BEING A VEGETARIAN and AHIMSA.

BEING A VEGETARIAN and AHIMSA.

This is written not to condemn meat eaters but more to explain why some are vegetarians. (Sometime back I heard on the news, that the U.K. had banned experiments on animals for cosmetics reasons. They have also banned some medical experiments that are considered unnecessary, especially those that are just done for money, like unnecessary research. At least that is a start!

However my pleasure was short lived, for whilst channel surfing, I came across a piece on T.V. that made me sit up. It was about a system where they can take a fish, partially gut it, scale it, dip it in batter and fry part of it, whilst all the time keeping it ALIVE!I t was then served up on the table with sauce, whilst the eating parties dug in with chopsticks. The family's children ran from the table for the fish was obviously alive and suffering, opening and closing its mouth. Or we have the skinning of seal cubs while still alive, the boiling of shell-fish while still alive and many other violent acts. This doesn’t include the horrors of the slaughterhouses.

All violence of any kind should be avoided except for self defence. That means in thought, word, and deed .Even making too much noise should be avoided. Humans are human animals ,aspiring human beings, human beings, and Divine Humans. Intelligence has nothing to do with it. For it has to do with the level of awareness and purification of the awareness sheath or vijnanamayakosa. A completely purified vijnanamayakosa is the sheath that a Jnani uses to relate to the world. To the human animal eating meat is probably part of it’s self developed condition .For spiritual seekers though, aspiring human beings, eating meat is a no-no and that includes fish. Swami Yogananda did say however that unfertilised eggs are alright to eat, if you really have to, free range that is. Ghandiji did eat eggs, when he was ill. Wearing leather is again debatable, for if the animal died for food the leather is something superflous. On the other hand fur is different, for the animal is killed for its skin alone. It is all in the motive, it is in the mind. We can only do the best we can and most like to do things gradually rather than not at all.

Vegetarianism for Spiritual Seekers is not primarily for reasons of health but for Spirituality. It is really a belief in Ahimsa or non-violence that is the motivating cause.

For example eating meat means accepting blame and bad Karma, probably for many lifetimes, for killing an animal and the associated suffering. It is not our Dharma to eat meat and we have caused pain and terror to the animal. Also we have sent billions of animals to the subtle plane. Many of these animals are reincarnated as humans and carry with them the resentment of their treatment and death in the slaughterhouses. This adds to bad vibrations on the planet and subsequent massacres and killings, as in Ruanda etc. Violence can be intrinsic, like banging a book down on a table, cutting down trees un-necessarily or even thinking bad thoughts.

Meat eating is a habit like smoking, drug addiction or alcoholism and it can be broken the same way; Pray, surrender to The Divine and stop. Some people may have to do it progressively; however this may only prolong the bad karma involved.

The advantages of being a vegetarian are many, apart from the effect on our health. When we eat meat we absorb animal vibrations into our own mind and body, making it more difficult to advance spiritually.

Many argue that we need meat for proteins. The humble soya can supply most dietary needs contained in meat. It takes 4 kg of fish meal to produce every 1 kg of farmed salmon. Also it takes 8kg of grain to produce 1/2kg of beef; a waste of food resources on a hungry planet .At the present time 3%-6% of North Americans and 15% of British are vegetarians. The Indian percentage would be much higher no doubt.

Meat eating leads to rajasic and tamasic tendencies but a sathwic diet consisting of vegetables, except not too many, onions, garlic chillies etc, will be conducive to a peaceful mind.

As Dr. Albert Schweitzer tells us:

"I cannot but have reverence for all that is called life. I cannot avoid compassion for everything that is called life. That is the beginning of morality. Once a man has experienced it and continues to do so he/she is ethical. He carries morality within him/her and can never lose it, for it continues to develop within him. He who has never experienced this has only a set of superficial principles.

These theories have no root in him, they do not belong to him, and they fall off him......Reverence for life comprises the whole ethic of love in its deepest and highest sense. It is the source of constant renewal for the individual and for mankind.(Respect for life is compassion, which is a prerequisite for understanding.)

(Scheitzer pp 116-177) (1)

Ghandiji said; "Cow protection is to me one of the most wonderful phenomena in human evolution. It takes the human being beyond his species. The cow to me means the entire subhuman world. Man through the cow is enjoined to realise his identity with all that lives...She is the mother to millions of Indian (and others), mankind.



We should cultivate certain desirable practices. For instance we should regulate our diet, because one’s food influences one’s thoughts. Eating animal food promotes animal tendencies. Those who take to the spiritual path should avoid as much as possible bad practices. There is no meaning in professing to respect human values without observing the rule that you should cause NO HARM to others in any form whatsoever."

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"And God said, Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for MEAT!" Genesis 1:29. Many terms in the Bible have been mistranslated, for whatever reason. The word food has been translated as meat and as flesh even, this is to give the impression that Jesus was a meat eater. It’s interesting that in Scotland today the word meat can mean food generally, not just animal flesh. Also the word for wine mostly means unfermented grape-juice, or Must, which was what the Essenes used

"Thou shall not kill"....Bible, Ten Commandments. lo tirtzach—not kill anything.

"He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man".....Isaiah 66:3

The first of Buddhism’s Ten Precepts is, "Refrain from destroying life."

The Mahabharata, warns "Those who kill and eat cows will rot in hell for as many years as there are hairs on the slaughtered cow, "and "What greater cruelty and selfishness than to increase the flesh of one’s body by eating the flesh of innocent creatures?"

I don’t know whether you can take the Mahabharata literally but the inference is there.

If one can grasp that "all is one", then harming a being that can feel pain is harming oneself. As seekers on the spiritual path, we should avoid being responsible for other’s pain, animal or not.

. On another note, what kind of insensitivity and lack of conscious awareness, or rather conscience, allows an animal to suffer for an unholy human desire, that one hasn’t the courage or willpower to overcome. One is reduced to a state less than the animal, for even an animal keeps it’s desires in season. This was my thought about myself and I couldn’t live with that, and that is why, after reading Maxims, "in the back of a book on Hindu Spirituality," I became a vegetarian immediately. Sakti also gave me a dream, where I experienced being a cow that was led to slaughter.

The morning that I gave up eating meat I had a dream that was the
catalyst. I was visiting some family members in Sydney and I was on
Bondi Beach, I like surfing. I ate a hamburger and then fell asleep
on the beach during which time, I was given a dream. In this dream I
was actually a cow or steer or whatever, bovine anyway.
I was in the slaughterhouse, and was terrified by the cries of the
other animals waiting to go up before the human killer. The stench of blood and faeces assailed by rather large nostrils and my eyes
rolled in utter panic and fear in my head. I looked around for
someone I knew but I was alone amongst all these terrified
animals.My panic grew as I was forced between a row of gates and
down a slippy path full of blood, faeces and urine. I hesitated and
was prodded with an electric prod to make me move forward into this
tight space. Eventually I was in a kind of giant manacle which held
my head for the human killer. I was terrified and so were all the
other cattle for we knew, yes we knew.
At his point I awoke on the beach repeating 'My God they know', they
know they are going to be killed so cruelly. At that point I
resolved never to be an accomplice to the greatest holocaust of all
time, and I became a vegetarian. I'm a slow learner you see!!
There are no excuses or alibis, religious or otherwise, for "spiritual seekers, "to be meat eaters; it is also injurious to health, check out "mad cow disease or hamburger disease, or chicken flu. If you eat meat you will get animal diseases."

However as a last note, if one is a vegetarian one shouldn’t be smug about our meat eating brother or sister. I am not claiming to be a superior being and no doubt have as many desires as the next person. However I have overcome eating meat with Sakti’s Grace. You can too, if you are still a meat-eater. However you must have the belief and desire to do so, many people see nothing wrong at all in eating meat, it is their choice.

"Ananyaaschinthayantho Maam Ye Janaah Paryupaasathe Theshaam Nithyaabhiyukthaanaam Yogakshemam Vahamyaham."

"Whoever surrenders to The Lord, The Lord will take on his/her yogakshemam and provide for him/her." The Gita.9:22.

"

,
"The great sage Yagnavalkya ,in his Yagnavalkyasmiti stated that
three ghastly crimes are committed by slaughtering animals for the
sake of eating their flesh.

These are :
(1)the taking of innocent life;

(2)the infliction of pain on the innocent animal during the process
of killing it;and

(3)the crime of depriving the animal of its strength through
slaughtering it.

Punishment for all three crimes entails twenty rebirths
characterised by premature and painful death in the first;

pain ,suffering and unhappiness,including family feuds,anxiety and
tensions in the second;

poor health in which the life of the person concerned will be wasted
away,in the third."

INDIRA RADHAN. MAY 1996.