The Reiki Cafe 

Hi,

I know some people in the Cafe are vegetarians, or vegans. Did you take this up for spiritual, health, or compassionate reasons? How has it impacted your spiritual life?

Roxy

Otoharo!

Roxy, our doctor put us on a brown diet in 1950. That is, no white flour only brown (whole wheat), no white rice only brown (whole grain rice), no white sugar only raw, etc. Beef was range fed only. Likewise, chickens were free range. Etc. The change in all of us, HUsband, daughter, and self was dramatic. All that was for health reasons.

Since the late 80's my friends and I have been moving toward no meat gradually, as a part of spiritual path. About 1998, I finally quit all meat. However, I eat eggs, and goat milk yogurt, and cheeses made from that. I raised my own hens and had natural eggs when living in Cathlamet. Now I have to trust cage-free.

The reason we do this is that our bodies are lightening and it is compatible to leave off denser proteins. We have to eat a lot of beans and rice or beans and corn bread to add protein. (beware perfume!)

My friend ate a bowl of ice cream as a treat for herself this week. She began to hear a thump, thump that was not her heart beat. It was strong. She kept asking what is that thumping and kept hearing "ice cream". Finally, she caught on that she was being answered. Ice cream is so loaded with artificial stuff, it throws the body out of shape so to speak. We eat frozen yogurt (which we make).

We are not claiming that it makes us more spiritual, it is just that our bodies have ways of telling us not to eat the stuff. And what to eat also.

finality

namaste roxy,
i have been a vegetarian for most of my adult life. i spent about a year eating only vegan foods- basically an experiment to see if i felt any healthier afterwards and found that my love for cheese won out over any strict dietary goals.
occasionally i will eat fish and once in a blue moon, (this winds up being like once every couple of years or so),
i eat some meat. i figure if i'm craving it that badly i must need it for some reason, and i dont believe in denying myself something i feel i need.
when i did my initial reiki cleansing i was physically unable to eat anything that wasnt raw. the cleansing period of 21 days where i spent eating trail mix thankfully ended and my appetite resumed. although i cant stand the sight of trail mix since then, i have been better about my eating. i will admit to cheese fries and strawberry milkshakes being my big weaknesses, though.
i do not like the energy associated with eating something that is dead. plus, i have seen live poultry crammed into cages like sardines. chickens living in their own feces and stepping on the dead bodies of other birds in the overcrowded cages. this is not something i wish to put into my body.
personally, i dont have a problem with eating the flesh of an animal for survival. if i were out in the desert i'd probably be hunting lizards and rattlesnakes. given the choices, though of all other things to eat in new york, meat would be my last possible choice.
i find i can focus better when i stick to a vegetarian diet. the mind seems calmer. perhaps this is only psychological? i dont know. either way, i am more comfortable not eating meat. it has been my way of life for nearly the past 20 years and for me, it works.

now, for some vegetarian haggis....
skywatcher crow.

Otoharo!

skywatcher crow,

I, too, use to eat meat occassionally. While I was in Texas this past winter, my sister deep fried chicken. It was so good smelling. I thought one little piece would surely not hurt me. Well, the whole next day I stayed on the pot!

finality

Hi Roxy, namaste ... :>)

I have been vegetarian for about twentyfive years. It happened gradually, I realised I dreaded meals until after the main course ... I also hated handling meat
Two main reasons:
l) I dont believe our systems are meant to cope with eating meat, unlike for example dogs, who are designed to be meateaters.
and more importantly
2) I dont feel I have the right for any animal to be killed in order for me to eat, it is unnecessary. Plus the conditions that animals generally are kept in (not all, I know) are inhumane. If I wanted to eat meat or fish, I would have to feel that I was able to go out and hunt that food for myself ... and I never could.
I do eat dairy produce, and free-range eggs.
Spiritually? I guess it ties in with the principles I try to live by. But it is personal, I never push my feelings on others .... unless they start to be obnoxious about my being veggie ... then I explain that I really cannot abide eating dead flesh ... usually makes them think again.
Love and light,
philanty

Hi Roxy, :-)

I have been a vegetarian & vegan for long periods in my life(up to 19-20 months sometimes) but then somehow I 've always gone back to eating meat(not red tho).I have been very confused and in alot of angst over it at different times in my life.

The reason for doing it was to help me on my spiritual path but I soon realized that 'compassion towards all sentient beings' was just as important to me.

However, as I mentioned above I often had to go back to meat for extended periods of time...see, my system does not tolerate dairy these days so I cannot afford to be a vegetarian...it's either vegan or meat eater...well, meat or just fish sometimes...

I have prayed for years to be shown the truth about vegetarianism as a prerequisite to attaining higher states of consciousness...And at different times different aspects of the truth have been revealed to me.So, sometimes I just had to go back to eating meat 'cause there was no point in being compassionate to animals while at the same time I was being cruel to myself(I was suffering by not eating meat at those times).

Even Jesus is quoted as saying(it's in the Gospels somewhere) that it is not what goes inside your mouth that defiles you but what comes out of it...Still, in Gnostic circles they maintain that Jesus was a vegetarian(or maybe vegan, not sure) and that he was teaching his disciples to be as well.

I recently went back to my vegan diet and altho I experience headaches and a drop in my energy levels, I want to stick to it because it helps me meditate and I feel calmer overall.

My feeling is that the only reason we humans find it difficult to stay off meat is fear and a strong attachment to our physical bodies and its desires.

Just my two Eurocents :-)

Love,

Emmanuelle xxx

Hi my journey with vegetarianism has been interesting. For many years I never enjoyed eat meat that much but did not know how to get adequate nutrition from a no meat diet so I continued to eat animals. then about 6 years ago my husband and I went on this diet to lose weight and cleanse, the diet was quite complicated, but briefly it consisted of only whole foods no red meat, no dairy, fish and free range eggs in the first two weeks only and also starting the day with lemon juice & warm water, different vitamin supplement s and vegetable juices. After 8 weeks my energy levels were sky high so I decided to adopt some of the principles of the diet cutting out red meat and dairy ( dairy always made me feel sick anyway), eventually this led me on a path of healthier eating and in time I began to feel I didn't want chicken or eggs and then in time again I dropped fish from my diet and became a complete vegan. (It was like my body was telling me you don't need this anymore)I was a complete vegan for 3 years. I felt being a vegan was one of the best things I have done as I felt a lot more clarity I felt spiritually it was the only choice for respect to all living things. (They deserve a right to live freely on this planet too). I felt I could tune into nature a lot more and when all that garbage left my system, of course my intuition increased. Then l got quite ill last year (non diet related) and lost a ridiculous amount of weight, I would have liked to stay vegan but no matter what I ate my body was telling me it needed something more. I started eating fish and free range eggs again. Today I eat what my body tells me too, which is basically vegan with eggs and fish. Spiritually I will never be able to eat meat again and dairy products repulse me ( unless organic) how can we drink milk when we see how cows are treated. They are locked up in tiny spaces, their babies ripped from them at birth or close too and put on milking machines for thier entire lives which is cut short when tragically after 2-3 years of being given milk producing hormones their milk dries up.

Oops I am getting a bit serious there but if you search the vegan websites you will find all kinds of interesting information on our fellow animal friends.

Love AND LIGHT
LADYBIRD.......

Otoharo!

I enjoyed your story. We have learned that cow milk is not digestible until it ferments. and goat milk is easier to digest. We routinely make goat milk yogurt. The goats are free range and very loved by their caretakers. It takes a lot of protein to compensate meat.

finality

Hi, i see it very simple-eating meat suports cycle of violence. Once you quit you are able to spiritualy grow further. Meat make us coming back to the material miserable forms.
BUT, I have a question-I am strict vegetarian since i was small child(somehow later on understood by my parents), but i feel very agressive sometimes toward entire meat industry and all what is going on with animals, how people use them to make things-like in SOYLENT GREEN. Even chicken that are vegetarian are going beserk because they are fed by animal bones. You know this whole world is very twisted place, and i really think there is no further spiritual develpoment If the cycle of violence continues. But, lately my husband told me something very interesting-that i am not ditached from that cyrcle of violence because i see it on daily bases and it hurts me a lot to see dead ducks in Chinatown or to see lobsters that are waiting to be boiled.i do not see it as MEAT-but DEAD ANIMALS, and it hurts me.
Vegeterianism is being recognised more and more and reachable to ewheryone, there are so many things you could enjoy beside meat, like gardenburgers, or morningStar burgers, you could add some daily juicing...and hey-you'll just feel great. I do not know how shamanisam and vegetarianism goes together, but I represent a thought that If you go to catch an animal yourself-do it, but this meat industry is unhealthy. I work at children cancer hospital in NYC, and I believe there is some connection to the meat and cancer. I just love animals and i would love to see people and animals living all together in peace, not eating each other.

Peace

lena

Otoharo!

lena, I share your feelings. I also desire to eat heirloom veggies, food that has not been altered. I am able now to live almost entirely on my own garden. That is truly a blessing. Even the garden is a trust, I can not own it as mine. Devas and such have more todo with it than I have. Almonds and walnuts (and nutritional yeast) are good protein foods. We have an influence when you make the choice.

finality

The site explains treating of food animals. So see it for yourself.

Have a Great Day

Lena

Hi Roxy

I too have considered in the past going 'veggy.' My initial reason was to avoid contributing to the killing of other life forms for any reason - then I thought on! Everything in nature competes with everything else for its survival. Insects eat microbes, birds eat insects,animals eat birds, plants jostle for space and nutriments and light, often killing or stunting each other in the process, Humans kill and eat the lot ( Did you know that plants 'scream' when cut or pulled from the ground according to scientific tests made with electrodes placed on them?) AND Hey! I was so pleased when the Chemotherapy killed the living cancer cells theatening my wifes life. Seems like taking life is a sad but profound thruth governing our life in this Earth dimension. Seems cruel but perhaps its all an illusion. Maybe we will all find out one day when we pass on to Spirit.

Light and Wisdom

geoff (tree)

Otoharo!

Roxy, I have replied before, but something came up last night that brought more to mind. Due to my age and all the time I spend in the garden, sometimes not protecting myself from the hot sun rays, my skin has become leathery, extremely so. I feel tiny bumps along the tops of both arms, the skin is thin and bruses easily, is dry and cracked. I also grow aloe vera plants indoors. It occurred to me that aloe vera would heal sunburn. I began using it only this week. I cut off a large arm and leave it on the toilet tank so it is ready at all times. I peel off the burrs, and skin the inner side, leaving about an inch bare. It is thick and stays moist for several days, then I expose another inch. That way I can treat myself many times daily. Last night after breaking through a recent block, I noticed my skin on my face, hands, and arms, look entirely different. If a picture of me had been taken yesterday, I would have looked twenty or thirty years older than I look this morning. Aloe vera is a part of my vegetarian approach to both diet and healing. Nature's way.

finality

Hi Geoff (Tree); I completely see what you mean, that we complement each other, that we depend on each other's energy, but I just feel not worth enough of someone dying because of me. I feel great as vegetarian. And, the best of all acording to PETA i save 83(at least) animal lives per year. Isnt that great knowing that If you buy less meat, or not buy it at all-you slowly make meat industry colapse...but that will happen, I hope so in my lifetime. In India for example there are many cities that are completely vegetarian. Animals are not being treated well, and being fed with unhealthy food, even chickens are being fed with animal bone components(that is not natural), at all because chickens are vegetarians-I mean vegans. So, entire meat industry is one very unhealthy legal inquisition, and in the future people would be ashamed of having carnivores ancestors. It would be for them like neanderthals for us...for I more and more see it in people. We have it both-animal and God in us.
I might be a bit disapointed in entire "civilisation" Matrix, but we have a lot of Seva(Service) to do. Yes, I know that plants feel, for I grow some plants in my apartment, but they do not have eyes.
Also, you could spend some time at PETA's website, and find out how animals are being treated in meat industry. Then, you might see how Western medicine is actually suporting that idea...because the more people are sick-they'll exist "Control"...i mean"Chaos". The same as in Church...If Satan converts, there will no be a purpose for Church's existance..so instead accents on Love and Life there is an input of Satan's omnipresence.
I wish for an animal liberation, and that animals and people could live together...I wish that sooooo much, all my life, and till the rest of my life.

Lena

Geoff,

Thanks for posting your message here and I firmly take a stand right beside you. I, too, have thought long and hard about this issue and come to many of the same conclusions that you have reached.

I realize that I can not live a single day without bringing some harm to some creature however unintended. And I am one that will go to great lengths to avoid killing even an insect.

What this has taught me is that all life is to sacred and is to be respected.

I am a part of this ecosystem, I am not above it.

All best,

Randy

Lena,

First let me say that I have a respect for you and your convictions regarding vegetarianism. But I, for one, do not share many of those convictions.

It pains me to see you talk of hopeing to collapse the entire meat industry. When I read this it tells me that while you feel you have a responsibility to protect and save the animals of the world, you cannot see past the industry and see the eyes of the farmers who will lose their family farms, the children and grandchildren of those farmers who may become homeless, poverty stricken and uneducated as a result of your wish. As one who lives in a rural part of the country I have seen this very thing happen.

Do you know what often happens when a farm is lost? Those many acres are usually bought up by developers who build as many homes as possible. These new urban developments increase the human population but in doing so they decrease the natural habitat of many species of animals. Trees are cut, underbrush is removed and many, many birds and animals die out. Those animals that move on into what natural area is left soon become overpopulated and when this happens they fight, kill and consume one another and stop reproducing until their population is once again under control - but fewer in number.

With less farm land, we have less crops to feed animals. We have overpopulation in humans which again take away the land and food from animals.

The point here is that every action has a consequence. This cannot be helped.

I agree with you that animals are not treated well. Many in unhealthy conditions. But the same can be said of many humans around the world. Animals are not treated with the respect they deserve, and this is true of many humans, i.e. persons who have differing views on vegetarianism.

Do you spare the life of a spider or mosquito? If not, how do you put the value of one existing life above that of another? Should all not be treated equally?

I don't understand how a vegetarian can preach moral ethics regarding animal life and then kill insects. And I don't understand how a vegan can smoke cigarettes after all the animal testing and animal products that go into the manufacturing of them. And surely all vegetarians must be against abortion, because abortion is the ending of a human life. There are many things I don't understand. But one thing that is perfectly clear to me is that I have much to learn and I won't have all the answers in this lifetime.

A wise shaman once said "to respect and connect with all of life we must think of ourselves as no better than the least of all creatures and no less than the Great Spirit." - We are all equal, we are all one!

With each meal I consume I say a prayer of blessing for the life that was given, plant or animal. I consider the sacrifice that has been made and I ask that I be found worthy to recieve this blessing and may the sacrifices I make be a blessing to others.

The connection that I feel to the universe is incredible because I take nothing for granted. I respect all of life and I consider it a great blessing to be a part of all and it a part of me.

I understand that some religions teach that man was created and given rule over all the animals of the earth. But that is not my path. I believe that we were all created equal and that life and death are a part of this existance.

By the way, try *looking* for they eyes of the plants you consume. You might just be surprised to find its heart as well. I've experienced both and you can too!

May we respect and connect with ALL things.

Peace,

Randy

Otoharo!

I read your profile and warmed to the facts of where you live. For three years I lived in Salisbury right in the midst of Amish. All my neighbors were Amish, their conveyances rode past every day. I shopped in a large market that was owned and supplied by Amish. I bought milk from a farmer. It was a very wonderful environment to live in. I also relate to your regard for all life. I enjoyed the book "Live as Though All Life ....." (I forgot the name). I predict that cattle will cease to be and I have no reason to say that, just a feeling. I am dedicated to organic farming practices.

finality

The book is "Live as Though All Life Matters".
finality

Nobody would be hungry If farm animals where not "produced" against the will of their parents and fed. Instead of new souls being produced for food and fed, the same food could feed the entire world. Also, I hope entire humanity will progress into spiritual path, so people could think of more humane jobs, as taking care of people...or maybe entire system , and all old orders would progress to more humane, where all animals and people would live without cycle of violence...But.....It might not happen too soon.Even though you would be surprised how many young people are for the change. People already are without jobs, so it is happening now, and we are responsible for our world creation, regarding karma, as well.
Peace dude

Hi Roxy

I have been a vegetarian all my life. I do eat yoghurt and occasional cheese. I have been blessed with good health, never had problems with proteins with my Hindu diet of pulses and beans. It is true that energy flows better through the body when the food we take in are simple and easy to digest. With Reiki and Yoga practice, the geenral advice is always do it on an empty to nearly empty stomach.

Mal