Yes he does, according to his partner Kim Eng.
It’s such a curious question isn’t it: “Are spiritual people, truly enlightened people, vegetarians?” And the answer is clearly “not necessarily.”
If you look at the great spiritual masters, there’s no common theme with regards to meat eating. Buddha wasn’t rigid about it and said it was okay if you were offered it, the Dalai Lama follows this path and is vegetarian at home but will eat meat if away.
Jesus fed the 5000 fish and loaves which he magically produced. Jesus said “What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.” Matthew 15:11. And “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear.” Luke 12:22
And enlightened master Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, of “I AM THAT” fame, had no issue with meat eating or even smoking. Here’s an excerpt from I AM THAT…
Q: My body influences me deeply. In more than one way my body is my destiny. My character, my moods, the nature of my reactions, my desires and fears — inborn or acquired — they are all based on the body. A little alcohol, some drug or other and all changes. Until the drug wears off I become another man.
M: All this happens because you think yourself to be the body. realise your real self and even drugs will have no power over you.
Q: You smoke?
M: My body kept a few habits which may as well continue till it dies. There is no harm in them.
Q: You eat meat?
M: I was born among meat-eating people and my children are eating meat. I eat very little — and make no fuss.
Q: Meat-eating implies killing.
M: Obviously. I make no claims of consistency. You think absolute consistency is possible; prove it by example. Don’t preach what you do not practise.
Similarly, here’s what Ramana Maharshi had to say on the subject:
M: Habit is only adjustment to the environment. It is the mind that matters. The fact is that the mind has been trained to think certain foods tasty and good. The food material is to be had both in vegetarian and non-vegetarian diet equally well. But the mind desires such food as it is accustomed to and considers tasty.
D: Are there restrictions for the realised man in a similar manner?
M: No. He is steady and not influenced by the food he takes.
Eckhart Tolle sees life as one dynamic whole; an inter-connectedness, an inter-action, oneness. Life eats life, everywhere…
I saw on TV the other day, whales hunting. They pincered a shoal of fish and then came from underneath to catch thousands in one mouthful. Does that make a whale evil?
Having had my head into nutrition for over 20 years, I’m uncomfortable from a health point of view with pure vegetarianism (and the dairy industry is crueler than the meat industry so I’m told by vegans).
Interestingly, I’ve seen Eckhart Tolle dodge this question many times in seminars and TV interviews. He just advises to…
Be present with whatever your food choices are and then the right food choice will happen for you… it needs to come from within rather than as something from without.
This view is perfectly echoed by non-physical beings Abraham, channeled by Esther Hicks…
Imagine if you could let being aligned be your first priority — a lot of vegans would be inspired to a lot of eating that their veganism would not allow, but the source within them would call them toward.
— Abraham-Hicks
Yet another echo of the same perspective from Adyashanti:
Safransky: Could killing animals to eat them come from wholeness?
Adyashanti: Sure. Life is killing. If we eat a vegetable, we’ve killed it. If we eat an animal, we’ve killed it. To be a living organism is to kill. There is no life without death. When we die, we’re going to be nutrients for something else.
I don’t see life as “anything goes,” but I have seen wholeness move through different people in different ways. That’s why I’m always talking about action that comes from wholeness, not from division, nor rejection, nor grasping, nor pushing away. What motivates us when we’re not pushing or grasping, not relying on conditioned concepts of right and wrong, good and bad? Is there something else that can move us? And what is that? Action that is an expression of a clear and undivided state of consciousness is what the Buddha meant by “right action.” To exercise right action we must be functioning from a place outside of all egoic self-interest. We must be awake within the dream and be able to express that perspective.
The take-home message…
…from these spiritual masters is clear: Be whole, then see what you do.
People’s pre-judgement on the basis of this issue would be detrimental to their own enlightenment. Because if you saw as Eckhart does, life as oneness, then you would probably also not be overly concerned about any particular FORM, as all the forms are continuously morphing and changing. In fact, there is only life and it is ONE life, there is no death anywhere to be seen! And… life eats life, everywhere. My cat isn’t evil for eating mice.
What do you think? Do you think vegetarians are more spiritual? Please let us know by leaving a comment below.
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Just came across this. Wanted to post.
I was a vegan for a while, then started working out and studying health related material.
Health food in general is a tricky subject and relies on studies of which change from time to time ie. the protein combining myth.
You can live on a vegan diet just fine. B12, which is the one vitamin that plant sources generally lack, can be gotten from nutritional yeast. A plant source.
Vitamin C is what is used to make collagen, your body’s most abundant protein. Apparently your body makes it when needed. The same with Vitamin A which can only be gotten from animal sources in it’s already digested form (there are 2 forms of Vitamin A). However; the body makes it when needed and converts what you eat into a usable form. Of course, there are other studies that say the opposite.
Really, you don’t “have” to kill animals and you should try not to whenever possible (think of eating your dog etc.).
The cow story that someone posted was kind of funny and a bit juvenile. We are not primates or animals running around by instinct alone and fending for ourselves. Only under severe conditions and ignorance does that really happen. Be bigger then that and don’t take it out on every cow you see. Prejudice much? (just kidding)
I eat mostly plant based diet, but include marine collagen and the occasional egg sourced from practices that don’t promote cruelty and a b12 supplement. That all you really need. Check out Black Cumin seed oil. Plants have a a lot to offer. I also do calisthenics and am gaining muscle through my plant based diet.
The point is Eckhart doesn’t have to eat meat, but takes the “non-stance” that it’s fine. the issue is we still have be somewhat discernible and use our intellect to make choices as we go about our day to day lives. The “not eating factory meat” may just be a thought that we can discard “or” it may be a thought/conclusion we’ve come to through research and experience that we can keep.
It also takes some will power and self discipline (which I guess doesn’t exist so can’t be disciplined)
Really it’s up to yourself and what you choose to do. I think Eckhart has some good things to say and he doesn’t judge which we can probably do in return. On the other hand, he is a spokesman for enlightenment and has sold millions of books, so he might actually be the one to set a better example on the subject of eating our friends.
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Most research today points to the benefits of plant-based eating. Eating animals and their secretions is ridiculous if you have the resources to eat a whole plant-based diet. The fact that some of these “gurus” eat is it because they apparently have not done much reading, or choose to eat what they like rather than what is ethical and humane.
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Hi John, thanks for your comment. Much as he’d like to, Michael feels he can’t safely recommend a vegan diet as a long term proposition — there are too many red flags. He has a more indepth article on the topic here:
Best wishes,
James
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Dear Michael,
People fail in droves on non vegan diet and regain their health on a vegan diet and I see it all the time as a healer. Video arguing one side was just against the book arguing the other side. Peace and love.
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Dear Michael, here is the vegeterian myth book that you promote debunked. I also suggest that you read books such as “How not to die” by Michael Greger. “End of heart disease” By Joel Fuhrman. Enjoy the video debunking the vegeterian myth book.
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Hi Paul,
Very interesting, yet people fail in droves on the vegan diet. Of course if you put up a video arguing one side it looks convincing because there is no counter argument. If you look at the people who promote vegan diets they do not look healthy in general. Like the PCRM, they are all skinny, not what you typically see in hunter-gatherers.
Videos like this that give quick counter punch answers to cherry picked claims are disingenuous. You have to dig deep into every single argument and review counter-evidence etc. The whole thing is a giant puzzle but for me, until we know why people FAIL then it’s not viable. Many red flags. Even some vegan advocates acknowledge there are issues.
I wish there were easy answers. I wanna be a Koala bear… where’s the eucalyptus leaves :-)
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I know this sounds stupid, but I just wanted to say it.
I’ve been vegan for 4 months now and been *trying* to lose weight. I’ve started counting my calories and take only about 1000 kcal/day and still I’m not going down (I went down a few kgs in the beginning, but then it stopped), in fact in the last few weeks I’ve been going up (sometimes I eat more than 1000 kcal, up to 2000, but still I shouldn’t go up in weight, wtf!).
Just wanted to share my story, I know it doesn’t matter.
Also B12 is really cheap, and btw apparently B12 does not occur naturally in meat anymore, B12 comes from a bacteria which is found in the wild, but factory farmed meat does not contain it, so it’s injected into the meat. So apparently meat eaters too take a supplement whether they know it or not O.O
Thanks for the blog post, I don’t agree with the opinions expressed, but I’ve always been into spiritual topics and I appreciate the compilation of takes from different masters.
I watch a lot of Mooji and appreciate him even though I do not really understand his teachings, but his patience and compassion is admirable to say the least.
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Hi Michael, I’ve read your post and I greatly admire the works of Eckhart Tolle & Adyashanti. However, there are so many flaws in the arguments presented here that I was compelled to speak.
1) Lions don’t have a choice in the matter of food. They can only eat animals. On the other hand, we humans have a choice. Are lions evil for eating meat? No, because they don’t have a choice. Are humans conducting evil behavior when eating meat? Yes, because we do have a choice – we can choose to eat plants and not take the life of a being that clearly feels fear, pain and joy just like us.
2) We don’t eat meat for survival – let’s be honest – we kill these animals for taste.
3) Scientifically speaking, vegan diet is the healthiest. Meat and dairy are strongly linked (without any doubt) to diabetes, cancer, heart diseases, osteoporosis, arthritis and much more. This has been proven by tens of thousands of research studies.
4) There is no “humane way” to kill an animal. The way to determine whether something is “humane” or not is to ask yourself if you would want the same thing done to you.
5) What all these spiritual teachers (who I admire greatly for their work) have is called “Speciesism” – the belief that humans are superior to animals and can thus use them in any way we see fit. Humans and animals are different, but when it comes to feeling physical pain and fear, there is no difference between us.
Introspect and you will find that the “circle of life” way of looking at things is an excuse to please our taste buds. Veganism is about minimizing pain and suffering of as many beings as possible.
“Until one has loved an animal a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.” – Anatole France
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Hi Shay, I’m James, Mike’s brother. Thanks for your comment. I think I can safely say that both Mike and I would love veganism to be “the way.” Unfortunately, it isn’t that simple. Please check out this article:
Best wishes,
James
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