So here it is. My personal view on eating meat.
I am well aware that a large proportion of the people on my friends
list are deeply committed Yogi's. It is not a secret that it is also a big part
of my own life, in spite of the fact that I quite openly reject aspects of Yoga, such as:
Insincere commercialism; idolism; dogma and blind devotion to name a few.
A question that comes to me quite often, is what is my view
on vegetarianism. I came to Yoga because I needed a path to physical and
emotional health, and my single minded pursuit of being an elite runner had
given me all it could. I'm not sure that Yoga was the reason I started a
serious self-inquiry into my own life. I think that happened because when you
hit a really low place, you are finally ready to start asking the right
questions.
The simple fact is I am a physical person and need to live a
physical life in order to maintain my sanity. The problem is that in most
cultures you do that by finding a sport you are good at. You then seek victory over others. Your
identity becomes a by-product of your results, tangibly measured either by a
stop-watch or by the number of points you can put on a score-board. To cut to
the chase I came to the realisation that it is not what you do but why you do
it. Defining your own self worth though sports results will eventually let you
down. No matter how good you are eventually someone will come along who is
better. I don't think this should dictate your own sense of self worth but for
me it did, so I had to stop what I was doing and find another way.
So I didn't start Yoga because it had a predefined set of
ethics or moralities. I started Yoga because I'd finally found something that
apparently wasn't interested in judging me at how good I was at doing it. I
won't ever forget my first class because it utterly humiliated me. Equally I
won't forget it because not a single other person in the class, including the
teacher gave a shit. It didn't matter that I could not do 90% of the poses the
way most of the other people could. It was only me that cared about that, it
was only my own ego I had to contend with and after what I had already learnt
through my time in sports, I was ready to see the truth of that and "get
over it".
I can't say how amazing it was to find something I could
turn my full tenacity to, without the fear of competition being the driving
force behind my efforts. It didn't take long to realise that I am just a person
who loves to work hard at things that capture my imagination. The pursuit of
the results, and the idea of being defined by those results actually just gets
in the way. Not only does it cloud the vision but it ruins the journey and
disconnects me from being at peace with who I really am.
Having said all that, the truth is I never really found a
single class or style of Yoga that felt 100% like me. In fact often it was a
love hate relationship and there were teachers who crossed my path who left a
very bad taste in my mouth. Either that or their belief system forced me to
think about, and make decisions about the Yogic doctrine, and what parts of it
worked for me and what parts I needed to discard, simply in order that I could
continue to do "yoga" without feeling like I was no longer being
true to my own belief systems.
So here's the thing about doctrines, whether they are tied to
religion or sport or philosophies: They are a predefined set of rules that give
the system it's structure. For this reason alone I am very uncomfortable being
labelled with anything. It seems to me that the moment you hook your hat to a
label you have introduced limitations on where your mind and heart can travel.
The limiting thought structure is fundamental, and the example for today is via
a quote from a deservedly famous Yogi
"Stop eating flesh, that is Yoga".
Not that it should matter to anyone who understands the
concept of "critical thinking" but I am a vegetarian. I did however
eat meat growing up, and I personally have no issue with the basic idea of
humans eating meat, but I'll get into the details of my own philosophy a bit
later.
For me though, it comes down to this. I don't believe anyone
has the right to define Yoga in such absolute terms. If we are to take the above
statement in it's most literal form, if you eat meat, then it doesn't matter
what else you do, you are not doing Yoga. Honestly, regardless of the debate
about whether eating meat is good or bad, I call bullshit on that. The world is
not made in digital. We are not a series of ones and zeros. The digital world
was designed to allow computers to approximate the real world (using cold hard logic) not the other
way around. We should not make the mistake of applying such limited Boolean
expressions to our real lives.
So to the question of eating meat. No I don't eat it, but it is
not so much a decision about health, as it is a way of protesting commercial
farming, both on land and in the oceans. ethically, I think humans do treat
farm animals despicably. Animals are sentient. They feel pain, they feel love,
there is no question in my mind they feel fear. Most people reading would have
no problems recognising these qualities in their own pets. For this reason I
feel we have a moral responsibility to farm animals with a genuine concern for
their quality of life while they live. I don't, however think it is inherently
wrong for a human to eat meat anymore than I think it is wrong for any other
animal to eat meat. Our evolutionary biology marks us as omnivores. We are not
true vegetarians go check out the biology of a Rabbit and you will find it is
completely different from us. Failing that try living on a bale of hay for a
month and see how that works out for you. Yes, I realise there are other
options than grass, but my point is we are quite capable of eating and
digesting meat and depending on some peoples constitutions, I am at least anecdotally
convinced that certain people become quite unhealthy if they do not have at least
some meat in their diet.
In simple terms, I take a naturalists viewpoint. Nature, in
balance, has always involved the killing of animals by other animals for
reasons of food and survival. However humans are now the shepherds of this
planet, and we are smart enough to know that we have both ecological and
ethical responsibilities to all other forms of life on this planet. Those
people who become evangelical about being Vegan are not doing their cause any
favours. All they are doing is alienating themselves from the people they want
to change. Along those lines I have to wonder, is Yoga about trying to change
other people to think the way you think?!?
That seems very "external" to me. I prefer to see
Yoga as a personal and internal practice of self inquiry. As a practitioner and
teacher I don't have any interest in trying to change anyone. I'm just doing
and sharing a "process" that has made my life better, and I hope that
in some shape or form it may do the same for others. I may have questions, but
I sure as hell don't have answers, nor do I want to. For me, that is kind of
the point.
