Life and Spirituality

The Yoga of Food https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food#/media/File:Foods_(cropped).jpg A round 2500 years ago Gautam Buddha advocated compassion and non-violence to all life including animals. This led to a large number of persons adopting a vegetarian life style in South Asia. In recent times the concept has spread further, across the globe. A traditional vegetarian diet consists of not consuming any meat or fish. However milk and its products are consumed freely. In a traditional vegetarian diet eggs are not consumed since these too are regarded as a flesh food. Vegans on the other hand go further and consume no animal product at all including milk. Some years ago, this author proposed the concept of Loveganism that included eliminating or at least minimizing violence to all life, not just animal life but also plant life. Lovegan foods are foods that conform to this principle. Since the introduction of the concept online a few years ago, it seems that some have ta...

Fruit and Vegetable Seller, Louise Moillon, 1631. Musée du Louvre V egetables and fruits come from plants that are a complimentary life form. They have genes, chromosomes and blood (chlorophyll) just like us except that at the center of the blood molecules in plants there is a magnesium atom instead of iron and therefore its color is green. Different shades of green in plants are because we see this green blood in combination with other plant matter that differs from plant to plant.   The Universe created the two different life forms so that they may support each other and prosper together. Our waste including the carbon dioxide we breathe out as well as the other waste we produce daily is fresh food and air for plants. When we pass away, the bodies we leave behind provides more food for plants. Similarly the exhaled waste breath of plants- oxygen is fresh air for us. However while plants satisfy themselves with our waste we go further and kill them too for our ...

Sushil Kumar (wrestling Champion), the strongest man in the world has been a vegetarian all his life   During my student days in Canada, influenced by eastern philosophies, a friend became a vegetarian. He had developed the notion that being a vegetarian meant not eating, meat, fish and eggs and eating vegetables instead. It goes without saying that he became weaker by the months until explained to him, that vegetables is something both meat eaters and vegetarians have to eat for good health and if he has stopped meat he must replace that with other protein matter not just more of vegetables. This friend studied the matter and took to beans until he began to phart like a cow and then I had to intervene again to explain to him that beans cause flatulence and will not help him to acquire a robust health although he might survive in an insipid and unpleasant sort of a way. He has since learned of the right and healthy way to become a vegetarian. Some of the strongest,...

The Almond Tree F ood for life comes from life, one form of life deriving its food from another life form and in some cases even their own kind. Humans acquire food from plants and animals, two different kinds of complimentary life forms. In acquiring this food, violence is often perpetuated. While it seems natural for most animals to acquire their food any way they can, humans, who are capable of reasoned thinking, may wish to deliberate if violence is an essential part of acquiring food or if food may be acquired without any violence. Perhaps as humans evolve further away from their animal past, they shall learn of non-violent ways to meet all their basic needs that include food. The central question is, if it is possible to get fully nutritious and healthy food for mankind without the need to perpetuate any violence at all. Whenever humans eat meat as food, an animal has to be killed. Civilized humans attempt to kill an animal in the least painful manner but violen...

J ust as we have persons who belong to some religious sect or other or none at all, humans can be divided on the basis of their food choices in broad categories – vegans, lovegans, vegetarians or others who eat fish and meat from various animals without any philosophical compunctions but with some preferences for the animals they choose e.g. some will eat cats and dogs too but others will not eat them. Many in India will consider eating or even killing a cow a most unholy thing to do a because it too is a loved domestic pet and a motherly one at that  since it provides milk for children and others. The prohibition on eating or killing a cow is because that is unholy, repugnant and unsacred act not especially because a cow is sacred. All life is sacred. The assertion that cows are not eaten merely because they are sacred is a western twist. Cows roam about in Indian neighborhoods just as cats might in western one. However, in  recent years it has been restricted in citie...

Sushil Kumar the Wrestler E ver since Buddha walked the land of South Asia around two and a half millenniums ago, vegetarianism has come to be an accepted part of human civilization particularly in South Asia. The Mighty Buddha proclaimed that all animals deserve human compassion and violence in all forms should be shunned. Since the production of milk from cows need not involve violence, South Asian vegetarians consume milk and milk products freely. However they avoid eggs, at least traditionally. In other parts of the world there is a diet known as Vegan diet that involves avoiding all foods of animal origin including milk and eggs. The argument probably is that much commercial production of milk and eggs involves ill treatment of farm animals. It need not though, especially when cows are kept in every home as pets in small numbers and not in large diaries and if they are allowed to roam for grazing. The same goes for chicken if they are free range. In an older articl...