Monday, November 23, 2009

Vegeterian by Design

Recognizing that the body, mind and spirit are interconnected leads to the understanding that what we do to one of these aspects of ourselves will undeniably impact the others.

Food thus, is not just a sustainer of the physical body. There is more to it than just fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and proteins. Yoga recognizes many more subtle aspects of food and accordingly considers various food items as virtuous or otherwise.

The first glaring question is, whether humans should eat meat, or be vegetarians. To find the truth about this, let us at least observe some typical characteristics of other meat-eating and non meat-eating species.

Firstly, meat-eating animals (cat, tiger, dog, etc.) are born with their eyes closed, which open only after a few days, while vegetarian animals (cow, deer, elephant) are born with eyes open.

Second, meat-eating animals have canine teeth to facilitate tearing of meat, while vegetarian animals do not have such canines.

Third, vegetarian animals drink with a sucking action, while meat-eaters have a tongue-lapping action.

Lastly, natural meat-eaters digest meat within just a few hours and also have short intestinal canal so that the waste is excreted before it decomposes. On the other hand, meat eaten by, or forced upon naturally vegeterian vegetarian animals remains undigested for so long that in fact, this meat serves as food for putrefactive germs in the long intestinal canal.

Clearly then, Man is a natural vegetarian and only an un-natural meat-eater.

Those on the spiritual path will see another dimension to this issue viz., meat-eating amounts to causing serious disruption in the karmic journey of another soul, an act that would, by the universal principle of cause and effect, increase one’s own karmic bondage meaning that much distancing from attaining liberation or moksha.

However, the bottom line is, vegetarianism is good, but not everyone is spiritually evolved enough to embrace it.

No comments:

Post a Comment