Veganism = higher consciousness ?

[ottantaventi]

In your opinion, is it necessary to embrace veganism to reach higher levels of consciousness ?

ciao
alexander

[free spirit]

No, but I think it helps.

[Erin Pavlina]

It's not necessary to be vegan to reach a higher level of consciousness. But I've noticed a big improvement to my vibration when I went vegan. It probably has to do with the fact that my compassion increased, my conscience became clearer, and because I was no longer ingesting the emotional residue that eating slaughtered animals contains.

[escapee]

It's not necessary to be vegan to reach a higher level of consciousness. But I've noticed a big improvement to my vibration when I went vegan. It probably has to do with the fact that my compassion increased, my conscience became clearer, and because I was no longer ingesting the emotional residue that eating slaughtered animals contains.

I can attest to that, My behavioral changes (the feeling of connection to all beings) by going from omnivores diet -> Vegan diet -> "semi"-vegetarian is striking! Maybe it has to be with hormone things

[C33]

I am not a vegan, but I admire the ethics they represent.

I am a lacto-ovo vegetarian, and I am happy to be in the world, I feel more connected to animals because I can look at them in the eyes now, knowing that I am not involved in killint them, even though, I still have to be even more conscious of my impact on nature and the welfare of animals: I am not 100 % sure about my beauty products, I try to eat only organic eggs and dairy products, that are produced the more ethically as possible, but I am not 100% on target on that.

I believe that people who are vegans have a higher consciousness, to the extent that veganism is a symptom of their compassion and care about the world, and it aligns with other such acts.

[Michelle]

:-) I have no problem looking animals in the eyes knowing I will eat them. I even tell them how much I appreciate being able to enjoy their yummyness.

If we as humans know what we are getting into before we incarnate, it stands to reason that animals do, too. My life would be less nice (and IMHO less healthy) without meat.

That said, I completely understand those who choose not to eat meat. Very admirable indeed.

[Erock]

Veganism might be an effect, but it's not a cause.

[Erin Pavlina]

Originally Posted by Michelle

If we as humans know what we are getting into before we incarnate, it stands to reason that animals do, too. My life would be less nice (and IMHO less healthy) without meat.

Animals know what they are getting into. Doesn't mean they want to be tortured and slaughtered.

Back during slavery, black people also knew what they were getting into when they incarnated. They were brave souls who were willing to allow themselves to be harmed physically and emotionally in order to help people wake up to the fact that slavery was wrong.

"One day men will look upon the murder of animals the same way they now look upon the murder of men." - Leonardo Da Vinci

[Akashic_Librarian]

Amen to that Erin!

[theknightwhosaysni-NI]

I've ask this question to a man of high consciousness. He is not vegan nor even vegetarian. He actually never thought of stopping eating meat. He is not young, does not speak English and is very little aware of the "light workers" community, although to me he is what we call a light worker.

He answered me : "if you think you can't raise your awareness and counsciousness if you eat meat then you are wrong". He told me to keep a balanced diet (which is something obvious to do), and not to go against what makes me happy. Show gratitude for everything you have to eat.
So I guess if we feel bad about being vegan, it is not good. Better to enjoy what we eat and do in life.
If we truly feel better being vegan, then it is a good thing to follow that feeling.

Now I don't put any label on my diet. I don't say vegan or omnivore or anything. I eat reasonably well and balanced and what I enjoy. I almost never eat meat, eggs or dairy but that's just because I feel it this way. If one day I want to eat meat, I will do it, with respect to the animal that was killed for that.
Same with plants, I eat them with respect for their lives that were taken for that. (It is good to remember that plants are living too. I feel compassion for them too. Example : When men kill an old tree that is living for 30 or more years I feel sad for it like if it was an animal.)

[marky]

michelle's comment about being able to look an animal in the eyes and tell them how she is looking forward to eating them, and their yummyness...well, its disturbing, but wickedly funny at the same time. i like it.

when i was little on our family farm i had a pet cow, named samantha. i would come home every day from school, go feed pet her, feed her, etc. one day when i got home, she was gone. my older brother, being the jerk he always was, told me that our parents had sold her to mcdonalds to make hamburgers out of her. well, needless to say, it was YEARS before i ever went to mcdonalds again.

i would like to do more or a vegetarian diet, including juicing. i think there is alot of truth to eating "live" foods, as opposed to flesh of animals. it makes alot of sense to me. if u think about it, all animals who eat meat, eat it raw. why then do we (as humans) have to cook it to kill the germs and bacteria? if we were designed to eat meat, we should eat be able to eat it raw.

m.

[Michelle]

Originally Posted by marky

michelle's comment about being able to look an animal in the eyes and tell them how she is looking forward to eating them, and their yummyness...well, its disturbing, but wickedly funny at the same time. i like it.

I find it disturbing myself, too. For a long time I didn't want to think of what was on my plate, but then decided if I am going to eat meat, it has to be a conscious decision and I will show thanks for it. I am not going to pretend it is rubber duck when it is real. I also try to buy free-range organic happy animal carcasses.

I spent two months as a vegetarian last year in an honest attempt to convert. The first two weeks were great, after which I became slower and slower in mind and body, and was no longer able to support my singing.

If there were a way for me to live just as I do now in strength of body and clarity of mind without meat - I would do that. But today there is no way to get all the nutrients one needs without supplementing. If I need supplements to support a "healthy", "better" "natural" diet, then I don't see how it is better or more natural than what I am doing now.

Plus, plants really do give their lives for us, too. Maybe we need to find a way not to have to eat?

[Erin Pavlina]

It used to be that you could live naturally on a vegan diet without supplementing. The soil provided the B12 we need. But current farming methods have ruined the top soil so now we have to supplement. It was a very natural way of eating, and our unnatural methods have made it necessary to supplement.

Some plants do die when they are harvested, but apples fall from the tree and it does not harm the tree. Just pick up the apple and eat it. Plants naturally shed their fruit and go on for years producing more.

[Andrew Brunelle]

I wonder what the vegan preception is on pest elimination from the home. I'm sure no one, even a vegan, wants cockroaches wandering around their home. Just throwing out there.

[escapee]

From my unprofessional understanding of nutrition, I believe a truly healthy long term vegan would need to supplement not just B12 but Vitamin A (As far as i know Beta carotene can only convert to A at a 6 :1 ratio with dietary fat plus others) , Vitamin D during witer time and vegan Omega 3 fatty acids (DHA and EPA) as well.

I think all prominent vegan societies should make the above supplementation as protocol or mandatory requirements so that there is less "dropout" due to deficiency issue.

[escapee]

The importance of multivitamin supplementation all vegans need to know

With no evidence of an infectious cause for this severe loss of vision, the researchers took blood samples to check for vitamin deficiencies. They found that his levels of B1, B12, A, C, D, E, zinc, and selenium were all measurably below normal.

This is an incredibly important piece of research that has valuable illustrative insights for all those that choose to be vegetarian. First of all, it is necessary to understand that the patient who developed the blindness was a strict vegetarian (vegan) for 13 years before he developed the problem. If he had eaten some animal protein, such as eggs, it is highly unlikely the problem would have occurred.

I wonder if the above is the only case ?

I must also stress that eyesight problem/blindness is also related to VIt A deficiciency.

Take care Erin

[Future's Origin]

I've been a vegan before, took all the supplements, ate lots of tofu, nuts and variety of veggies, but my health still suffered. Some people just can't be vegans, particularly those with O bloodtypes. It has something to do with complex amino acids. Lots of vegans will tell me that I was doing something wrong, but I wasn't. I guess the idea that some people can't be vegans threatens them. I was educated and ate better than most vegans I knew. It's just my body chemistry. It isn't the ideal for everyone. So I pretty much refuse to believe that you have to be a vegan to reach higher levels of conciousness. Meat also played a very important role in our evolution. So anyway you slice it, animals have died painful deaths for your existence.

I do my best to eat only non tortured animals and animal products. I am really opposed to commercial agriculture and do my best to support local family farmers. I feel that domesticating and eating animals is very natural. The way we do it now is what is unnatural, not the meat itself. Everything dies. It ususally doesn't feel warm and fuzzy. Isn't it more human to shoot and eat a dear than to let it starve because of over population? What would happen to all of the cattle if everyone became a vegan tommorrow? I have nothing against vegans, I went down that road myself and might still be there if I hadn't run into problems. I've just run into a lot who were just completely unrealistic. Not all meat is murder and torture. You can get good meat free of bad vibes. I just chowed down on some free range buffalo steaks today, and omg was it fricking fantastic. And I was thankful to the animal, and I felt bad because I overcooked him a little, not because he was dead. I supported a family farmer and the perpetuation of a species that was once threatened. How could that have lowered my vibration?

[Frans]

Not only animals, but also plants are living beings with their own soul/consciousness.

If you believe that a vegan lifestyle is helpful to reach a higher level of consciousness, you must realize that you'll reach an even higher consciousness level if you stop eating plants and adapt a Jain lifestyle:

The Jain diet excludes most root vegetables, as they believe this destroys entire plants unnecessarily. If you eat apples, you do not destroy whole trees, but for root vegetables, whole plants are uprooted.

PS. This is NOT a recommendation, only a thought provoking remark.

Originally Posted by Andrew Brunelle

I wonder what the vegan preception is on pest elimination from the home. I'm sure no one, even a vegan, wants cockroaches wandering around their home.

Can somebody answer this question?

[Baltar]

Originally Posted by Future's Origin

So I pretty much refuse to believe that you have to be a vegan to reach higher levels of conciousness.

No, you don't have to be vegan to reach higher levels of consciousness. However you do have to be completely aware of what you're eating, where it's coming from, and what effect it has on your body.

Originally Posted by Future's Origin

Meat also played a very important role in our evolution.

The ability to digest meat is a great evolutionary survival advantage. And despite being vegan, if I was stranded in some desert with no viable plant food, I'd certainly eat any animal I could get my hands on to survive. It's a great ability to have in extreme life or death situations. However with the ample plant food we have in modern society, we have more than enough to eat without resorting to eating animals.

Originally Posted by Future's Origin

So anyway you slice it, animals have died painful deaths for your existence.

I think vegans are very aware of this. But two wrongs don't make a right. We can't just say "oh well, there has been so much suffering caused already that me causing a little more won't make much of a difference".

There's an analogous thing that happened with the US space program. I don't know how many people are aware of this, but after World War II, captured German scientists were used for NASA's space program. Wernher von Braun was the chief architect of the Saturn V rocket, and is regarded as the "father of the US space program."

He was also responsible for the development of the German V-2 rocket during World War II. These rockets were used to bombard England, killing over 7,000 people. Not to mention that they were built with slave labor. Almost 3,000 forced laborers died building these rockets. So yes, there's blood everywhere, even in the space program.. However that doesn't mean we should just shrug it all off and continue living oblivious lives.

Originally Posted by Future's Origin

I do my best to eat only non tortured animals and animal products. I am really opposed to commercial agriculture and do my best to support local family farmers. I feel that domesticating and eating animals is very natural. The way we do it now is what is unnatural, not the meat itself.

It's great that you are consciously thinking about this, but most people don't give much thought to where their animal products come from or how the animals are treated.

Originally Posted by Future's Origin

Everything dies. It ususally doesn't feel warm and fuzzy. Isn't it more human to shoot and eat a dear than to let it starve because of over population?

If we hadn't wiped their natural predators off the face of the earth then there would be no starving deer around. Wolves for instance, are an endangered species in the US.

Originally Posted by Future's Origin

What would happen to all of the cattle if everyone became a vegan tommorrow?

Cattle is bred for the sole purpose of being eaten. It's not like they go out and breed on their own to fill the quotas that McDonald's requests. It would take very little time for existing cattle to dwindle in population to tiny numbers if humans didn't breed them.

Originally Posted by Future's Origin

Not all meat is murder and torture. You can get good meat free of bad vibes. I just chowed down on some free range buffalo steaks today, and omg was it fricking fantastic. And I was thankful to the animal, and I felt bad because I overcooked him a little, not because he was dead. I supported a family farmer and the perpetuation of a species that was once threatened. How could that have lowered my vibration?

Don't take this the wrong way, but I find it pretty funny that you say that you're supporting the perpetuation of a species that was once threatened by eating it. In any case, domesticated buffalo is not the same species as the wild buffalo (Bison).

[escapee]

ate lots of tofu

I found clue in your first sentence, Tofu (and Soy milk) as we know, is not a fermented soy product. Therefore it's a very powerful antinutrient, a pancreatic trypsin inhibitor, and if u have thyroid condition , it would worsen the condition . I think unfermented soy is the worst food that Vegan could consume. On the other hand, Fermented soy like tempeh and miso are fairly safe to be consumed especially it's cooked together with nutrient densed seafood.

Soy and Thyroid

[escapee]

Symptoms of low thyroid

. Fatigue and low energy, with need for daytime nap.
· Depressed, down, or sad.
· Skin that becomes dry, scaly, rough, and cold.
· Hair becomes coarse, brittle, and grow slow.
· Excessive unexplained hair loss.
· Sensitivity to cold in a room when others are warm.
· Difficulty in sweating despite hot weather.
· Constipation that is resistant to magnesium supplementation.
· Difficulty in loosing weight.
· Unexplained weight gain.
· High cholesterol resistant to cholesterol lowering drugs.

Hypothyroidism

[LillyoftheValley]

Since I became piscetarian, I feel more clarity. My concetration is way higher.
I'd be crazy to trade that for a steak!

Plus, my taste buds are refined. Now eating simple vegetable feels like there's a ''harmony of tastes'', to quote my boyfriend.

One day I intend to become vegetarian, but I have my doubts about not using cow's milk. Even at the age of 21, still feel benefits of drinking it.

When I was a little girl, we used to give our lunch leftovers to our neighbour's pigs. I was scared of them, but the little ones were funny. One day my mom sent me to feed them with those leftovers, and as I was going to pour it to them, I realised it was pork in there! I was only 6 yrs old then, but I refused to give them pork to eat. I told my mom I'd never want to eat her...

[Dharma]

Originally Posted by ottantaventi

In your opinion, is it necessary to embrace veganism to reach higher levels of consciousness ?

Absolutly not.
But we all have "food programming". This makes me skinny. This makes me fat. This gives people heart disease. This will increase my attention span. This will make me more spiritual. etc, etc.

So be aware of your programming around food. If you can lighten up a little on it, you will be able to eat a wider variety of things without the side effects listed above. (you can choose to be more conscious, not the food makes me more conscious) Be very wary of this though. This programming is a form of denial and denial is a very slippery beast and you can think you've liberated yourself from the programming but you've really got yourself in deeper.

[AndyMartin]

Isn't it strange how strongly we feel about our choice of diet? Actually, not really -- people have been doing it for as long as we have cultural memory. Taboos have been imbued moral significance by nearly every culture known to history. And I think there's a very real reason for it, just not the moral one that people tend to assume.

I think the principle of channeling energy applies here. No, I'm not talking about Ramtha or Abraham, I'm talking about millions of gallons of water rushing through a 10' pipe as opposed to falling as rain over a 10 mile radius. When you constrain the flow of water its power increases; only one of those is going to knock you over and drag you with it.

Likewise, our personal power, our energetic vibration -- however you like to describe it -- is in living consciously: in making decisions about how we are going to live our life. Especially decisions that resonate with the awareness that precedes thought, the awareness we experience as intuition and conscience. But you could just as easily call it an internal schematic for a pipeline. Now, there may be reasons that this awareness favors certain decisions, and we try to understand those and come up with a way to articulate them. But that experience is wholly interior; it is neither universal nor prescriptive. All your decision tells about you is what decision you have made.

How closely you live your conscience is far more important than what in particular your conscience is telling you.

[Future's Origin]

Originally Posted by Baltar

No, you don't have to be vegan to reach higher levels of consciousness. However you do have to be completely aware of what you're eating, where it's coming from, and what effect it has on your body.

I am, thanks for your feigned concern. Are you implying that being a vegan automatically achieves this? Because I have found that it definitely does not.

Originally Posted by Baltar

The ability to digest meat is a great evolutionary survival advantage. And despite being vegan, if I was stranded in some desert with no viable plant food, I'd certainly eat any animal I could get my hands on to survive. It's a great ability to have in extreme life or death situations. However with the ample plant food we have in modern society, we have more than enough to eat without resorting to eating animals.

Eating meat isn't just a handy survival trick. Meat, and hunting, facilitated the development of our large, complex brains and without it they would have never evolved.

Originally Posted by Baltar

I think vegans are very aware of this. But two wrongs don't make a right. We can't just say "oh well, there has been so much suffering caused already that me causing a little more won't make much of a difference".

That wasn't my point. My point was that becoming a vegan doesn't mean that you are living a "clean" existence free from the suffering that created you.

Originally Posted by Baltar

It's great that you are consciously thinking about this, but most people don't give much thought to where their animal products come from or how the animals are treated.

Many vegans don't give much thought on where they animal alternatives come from either. They just assume it is superior, healthy, and does not contribute to suffering because there are no animal ingredients on the label. In reality, there are many “health foods” that are animal free but still full of toxic synthetics.

Originally Posted by Baltar

If we hadn't wiped their natural predators off the face of the earth then there would be no starving deer around. Wolves for instance, are an endangered species in the US.

I know. I really hate answers like this. Identifying the cause and blaming the past do not provide us with solutions that can be applied to the current state of the problem. If we hadn't. Well we did. There are not time machines around to change this. What is the most humane solution now, in habitats that are too fragmented to re-introduce natural predators? Starvation? Culling the population? Or perhaps we should just reorganize the suburbs and magically re-grow mature forests before Bambi needs his next meal.

Originally Posted by Baltar

Cattle is bred for the sole purpose of being eaten. It's not like they go out and breed on their own to fill the quotas that McDonald's requests. It would take very little time for existing cattle to dwindle in population to tiny numbers if humans didn't breed them.

I suppose by "dwindle" you mean starve to death over a course of weeks filled with agony. Just like the deer. I guess your choice of wording is better. I mean we can't kill them, that's not nice. Well maybe we should just kill them and let them rot, because eating it would lower our vibration.

My purpose with the cattle statement was that veganism does nothing to help these animals, however I think conscientious meat consumption does. If the world went vegan tomorrow, these animals would starve and die. But if the entire world decided they would only eat ethically raised meat tomorrow, the owners of these animals would have to adapt their techniques in order to stay in business. Both situations are hypothetical, I was just using the example to illustrate that I don’t think veganism solves these problems if implemented on a mass scale.

Originally Posted by Baltar

Don't take this the wrong way, but I find it pretty funny that you say that you're supporting the perpetuation of a species that was once threatened by eating it. In any case, domesticated buffalo is not the same species as the wild buffalo (Bison).

That isn't true. There is not a separate species of domesticated buffalo. Domesticated buffalo have been contaminated by cattle genes, but they still share the same latin name, Bison bison, and are descendants of true North American Bison. They actually aren't all that domesticated either, they are wild animals. The recent rise in buffalo meat popularity has brought attention and dollars to the conservation of the approximately 15,000 pure bison we have left in Yellowstone. And yes, I’m aware the proper term is bison, however in common speech the terms are interchangeable and have been for a few centuries. You can make the claim the a lot of cattle aren’t really cows because they are contaminated by bison genes. Perhaps down to molecular level they are different, but for all practical purposes, they are the same.

Sometimes, domesticating or killing animals can lead to the preservation of their wild counter parts. Do you have any idea how much money for hunters raise conservation? Most hunters care deeply about conservation and preservation, though the vegetarian community commonly vilifies them. Another example of this principle is difference in Elephant populations in African countries that allow domestication and controlled big game hunting and those that don't. I find it not so funny that you assume people that eat animals cannot possibly be helping them or care.

I'm not as ignorant as your tone implies you think I am, and I don't appreciate it. You chose to answer my questions with facts that I already knew instead of actually addressing the issues. You demeaned my conscious eating habits because they do not match your own. There is more that one was to eat ethically.

I'm sick of veganism being touted as a "lifestyle" that makes automatically makes you healthier, spiritually superior, and transforms your world into a fluffy, happy place. It doesn't. I actually think veganism does more to keep the meat industry dirty than it does to clean it up. When people are informed of the horrible conditions of the factory farms, their informants, usually vegans and vegetarians, encourage them to "help" by not eating meat. But it doesn't help. All it does is remove the people who are inclined to care from the equation. They pull their dollars from the entire industry instead of pouring them into the ethical alternatives that exist and helping them grow and become more affordable to others. People who aren't willing or able to give up meat just end up feeling bad, but changing nothing. I've never been handed a positive flyer on the meat industry that encourages me to spend my meat dollars ethically. The meat industry doesn't give a flying crap what vegans think because they aren't potential customers. You can convert a squillion vegans, but their opinions will still not influence the meat industry in the slightest. The only way to reform it is by actual meat eaters demanding change by voicing their objections to their government and spending their money wisely.

I agree that to reach a higher level of conciousness, you need to be aware of what you are eating and deviate from the traditional American diet. Being a vegan does not necessarily mean that you are making the best decision for your health or your environment, nor does it automatically indicate that you are choosing your food sources consciously. Food issues in the modern world are complex and there are many ways to eat ethically and consciously.