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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Sigh, all the great teachers are teaching that it is our opinions and views of right and wrong that take us away from peace. The ego wants right or wrong, but there is no such thing. Things are as they are. Life is a paradox, the answer is always both. Example creation versus evolution? Both, the creation is evolving. As for meat, for some it is healthy and for other not… what is more dangerous that killing an animal for it’s meat is to have such a strong opinion about things that are understood only at a mental level. How can you say anything about veganism if you have never tried it? The whole hour eyes is about defying mental constructs and honoring intuition. This means that a heavy meat eater with ideas about ‘red flag’ vegan diet will naturally be drawn to have faith in something that doesn’t make sense to his mind. Equally, a vegan for 20 years, who has probably build ego identification with her diet, will be called to eat meat to defy her mental concepts.
There is no right or wrong.. everything is set up in order to help us go beyond the mind and align with the heart. None of it is even real. So serious about such silliness. Just eat what your body wants and let others do the same. It is that simple. And enjoy what error food choice you are guided too, you’re allowed this too.
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Totally agree with your general sentiment, that it is concepts that block our inner guidance, although cause and effect apply. For example if someone does not have adequate B12, or choline, or retinol, or long-chain omega-3, then consequences will happen, sometimes irreversible. This happens despite the strongest belief in an inadequate diet. That’s why we will be guided to animal foods if we do not resist via concepts. One of the main pillars of veganism is the concept that meat eating is not sustainable, not kind to the Earth, wasteful, through the writing of people like John Robbins, but these ideas are a house of cards. So people cling to these concepts believing they are doing the right thing, are more evolved etc, but no, the inner wisdom has the whole picture.
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Don’t know if your aware of this but b12 is supplemented to the animals you consume. Why not get it from the source instead of filtered it through an animal that doesn’t want to be killed. Intuition has told me that animals don’t want to be killed considering their reactions before they are were as plants i don’t see reactions or any means for them to escape pain and suffering. If you were to place a carrot in a slaughterhouse for a week i know it wouldn’t suffer where as if you were to place an animal in its place i know it would suffer.
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Slaughterhouses/animal cruelty is a separate issue to whether animals are part of a natural human diet.
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Everything eats everything – the animals reflect the consciousness of humans back to them. Our world is a direct reflection of the density of our consciousness. Choosing to not cause harm and suffering to other sentient life forms (including plants) is part of the evolution of our consciousness towards greater harmony, peace and deeper compassion in our relationships with ourselves and all life. Take the DNA upgrade. You cannot be compassionate towards other life forms and then consciously cause suffering and harm at the same time, opposing energies. You are either harming or you are not. And the way I feel is that the path of least harm done, the lighter we live, the more our world will reflect that back to us because we are raising our vibrational frequencies in alignment with harmony and compassion and freeing ourselves from the denser planes of existence where suffering and separation exists. Our physiology is almost exactly the same as a frugivore. Plant-based, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds. Google images ‘carnivore omnivore teeth comparison chart’..
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You forgot one very important ancient knowledge “AHIMSA”- It means that do not hurt any life forms. To kill an animal is not the same than to kill a vegetables. Its totally different. And we do not know exactly what does it mean “Jesus feed the people with fish”. Its in the Bible also, what is the food for us ORIGINALLY. Then we should follow God’s words, to go back to the Golden Age. In this world is not easy to be different, that is a fact.
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I think the principle of ahimsa is very much misunderstood and misinterpreted. In the Lord’s prayer, Jesus bids us to allow “thy will be done” and I believe ahimsa is along these lines. To me it means do not force, cling or manipulate, but rather allow God’s will on Earth as it is in Heaven, Allow divinity, life to flow. The creative power is not with the physical mind but the higher mind which is unconscious to the physical. Hence “do not force” the physical mind to do what it cannot do. This principle is difficult to live by, it takes moving into faith, and that is very different to how 99.9% of people believe life works, So ahimsa means do not straight-jacket your creativity by using force of the physical mind, but allow the true creativity to flow. One cannot second-guess God, but we can align with the divine. The physical mind cannot even string a sentence together, and if we observe the physical mind’s process, we can see this very clearly: the physical mind simply receives and perceives the result of the creativity that happened unconsciously.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna urges Arjuna to go into battle, and tells him that everyone on this battlefield will be killed, every one of his friends and family. Quite a stressful moment for Arjuna who is beside himself with panic at what is unfolding. But Krishna does not say “do not kill” he says relax, it is already done, don’t split from life. It is separation that causes fear. Very difficult to really know and live it, but all spiritual teachings are ultimately about aligning with and trusting the unconscious creative life force.
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Ahymsa translates as non-harmfulness. All sentient beings value their own life and want to avoid harm. Ahymsa means having compassion for all sentient beings.
And Lierre Keith was NOT a vegan, she is just a shill for the meat industry. I can post a video of a radio interview she did where she says she was a vegan but she says “I binged on eggs and dairy whenever I had the chance.”
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What about the harm to yourself from eating a vegan diet? LK a “shill for the meat industry”? I find that statement absurd. She binged because her 99.9% vegan diet was lacking nutrition. That is her point. Have you read her book?
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A healthy plant based diet is the healthiest diet. Dr. T. Colin Campbell, Dr. Joel Fuhrman, Dr. Neil Barnard, Dr. John McDougall all have several best selling books based on science about plant based diets. Their books are based on science not on vegan ideology.
Lierre Keith says that agriculture is destroying the planet…. Yes, ANIMAL agriculture is destroying the planet. Watch Cowspiracy
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I have not read Lierre’s book yet but I have listened to her on youtube. She says an acre of grass can feed as many cows as an acre of corn. Both feed 2 cows she says… That is like saying a pound of broccoli has the same amount of calories as a pound of corn flakes… Also cows cannot be grazed sustainably, wild animals eat small amounts of grass and move on, they don’t destroy the environment. But grazing cows will eat EVERYTHING, which also destroys habitat and diversity of natural species. Tax payers have to pay to re-seed the grass in public lands which cows are allowed to graze. This is an additional subsidy. They say that over 90% of the forests are gone. This is largely due to clearing land for animal production.
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Thank-you for this article! Well done! This is exactly what I was looking for and confirms what I already FELT was right for me!
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Great!
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If killing animals is the same as killing plants, then go work one day picking vegetables and one day in a slaughter house. Killing animals requires hardening your heart.
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Imagine you’re a hunter on the Serengeti, need to feed your family. The herd of wildebeest is one million animals. Now how do you feel? We must separate the issue of killing animals for food, from the practices of the industry, and focus effort where it needs to be focused. Vegan diets aren’t working, the dairy industry is more cruel than the meat industry I am told by vegans, and the mass of land on Earth is suited to grazing, not growing vegetables. We need to have a bigger picture of nature and how we fit, we need to create edible ecosystems where life can flourish as well as provide… that is not the vision of large scale agriculture, when vast areas that could support abundant life are destroyed to plant grains, when any life that enters whether insect or weed is killed by chemicals which pollute. We need to maintain and sustain ecosystems. Zoom out and see the big picture. Have a vision, a holistic vision that works, and then perhaps you’ll see a better way. Veganism isn’t it. I don’t like the way the meat industry is, and the roots of cruelty are economic. Consumers go for low price which leads to abuse of people and animals. Neither do I like forests killed for grain, or palm oil, or small mammals and nesting birds chewed up by combine-harvesters, or chemicals killing insects. It’s all very short-sighted. Take a good look at permaculture, which addresses every issue of how we live and interact with nature in a way that does feel good. Have a look at the video on this page: http://permaculturenews.org/2012/06/01/zaytuna-farm-video-tour-apr-may-2012-ten-years-of-revolutionary-design/
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