In the previous part I explained environmental, health and humane reasons for going vegan. I am on this journey to give up my addiction to meat and all other animal products because I truly believe that we do not need meat in our diet and that what we are doing to the animals we would not even wish on our worst enemies. What I did not explain in the previous part was the spiritual reasons for going vegan although I did mention that looking after the environment and having compassion on all living beings are already very spiritual things to do. Whatever the case may be, here follows more specific spiritual reasons.
Two of the comments I received on the previous part is
relevant for this part. The first comment was that the person hears what I am
saying but to give up meat would be too difficult. The other comment was a
reference to the Bible which say that those who eat only vegetables are weak. So,
the first comment reminded me that every person are on their own journey and
that no matter how much we point out cruelty towards others or unhealthy
practices towards ourselves, writing here is only the hopeful seed of positive
influence. The second comment is a reminder that people read the Bible (and
many other Holy Scriptures) out of the context within which it was written and
will grab at single verses which they think support their arguments without taking
the whole of the chapter in consideration. Let us then start with this chapter
which is Romans 14.
There are two things to remember when reading Romans 14 and
that is, first of all, that Christians in the ancient world were still a
minority and that the meat in those times were offered to idols before it was
being sold (today Christianity are the largest religion with more that 2billion
people professing to be Christian) and, secondly, Romans 14 is not primarily
about food but about faith. In other words, when Paul writes in verse two that
the person who is weak only eat vegetables he means to say that there is only
One God and thus if you are worried about the meat because of the false gods
then you do not need to worry because there is no other gods, false or
otherwise, besides God only; however, if your faith is weak (thus, if you still
feel that there is false gods to be worried about) then eat only vegetables. He
then says it does not matter because those who eat meat should not look down on
those who does not and those who eats only vegetables should not judge those
who eat meat (one of the things that I made clear in the previous part was that
I understand all of us are on our own journeys, I do not judge, but that I want
to put this out there as positive influence).
Paul then continues to explain the same principle about
faith with regards to the days of the week: some say Sunday (or the Sabbath) is
holy but God made all days and we should live holy on all days. That is the
context of this chapter and in the end, it had nothing to do with veganism and
meat eating to begin with. People who only eat vegetables, vegetarians or
vegans, are not weak. In fact, I challenge any meat eater to go without meat
for a month (I suggest October as that is World Vegetarian Month) and see if it
is easy, I assure you that you will have new respect for the strength those who
do not eat meat.
It is true that Jesus ate meat, but that cannot be used as
an excuse anymore than the fact that the Dalai Lama eats meat. As the Dalai
Lama has his specific reasons while still advocating that a vegetarian diet is
better so Jesus was living in times when veganism was not the social issue it
is today. The reasons for this are simple, right in the beginning God gave the
plants to humans as food and they only started eating meat after Noah and the
great flood, thus after sin entered the world according to the Christian
worldview. Why then did Moses allow it in the law? This is the same kind of
question the Pharisees asked Jesus and his answer were: “Due to the hardness of
your hearts”. This hardness of our hearts is a problem even today, we do
understand the reasons why it is wrong to kill animals when there is more than
enough food to end famine, we understand that we are cruel, we try to justify
it by playing with words; and all this because we insist on our desires,
entertainment, power and financial gain.
I have realized this cruelty within myself and decided to
face up to it. We are not only cruel to each other, but also to millions of
other species (more than 680 species are extinct as a direct result of human
activities and more than 1 million are under threat) and to the planet itself. This
lead me to realize that we need a lot more compassion as it is explained by the
Buddhists and love as it is written in the Christian Scriptures (I will write
more about what exactly it means to love in a later post). Compassion is to
understand that when we look pass everything that divide us, including race,
age, religion, nationality, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, politics,
species and anything else, there is the Spark of God within all of life. Our
interconnectedness, the African philosophy of Ubuntu expanded to include far
more than only humanity but to be universal, lead us to realize that if we act
hurtful to anything – no matter how small it seems to us – we act hurtful to
everything and that have repercussions for the future. It is only compassion
which will make us care about a future where we ourselves might not be and yet
live on.
Unless ye must,
bruise not the serpent in the dust, how much less wound a man. And if ye can,
no ant should ye alarm, much less a brother harm.
Abdu’l-Baha
Compassion, in the end, is to always be loving because we
know we are not the only ones with problems. It is to always be loving towards
everyone and everything, from the most innocent to those who we are sure do not
deserve it. There are few things more innocent than an animal that does not
understand why it is being hunted to be killed or herded to be slaughtered and
yet experience that fear of what is happening. It is easy to look down on
animals as creatures we can do with as we please, but ask yourself these two
questions – If it is okay for us to kill for food (and buying your meat in
packages in the local supermarket is indirectly condoning the killing), why do
we experience it as cruel when a tiger or lion kills a human? If cannibalism is
wrong because it is murder and, also, that there is enough other food; why then
is it okay for us to eat the flesh of other beings?
I sincerely hope, indeed pray, that we will gradually start
to live in greater awareness of our actions, that we will ask ourselves if what
we are busy with every second of the day is compassionate. Further, that it will
not stay with awareness but that we will take action and make better decisions
within our own environments and within our own spheres of influence.
May the One God with many Names and many Manifestations,
bless you
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