Is it possible to be spiritual and eat animals? || Acharya Prashant, on veganism (2017)

Acharya Prashant

‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant?  Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...    Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books?  Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~   Video Information: An interview with Kip Andersen on Veganism, 29.03.2017, Advait Bodhsthal, Noida, India   Context:   ~ Is it possible to be spiritual and eat animals?  ~ What are various views of religions?  ~ What is veganism?  ~ What spiritual information is available?  ~ Why do we allow our consciousness to be limited?    Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ .

Transcript

00:00Do you think it's possible to be spiritual and eat animals?

00:13No, it is not at all possible.

00:16It is just not possible.

00:20Why?

00:23Because to be spiritual is to simply know.

00:33The spiritual one would know who he is and what is happening through him.

00:47He would not be blind to what is kept on his plate.

00:52To be spiritual is to be not fragmented.

01:00One would then really know what is this thing called hunger,

01:06what is this thing called food,

01:09and what is this thing called food chain.

01:13One would just not open the can

01:21and take the flesh and munch it.

01:25One would know where the whole thing is coming from,

01:29coming from both in a physical way and in a mental way.

01:37When you know where the entire thing is coming from,

01:41it simply does not happen.

01:45You see, a spiritual man does not relate to the other

01:53in terms of body.

01:57It is something of the I.

02:02I often ask those who consume meat,

02:07instead of proceeding with a packaged product like meat,

02:13why don't you slaughter the thing yourself?

02:16And when you slaughter the animal yourself,

02:20why don't you know it fully even as you slaughter it?

02:27After all, even from a perspective of self-interest,

02:32if something is going into your body,

02:35it makes sense to know it fully.

02:40Why don't you look into its eyes as you slaughter it?

02:44And when you look into the eyes of an animal,

02:48and if you are really awake,

02:52you will only see your own deep innocence

02:56which might be hidden from you.

03:00It is impossible to see anything or anybody else

03:04when you really look around.

03:08And that thing that you look at

03:12and that which looks back at you

03:15is most prominently visible in the eyes.

03:20It is visible everywhere. It is visible even in a leaf.

03:23It is visible in the sand.

03:26It is visible in stone.

03:29But given the limits of our identification and consciousness,

03:34it is the most visible in the eyes.

03:37So look at the animal, pause, meditate for a while

03:43and then go ahead and slaughter it if you can.

03:46You will only be slaughtering yourself.

03:48I repeat, those eyes are your own primitive eyes.

03:54And when I say your own primitive eyes,

03:58that brings us to another interesting way of looking at it.

04:04You see, that which you call as man

04:14is divinity at the core.

04:17Then animal by evolution

04:27and intellectual by society.

04:39The animals that you see outside of you

04:43are all present within you as well.

04:51To really know an animal

04:55is to know that of yourself

04:59which remains hidden,

05:03suppressed beneath all the social conditioning.

05:07Have you looked at kids playing?

05:13If you look at kids playing and if you look at animals playing,

05:17you won't find much difference.

05:19In fact, human kids go along very well with animal kids.

05:24Later on, when we cover ourselves

05:31with a lot of acquired knowledge,

05:34with a lot of social conditioning,

05:37then the animal within us gets suppressed.

05:42And the more suppressed it gets,

05:44the more we live in frustration and sorrow.

05:51What does that tell us?

05:52That tells us that the more we are violent towards the animal on the outside,

05:57actually the more we are violent towards the animal inside of us.

06:03And if we are violent towards the animal inside of us,

06:05we cannot live in any kind of relaxation.

06:14I just returned from a learning camp.

06:19It was on the Himalayas.

06:22There we saw a lot of these jungles being hacked down.

06:26And I said, when man is hacking down these jungles,

06:32he is actually destroying the greenery within himself.

06:37When man is polluting the rivers,

06:41he is actually polluting that which flows within himself

06:46and keeps him wet from the inside.

06:51So you cannot have this misbehavior towards animals

06:59unless you are adamant that you will misbehave towards yourself as well.

07:03You are the universe.

07:07You look into the animal and you see yourself.

07:10Now how will you misbehave?

07:12You look into the animal's eyes

07:17and you find you are looking at a mirror.

07:19How will you misbehave?

07:23You pollute the river and you find that you are polluting yourself.

07:26Now how will you do that?

07:27And that is not a concept.

07:28If you really look at a river,

07:32you are reminded of something very very ancient within yourself.

07:36That is why you are attracted to the river.

07:38Have you ever wondered why men go to the forests and to the hills?

07:42Why you enjoy a waterfall so much?

07:46It is because the waterfall is you.

07:49It is because that pristinely clear gargle is your own.

08:02That is why you like it so much.

08:06That animal is your innocence.

08:09That animal is what you are if all language is taken away from you.

08:15And you are really craving to be that animal.

08:23That is why given the first convenient opportunity,

08:28we like to do away with our clothes.

08:32Have you seen how kids often resist clothes?

08:35Even if their mothers would deck them up,

08:39the moment they find an opportunity,

08:42they would just unbutton themselves and go around naked.

08:46That is the animal within us seeking expression.

08:51When you kill that duck,

08:54you are killing the kid within you.

08:56Because the kid identifies with the duck.

08:58The kid is the duck.

09:01The more you sit in a man-made place and have all this stuff on your plate,

09:09which is actually just meat,

09:13the more you are acquiescing with the society,

09:16the more you are identifying with the intellect,

09:20and the further you are going away from the rabbit and the squirrel within you.

09:29Even the lion, I don't want to be some kind of a species.

09:36Even carnivorous animals are alright.

09:40These jungles are very important to us,

09:49not because they provide us stuff,

09:52because they are what we are.

09:56When you bring down a tree,

09:58you have brought down a part of yourself.

10:02And having brought down a part of yourself,

10:04you have unnecessarily made yourself incomplete.

10:08From completion you have moved to incompletion.

10:11How can a spiritual man do that?

10:13Spirituality is about moving from incompletion to completion.

10:18And killing this, destroying that,

10:21is about moving from completion to incompletion.

10:26So it is not possible, not at all possible to be spiritual.

10:32And yet, a consumer of this, that,

10:38and I am not referring only to meat,

10:40I mean, when you raise crops,

10:44from a perspective of destroying them after their season and after their utility,

10:54it is much the same.

10:57In fact, if you are that kind of a vegetarian,

11:00it will not really take much of a push

11:05to turn you into a meat-eater.

11:10And that is why, you see, it is not uncommon.

11:14In fact, it is fairly common for vegetarians to flip into meat-eating.

11:19That which was not there cannot suddenly appear.

11:23The seeds of violence were there even when one was a vegetarian.

11:28And that is why upon persuasion and upon opportunity,

11:31one moves to meat.

11:35Vegetarianism or veganism

11:39cannot be a thought quality.

11:42It has to be something of the heart.

11:45You cannot give arguments in favour of it.

11:50It has to be a destroyer of all arguments.

11:54You are really a vegan

11:56if in spite of all arguments you are still a vegan.

12:01Tomorrow a body of evidence may arise which says that

12:04if you are a vegan, then such and such minerals and vitamins

12:08get deficient within your body.

12:10Now in spite of all that evidence,

12:13and that evidence might be scientifically accurate,

12:16but if in spite of that evidence you say

12:20I am what I am and I refuse to do that which is against my nature,

12:25then you are really a vegan.

12:28Because veganism is about having the right relationship

12:32with the world around you.

12:34Veganism in its essence is religion.

12:38You cannot just say I am a vegan.

12:41You are actually stating your religion when you say that.

12:47One does not look at it that way, but that's what it really is.

12:52To be a vegan does not feel pleasurable.

13:01I know this might disappoint you, but please.

13:05It does not feel like anything.

13:07In fact, to live rightly and to have a right relationship with the world

13:13is to gain freedom from various kinds of feelings.

13:18As long as one eats to get a certain feeling,

13:23the eating would always involve violence.

13:27So if you are promoting veganism,

13:31kindly do not promote a culture of feeling.

13:35Because all feeling is excitement.

13:39All feeling is experiential.

13:41All feeling is sensory and all feeling is fleeting.

13:45One does not live by his feelings.

13:48One cannot live by his feelings.

13:50One has to live by the truth.

13:54One feels a lot in his everyday life.

13:58And that feeling itself is man's hell and torture.

14:04Why do you enjoy sleep?

14:06You enjoy sleep because sleep is a cessation of all feeling.

14:11Sleep is a non-feeling.

14:13And that's why it's the best feeling.

14:17Being a vegan, I do not feel a lot of things that others feel.

14:23I do not feel tension.

14:25I do not feel excitement.

14:27And because I do not feel pleasure, I also do not feel pain.

14:32It's a beautiful silence.

14:34It's a lovely thing.

14:36And this love that I'm referring to is not a feeling.

14:40It's something far more deeper than feeling.

14:45I'm tempted to use the word mystical.

14:49But that has its own images and connotations.

14:52So I would rather avoid.

14:56Don't live by feelings.

14:58Don't live by images.

15:00Don't live by experiences.

15:03You go to any of the restaurants and they'll say,

15:08come, experience this new kind of food.

15:13Is this not new cuisine?

15:15Not really exciting?

15:18Now excitement, experience, feeling, emotion, titillation, pleasure,

15:24they are all words belonging to the same family.

15:27And as long as these words carry value in our mind,

15:35as long as these words carry value in our mind,

15:38man will not be able to be kind to himself or to the world.

15:47If excitement is a value, then there is a lot of value in hunting.

15:52If experience is a value,

15:58then it is always a new experience to kill a new species.

16:07Really understanding that is the highest value,

16:12that is the highest freedom.

16:16And if one does need to have a feeling,

16:19the feeling can be, must be, to be situated in that understanding.

16:28This feeling is love.

16:31That is the only thing that one wants, really wants,

16:34then it really is love.

16:35I want to understand.

16:37I want to live by my nature.

16:39I want to live simply, innocently.

16:41This want is love.

16:44Love obviously denotes wanting.

16:48But what is it that one wants?

16:51One needs to look very carefully into that.

16:54What is it that I am wanting?

16:57That which you want will decide your life.

17:01So want only the highest, nothing less than that.

17:06Do not want feelings, they are not the highest.

17:08Rather, a freedom from feelings.

17:12That does not mean killing the feelings.

17:14That only means that one is not a slave of feelings.

Category

Transcript

Recommended