Why I am not a vegan

[YinYang]

I didn't read this entire thread, but I do want to share a little something I've learned over the years from spiritual authors which I lean towards. When Joel Goldsmith had his awakening when he was healed from a Christian Scientist, he walked into the building as someone who smoked and used alcohol (not saying smoking or using alcohol is good or bad), but when he walked out after that experience, he tried to light a cigarette and found that he just couldn't smoke it, then he ordered a drink and found that he couldn't drink anymore. There was no conscious decision that I am going to refrain from this or that from now on. That is a decision of the mind, and can possibly be viewed as suppression, which Ra calls deleterious to us, and it definitely falls into the "thou shalt not" category. The change happens from the inside out, some authors describe it as becoming of a "finer" substance, others call it "god-realization", "awakening", whichever you prefer. It is an experience which transcends the mind.

I regret to announce that I am not there yet, I am still a happy meat eater, but I have come across this "refrain from this" and "refrain from that" topic from many mystical authors over the years, and they all say it just doesn't work like that. I can't remember them all now, but these two I do remember:

Thoughts Are Things

We cannot cease immediately from the enslavement or slaughter of tree, bird or animal, nor from the eating of animal food. So long as the body craves and relishes such food, it should have it. When the body is changed by our spirit and belief to finer elements, the stomach and palate will reject meat of every description. It will not abide the taste or smell of slaughtered creatures. When the spirit settles these matters it does so definitely and forever. Man’s error in the past has often been that of endeavouring to spiritualize or change himself of his own individual will into higher and finer conditions. To this end he has enforced on himself and others fasts and penances, and abstinence from pleasures which his nature craved. He has never by such methods saved himself from sickness, decay and physical death. He has never by this method regenerated or renewed his body. He has lost his body eventually even as the glutton and drunkard lost theirs.

The ascetic has not trusted in the Supreme to raise him higher in the scale of being, but in himself and his own endeavour. This is one of the greatest sins, because it cuts such a person off temporarily from the Supreme and the life, the Supreme will send when trusted. There is no way out of any sin, any excess, any injurious habit, but through an entire dependence on the Supreme Power to take away the gnawing, the craving, the desire peculiar to that habit. Otherwise the man may seem reformed outwardly. He is never reformed inwardly. Repression is not reform.

The bigot of every age and creed has been the person thinking he could of himself make himself an angel. Such belief makes the man stand still in his tracks. The Supreme is always saying, “Come to me. Demand of me. Find me in all created things and then I shall be ever sending you new thoughts, new things, new ideas, new element which shall change your tastes, your appetites–which shall gradually take away grossness, eliminate gradually fierce, insatiate, lawless desire and hurricane of passion, and bring to you pleasures you cannot now realize.

The Art of Meditation

Frequently the question of diet in relation to meditation is raised. Is there any special diet which, if followed, will enhance one's spiritual capacity? Are certain foods to be avoided by the aspirant on the spiritual path? Should one refrain from the eating of meat? At every stage of our unfoldment we are tempted to believe that something we do or think in the human realm will help us in the development of our spiritual awareness. This is a false assumption. On the contrary, it is the development of our spiritual awareness that changes our everyday habits and mode of living.

As the aspirant progresses along the spiritual path, he may find himself eating less and less meat and, ultimately, may reach the point of being unable to eat any meat at all. Let us not, however, believe that there is virtue in some act of omission or commission, that some form of material sacrifice will increase our spirituality. Spirituality is developed through the reading of spiritual literature, the hearing of spiritual wisdom, the association with those on the spiritual path, and through the practice of meditation. The kingdom of God is found by inner realization. The outer transformation in one's dietary habits is a direct result of an inner spiritual grace; it is a result of the spiritualizing process taking place in consciousness. Abstaining from the eating of meat is not a means of developing inner spiritual grace; but the development of inner spiritual grace leads to the renunciation of such things on the outer plane.