that one can not even eat vegetables which are mixed with meat unless one first cleans them with water, not to mention eating meat alone! Therefore, it is very easy to see that Buddha and his disciples all kept a vegetarian diet. However, some people slandered Buddha by saying that He was a 'convenient vegetarian', and that if alm-givers gave meat, He ate meat. This is truly nonsense. Those who say so have read too little of the scriptures, or don't understand the scriptures they have read. In India, over ninety percent of the people are vegetarians. When people see mendicants in yellow robes they all know they should offer them vegetarian food, not to mention that most of the people have no meat to give anyway!

Q. A long time ago, I heard another Master say, "Buddha ate a pig's foot and then got diarrhea and died." Is this true?

M: Absolutely not. It was because of eating a kind of mushroom that Buddha died. If we translate directly from the language of the Brahmans, this kind of mushroom is called the "pig's foot", but it is not a real pig's foot. It's just like when we call a kind of fruit "longan" (In Chinese this literally means the "dragon's eye"). There are many things that by name are not vegetables but actually are vegetarian foods, such things as the "dragon's eye." This mushroom in Brahmanic language is called "pig's foot" or "pig's joy." Both have a connection with pigs. This kind of mushroom was not easy to find in ancient India and was a rare delicacy, so people offered it to Buddha in worship. This mushroom can not be found above the ground. It grows under the ground. If people want to find it they must search with the help of an old pig which likes very much to eat this kind of mushroom. Pigs detect it by their smell, and when they discover one, they use their feet to dig in the mud to find and eat it. That was why this kind of mushroom is called the "pig's joy" or "pig's foot." Actually these two names refer to the same mushroom. Because it was translated carelessly and because people did not truly understand the derivation, the following generations have been caused to misunderstand and mistake Buddha for a "flesh devouring man" This is really a regrettable thing.

Q. Some meat lovers say that they buy meat from the butcher, so it's not killed by themselves. Therefore, it is all right to eat it. Do you think this is right?

M: This is a disastrous mistake. You must know that butchers kill living beings because people want to eat. In the Lankavatara Sutra, Buddha said, "If there was no one eating meat, then no killing would happen. So eating meat and killing living beings are of the same sin." Because of the killing of too many living beings, we have natural disasters and manmade calamities. Wars are also caused by too much killing.

Q. Some people say that while plants can't produce poisonous things like urea or urokinase, fruit and vegetable growers use lots of pesticides on the plants, which are bad for our health. Is that so?

posted October 14, 2008 06:25 PM         

I enjoyed reading the article from Osho, I thought it was very good with much wisdom in it, although I'm not sure about his idea that we release tension through eating meat. I think different people are suited to different diets and it is important to get adequate amounts of protein and such from where they can. Eventually I believe that as we all vibrate off into higher dimensions meat eating will no longer be necessary.

It is possible to get all our nutritional needs from non-animal sources, but it takes careful planning and time preparing (and healthy foods are often more expensive, at least they are in the UK).

Start with factory farms, we should try and abolish these first. Most people simply aren't ready to radically change their diets, this has to come from within, and if others try to force them to change, they will only resist it.

posted October 14, 2008 07:14 PM         

Beans, on the other hand, provide protein and are very cheap.

But, if we want excuses, we can certainly find them.

I'm not in favor of forcing anything on anyone.

I want them to make their own informed decisions.

If you want to eat meat, eat meat.

But dont pervert your reason in order to do so.

Recognize that apathy, laziness, and selfishness are what motivate your choice.

Then try to live with yourself.

Its as simple as that.

But what do I know, right?