Three Short Life-Shifting Stories

Those that practice Ahimsa or Veganism; causing no harm or suffering to any sentient being, believe they have found the essence of our true nature and existence. 

At the core of Veganism is Mindfulness. A Kindness sensory state of awareness.

Vegan Spirituality is Ahimsa and Mindfulness rolled into One. This practice leads to a divine consciousness, like being able to watch yourself in a movie with a full awareness of your actions, thoughts and behaviors. Thus, monitoring your level of loving kindness.

Ahimsa is most prevalent with the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain traditions as the guiding principle of nonviolence toward all living things.

The practice of Ahimsa has many names and is a universal concept used as a core principle for Self-Realization. It honors the Sacredness of 

Life and is believed is the essence of our humanity. An essence that connects every soul of life. 

Those that practice the Jain religion are noted for wearing masks as to avoid breathing in bugs and carry hand brooms to whisk away insects from harm. At the very least, this most striking behavior of devout practitioners demonstrates a compassion for all life and its practice is enlightening. 

This takes the concept of animal rights to a whole new level, especially our consciousness to consider not stepping on or killing bugs. This shifts ones discernment when we ask, “Does the life around us have Less Moral Rights than Human Animals?” Have these Jains gone too far or have other religions not have gone far enough to understand compassion?

At the very least, an Ahimsa practice allows for the consideration of non-violence in our lives and at best liberates suffering.

At the core belief of most religions, one aspires to be a “Spiritual Person” and an instrument of peace to God’s creations. Regretfully we forget that all of us are here for one purpose, to help each other. This is why there are so many of us. We all fall short of this aspiration, and some take a detour because of our experience of incarceration, suffering, torture and murder of animals. The pain and suffering that we cause upon other animals has a violent effect upon humanity and our individual peace. Has our spiritual awakening evolved us enough to be aware of the harm we perpetuate against life and self?

These are the questions of Lisa Levison of the Interfaith Vegan Coalition that provides a foundation of sage wisdom, stating we become what we consume mentally, physically and spiritually. To experience this groups’ devotion to a higher loving existence is transformational.

Our imperfect selves stumble on the spiritual path, trying to walk the talk, and err in our pursuit of living a spiritual life of kindness and compassion. This is most apparent when being complicit with the suffering of other animals, as an inconvenient truth and denial of their living hell. 

This is where the awakening happens, giving us lessons we need to learn, so we can show up in our lives. If our holy body temple is a graveyard of abject torture & suffering of death, it impedes our Spirituality.

It is awakening to accept ourselves and others, especially our spiritual teachers, without judgement wherever they maybe on the spiritual path. A great spiritual teacher has sailed through life’s storms and has found a safe harbor to take refuge. This is their teaching. Therefore, the imperfections of our spiritual teachers maybe the lessons we need to learn and why the teacher shows up in our lives to straighten out our spiritual path. 

So, there is discernment that the student must take in opening up one’s spiritual self to the teaching from another. This is true and apparent with how the spiritual teacher honors their temple body and the bodies of other sentient beings. 

SCIENCE, VEGANISM, COMPASSION, ALIVE

As I journey through this life, my job, my profession, my calling, is to be kind. It is my privilege to provide an open heart, a listening ear and willing hands to every person and creature that I meet. 

As a physician, I truly want to do no harm…I know kindness is the source of all true healing and that everyone is doing the best they can. 

I know that every situation, every thought, every moment offers me another chance to be kind - and I don't want to waste a single one…

Michael Klaper, M.D.

In 1987 I heard two vegan icons speak; Dr. Michael Klaper, M.D. and Diet for a New America author John Robbins. In that aha moment, I transitioned from vegetarian to a vegan lifestyle and never looked back. I was so moved by Dr. Klaper’s moral compass and wisdom that appeared to come from the compassion of all major religions. 

He removed the cloud with a vison of living a life without causing harm to all animals (including human) and yielding a life of peace. For the first time, I saw the disconnection and incongruence of tradition, belief, culture in relation to living a spiritual life. Especially the eye opening mass murder and torture in the animal agriculture industry. 

This man of science, lives a life and lectured on the core principle called Ahimsa; “Doing no harm to ourselves, the animals, and the planet.” In that awakening moment, I made the connection that our diet is a spiritual practice of living a life of love.

Dr. Klaper opened my heart to Ahimsa, the honoring of every breath, of every creature, for the sanctity of life, that wants to love and be loved. 

Just like a dog or cat which is no different than a cow or a chicken, that can suffer or give love.

His wisdom made me realize how vile or immoral most think it is to eat a dog or cat, almost akin to cannibalism but incongruently no disdain against eating a lamb, goat, pig, chicken or cow? 

He revealed a truth of the animal slaughter industry’s lies and brainwashing us to believe we must have animal products for good health, while hiding the abject suffering that is hidden from the public. Further, animals can be marginalized and demeaned into an enemy and hunted or commodity and treated with cruelty, even though they suffer like any human animal. 

Future generations and history will question how intelligent humans could objectify any sentient being as a commodity, without a reflection of our own will to live without incarceration, suffering, and murder? 

The attributes of religion fail miserably in an animal based food society. There is absolutely no relevance to the sanctity of life when it is based on killing sentient beings. For, “We are all animals, that strive to live and love.” There is nothing more hypocritical then praying over an animal’s body parts, chewing the flesh off the bones and not considering your body becoming a graveyard of abject torture, and murder. 

Ahimsa is a cornerstone of the Vegan lifestyle that embraces compassion for an awakening of social justice and universal compassion for this miracle of life. No one says it more succinctly than Judy Carman's latest book, Homo Ahimsa. It is a manifesto of holy messages of different traditions with the force and enlightenment of a New New Testament, of a deeply informed New Scripture. It is a must read for anyone that wants to understand human enlightenment and survival. Homo Ahimsa: Who We Really Are and How We’re Going to Save the World 

Www.VeganBuddhism.com by Alan Dale, a Buddhist Lama, brilliantly bridges spirituality for a divine way of life with many stories about the awakening practices for the sanctity of life through the eyes of the Buddha. 

VEGAN SPIRITUALITY nurtures our awareness of how we consume, act, react, think, and behave creating a sacred reality. It is an evolution from fear, greed, hate to loving kindness. Veganism is the highest exchange of Sunlight Energy into our Being. It is a true blessing and an ideal spiritual path that bestows compassionate kindness on all of life and is the key to an Enlightened Existence. What you consume, consumes you. 

Namaste Vegan Love

By Frank Lane - www.UnitedVegan.com - The Vegan PopeTM

An animal that eats another animal is an Animal Cannibal. 

But the delusion is that most humans do not see their kinship with other animals. Most persons do not identify as being an evolved animal. 

Humans are evolved animals, called (Homo sapiens) a species of highly intelligent primates. They are the only extant members of the subtribe Hominina and—together with chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans—are part of the family Hominidae (the great apes, or hominids). 

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) – defines speciesism - the assumption of human superiority leading to the exploitation of animals. 

Why would you eat a cow, lamb, or pig, but not your dog or cat? Do you feel superior to less intelligent animals? What about races, religions, ethnicities? When we give one group a greater right to impose suffering upon another, we diminish our own worth because we are all animals.

It is our speciesism, a prejudice of one’s species, that blinds our perception of being a human animal, as Homo Sapiens. Humans have created a mental separation of species, all driven by man’s ego of perceived superiority and out of fear to dominate the weak for control. 

We are all animals and when human animals eat other animals they become Animal Cannibals. But most are in complete denial of this fact. It is only our ego that doesn’t see humans as animals. Our religious traditions have created eons of illusions of separation, speciesism, and uses imposed suffering upon all life to control a moral imperative of superiority. This is the Great Illusion, a psychological warfare to control the masses. 

Humanity marches along, entranced by the Pied Piper’s flute and act, to lead the blind to death. For not unlike the slaughter industry, this is really a reflection of the internal slaughter and disease brought on by an animal based diet. Most likely a carnivore will die a violent death from an animal diet related disease, like diabetes, heart disease or cancer.

Dr. Will Tuttle, the renown vegan spiritual teacher and author of the seminal book; World Peace Diet advocates the practice of Ahimsa to evolve, past addiction, to recognize the suffering of others and compassion for sentient beings. 

Animal agriculture is responsible for mass suffering, disease and death of life on Earth. There is nothing spiritual about having to kill another animal or the environment, especially when there is no human requirement for animal foods.

Making our body a graveyard of abject slavery, torture and murder of non-human animals is reprehensible. The penalty is stiff. This is the driving force of climate change and is causing the demise of humanity as explained, in the White Papers by Dr. Sailesh Rao at www.ClimateHealers.com.

The magnitude of these claims beg for some type of reconciliation and understanding. Spiritually, I am dumbfounded by the rationality of human behavior to commit a holocaust of animal slaughter as “Normal, Necessary, and Natural behavior” as so stated by Dr. Melanie Joy, deeply questioning the prevailing agriculturally based industry.

“Melanie Joy's work has the potential to revolutionize how we think—and, therefore, to transform how we treat each other, animals, the environment, and ourselves.” – Moby

He who has the gold makes the rules and herds of animals were the investment of the wealthy. Wealth dictates the philosophy of a society and has always been in conflict with social good and equality. So, what if 80% of all diseases are diet related, when addiction to flesh, fat, and sugar builds greater wealth. 

But intelligence always outperforms greed. Some of the world’s greatest minds were vegetarian; Pythagoras, St. Anthony of Egypt, Leonardo da Vinci, Mahatma Gandhi, Franz Kafka, Mary Shelley, John Harvey Kellogg, and Leo Tolstoy.

Even the devout Christian authors  Arthur Poletti who wrote the merciful and compelling book GOD IS A VEGAN and Kent Maurer who wrote GOD IS VEGAN warns, especially all religious leaders to take heed of causing death to God’s creations.

In the garden with Adam and Eve they quote the Bible when God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. – Genesis 1:29

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; - Genesis 2:15-16

When Adam and Eve lived in the garden of Eden, they only ate fruit and vegetables. The last time I checked, only potatoes have eyes. Fruits and vegetables don’t eat other living things. So, it is probably safe to say that Adam and Eve followed a vegan lifestyle. 

Einstein’s intelligence found its way to leaving animals off his plate.

As Einstein said, “A Society can be judged on the way it treats its animals.” Although Einstein became vegetarian for health reasons, it is surmised his genius saw the cause and effect and the interconnectedness of all life. 

Charles Darwin also saw and projected that man evolved from Primates and the link between animals and human animals. This caused the great debate of what diet was acceptable to God. 

Man really got it wrong when we started to Sacrifice humans and animals for favor with God. For every action has an opposite and equal reaction, physics tells us. So, think about the horror of slaughterhouses. Animals must think humans are the devil. For most religions, suffering was the demarcation of what would be a suitable sacrificed to God. 

Einstein’s intelligence rejects cruelty to animals, which led him to a vegetarian diet. He saw animal cruelty as an extension of our pain and suffering. Many believe this was his realization to a vegetarian diet.

Einstein said, “I have always eaten animal flesh with a somewhat guilty conscience,” he once professed in a letter. He largely agreed with the moral motivations behind vegetarianism and finally in his later life was able to comply. Einstein’s genius solved many problems of math and physics and created the foundation of theoretical physics that the world functions on, no wonder he turned vegetarian.

You smell like what you eat and drink. But we get desensitized to our own odor. Others smell you, but you don’t smell yourself. If you are listening to a spiritual teacher that eats animal flesh and their bodily excretions, the breath is noticeably putrefying and smells of death. If you cannot smell it, you are most likely complicit.

Awaken to the fact that it matters if the mouth that delivers the spiritual teaching was complicit masticating an animal’s flesh and stealing a mother’s milk. 

It is the spiritual teacher’s evolution of awareness with lifestyle, and compassion for the holocaust of animals that makes her exalted as a teacher.

It is a simple IQ test. If the killing and eating of sentient animals, including sea life is not alarming, we fail the test. Captain Paul Watson of the nonprofit environmental organization, the Sea Shepherds put their lives on the line to stop the illegal overfishing of the Oceans because, “If we let the Seas Die, we Die”, says this vegan advocate. Captain Watson “Smells a dead fish” and is horrified by our Oceans being raped of sea life without any ecologic reasoning.

Some people have such a developed sense of smell they can differentiate between an herbivore and an a carnivore. For the most part our sense of smell gives us information about someone subconsciously. This is why you may have a “Bad Feeling” about someone, it is their odor. 

If someone smelled like animal flesh, your subconscious may consider you maybe the next meal!

These are the questions that require deep introspection from a lifetime of indoctrination from a culture of animal and fish slaughter horrors that have been removed from our consciousness.

This conundrum is not a religious, political, liberal, conservative or nationalistic issue. Is it an enlightening question to ask if you are complicit in the suffering and murder of other animals? Does our complicity of any suffering cause us to stumble to an awakened life?

The Interfaith Vegan Coalition ignites a unity of awareness:

· We are what we eat and when we ingest the violence of factory farming from animals from concentration slaughter camps, we defile our body as a holy temple.

· Veganism is the next step of our evolutionary journey to a more loving compassionate world and a self-actualized existence. 

· Going Vegan or Plantbased is the antidote to a violent and out of balance world.

· Animal Cruelty is in our face causing abject pain, torture, and suffering for animals and the people that eat them.

· Our silence to Animal Slaughter is related to our unconsciousness of unimaginable, global suffering and cruelty.

· There are three Realities, generated by what you consume; 

Mental, Physical and Spiritual, determining who we are. 

The quality of energy we put into our body, creates our quality of life. Everything has different qualities of light energy. Light is the highest form of energy and death the lowest in the cycle of life. When we consume the light from the Sun through plants, we become the light in the highest form of energy exchange. The worst exchange of energy is consuming slavery and death. We have become hostage to the clandestine meat, dairy, egg, and drug industry. This consumption and holocaust of death affects and controls the way we think and behave. 

“Real political and spiritual progress comes from the grass roots, not from the top down. As vegans, we already are the spiritual leaders of the coming more-awakened society. As the vegan movement continues to gather momentum, spiritual teachers who aren’t vegan will be increasingly ignored as hypocritical and out of touch.” Says Dr. Will Tuttle.