Vegetarianism

Putting together ones life with the modern world.

Do you keep a vegetarian diet?

 
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Silvaeon
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Re: Vegetarianism

Post by Silvaeon »

I've been a vegetarian for ethical reasons for the last 8 years. Things are definitely much easier now than they were back then, and the dialogue is opening up a lot about it these days. That said, most people you encounter are still a little confused about it.

I recently decided to go vegan (it's been 1 month now) and I've been feeling better than ever, and more energized. I was a bit of a lazy vegetarian, but going vegan has forced me to focus more on cooking and nutrition and it's been very rewarding so far. Of course the increased energy helps in spiritual focus. As all is One, the less harm to other beings one causes, the better, and meat and animal products are definitely not required for a healthy life, and to me being vegetarian/vegan go hand in hand with striving for a more holistic life.
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Heith
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Re: Vegetarianism

Post by Heith »

Quite a lot of people I know have moved to vegetarian or vegan diet this summer.

I was a vegetarian for about 17 years, and now I've gone vegan. I've been doing this a couple of months now.
ShieldAnvil wrote: As all is One, the less harm to other beings one causes, the better, and meat and animal products are definitely not required for a healthy life, and to me being vegetarian/vegan go hand in hand with striving for a more holistic life.
I feel in the same way about this. Despite my veganism having been a little difficult, as soya for example seems to disagree with me, I want to continue on this diet because I think a balance can be found. It takes a little bit longer for an old dog to learn new tricks, but they can be learned! It's also interesting to see how the diet effects my results, as I begun training again. So far I've been progressing quite well I think.
Otava

Re: Vegetarianism

Post by Otava »

Much has been said already.

Daily choises such as diet and things that I believe are worth supporting are very much connected to spiritual side. Actions are the ground where I built my faith and strength to keep going. All hate and no deeds is no good at all, haha. So yes, diet is one but there's more to happen.

I don't think it as a "saving the world" even though that it goes hand in hand in a big picture. It's my way to hail the untouched nature but there are other decent ways too. I'm also willing to make compromises in a situations mentioned before such as wasting food etc.

All my life I've been interested in a taste of human flesh. Most likely it will stay untasted but that's fine. They ate placenta in a finnish travelling series but that's for wimps and posers.
Otava

Re: Vegetarianism

Post by Otava »

Otava wrote:Actions are the ground where I built my faith and strength to keep going.
And to correct myself. Actions are built on spirituality and love towards nature. Finding a balance between might be another subject. 
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Polyhymnia
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Re: Vegetarianism

Post by Polyhymnia »

I have flip flopped between pescetarianism, ovo-lacto vegetarianism, and veganism for most of my adult life, since the thought of eating meat never sat well with me even as a child. I'm now having some moral dilemmas with the reintroduction of meat into my diet. When I was first diagnosed with my condition five years ago, I experimented with various diets including a high protein paleo diet to see if it helped my symptoms, and it did. In fact, I never felt better physically. But as I progressed spiritually, the consumption of meat seriously affected me. I reverted back to mostly ovo-lacto, then felt great guilt at the idea of factory farmed milk and the chick culling that comes into play with factory egg production. That kind of bringing life into the world only to have it suffer or end its life is too much for me mentally to bear. But the more I look into the effects of agriculture to meet the demands of global veganism, the more I feel pained about the destruction to the earth and her various ecosystems. And I can't deny how much better I physically feel with small amounts of meat in my system. I recently started supplementing my iron in the hopes some of those physical side effects subside, but even then I'm left with the dilemma of ethical vegetable farming. It really seems like the only way I can make peace with food is to grow it all myself and to only use enough land to sustain myself. Does anyone else suffer the same dilemmas?
"Limited love asks for possession of the beloved, but the unlimited asks only for itself." -Kahlil Gibran
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Smaragd
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Re: Vegetarianism

Post by Smaragd »

Polyhymnia wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 7:41 am It really seems like the only way I can make peace with food is to grow it all myself and to only use enough land to sustain myself. Does anyone else suffer the same dilemmas?
In the past I have considered growing my own food in a way that the whole use of land would be mimicing natural conditions so that the land area and farming would not be harmful to the fertility of the land nor the animals. But for now it seems these plans are set aside from other work. There are somewhat good regulations in Finland when it comes to the fertility of the land and erosion, atleast when it comes to organic food production, but it's far from waterproof when ethics are considered hard enough, and alot is dependent of the farmer. And during Winter, I often buy vegetables grown abroad. It's not ideal, but I've tried to see it as the imperfectness of the whole and instead of beating myself for it, I'm merciful towards those who have chosen to work in those areas of life that make the choices towards certain directions. I know they are not easy ones for my physical body amongs most of other peoples are fed by their effort.
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
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Polyhymnia
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Re: Vegetarianism

Post by Polyhymnia »

Smaragd wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 9:10 pm It's not ideal, but I've tried to see it as the imperfectness of the whole and instead of beating myself for it, I'm merciful towards those who have chosen to work in those areas of life that make the choices towards certain directions. I know they are not easy ones for my physical body amongs most of other peoples are fed by their effort.
Hmm, this is a great way of looking at it. Almost every meal I think, "surely, eating shouldn't be this difficult!" When I really pinpoint what makes me uncomfortable, it's the physical act of ending a life. That seems to be the hard line for me in relation to my worship of death. It's not a feeling exclusive to killing to eat. I have this same feeling towards, say, the mass culling of wild kangaroos in the Australian deserts. They say it's necessary, and they're probably right. Imperfectness of the whole.
"Limited love asks for possession of the beloved, but the unlimited asks only for itself." -Kahlil Gibran
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Nefastos
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Re: Vegetarianism

Post by Nefastos »

Polyhymnia wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 7:41 amDoes anyone else suffer the same dilemmas?

In the present day world where the extremely wide net of effects holds ends also in very bloody results, those who tend to think the results of their actions have some very black meditation to go through. In fact, it seems that this is one of the top results for wrecking the minds of the possible ascending path students today, the easier more empathetic & subtle they are. Yet some comfort might be gained from the fact that this meditation (pondering the results & one's personal juggling about what could or must be done) is a very good form of training all by itself, as long as the cardinal sin of Despair does not triumph over us.

Personally, my own strangely desolate & lonesome mindset, which has a lot of semipathological problems in it, here comes to help. Since I do not think that the civilization as we know it could be actually saved (without major upheavals), it is very easy for my to reduce the idea of that net of effects just to the actual choices I personally make. My vegan friends often find this infuriating, and I have been told that my lacto-ovo-diet is worse than being a meat eater. But personally I do not care about those side effects that are not my own making, but instead come from how the system is established. Milk could be produced without harming the cows, and so I drink milk without feeling any kind of guilt, even though I could not eat any meat or fish &c. or a substance derived from dead flesh or intestines. This does not mean I do not feel empathy towards animals that factually suffer: it is just my conviction that the problem rests with the different shoulders when the problem is about the side-effects, by-products, and the like.

This is in direct opposition with the more politically or sociologically minded helpers of the modern world. I wish them the best of luck & blessings in their own kind of fight against suffering, but their front is almost totally different from mine. It is my convicition that one should be serious & merciless while pondering how his own dharmic & karmic systems is laid out, and what he should do. Personally I feel no affinity to the system we live in. I see no hope in or for it, but see it (the global gestaltic whole of the sociological soul of humankind, especially in its present day shape of out of proportion capitalism, apparent socialisms well included) as a massive butchery of almost utter selfishness & oppression. Thus I consider that all the help should come from the individuals, working in their places – this is the meaning of "dharma" –, and that the system itself is too far gone to be corrected by minor outside rectifications. In the other words, first the people's hearts should open, and to the degree that is done, the system heals itself instantly. If that is not how it is done, the selfish violence just finds another vent to maim & kill.

I understand that we are on the brink that makes my idealism seem like evil annihilationism in case one believes in outer change or the fundamental goodness / benevolent reason in human society. Thus I do not try to push my own practical values in these things for the others, but like it is written in the article Our Relation to the Animal Kingdom and Vegetarianism (Unseen Fire II, Finnish version here), I think that any Star of Azazel member or adherent should contemplate these things by himself, from our basic viewpoint of empathy & striving.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
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Polyhymnia
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Re: Vegetarianism

Post by Polyhymnia »

Nefastos wrote: Wed Sep 16, 2020 12:32 pm ...it is very easy for my to reduce the idea of that net of effects just to the actual choices I personally make. My vegan friends often find this infuriating, and I have been told that my lacto-ovo-diet is worse than being a meat eater. But personally I do not care about those side effects that are not my own making, but instead come from how the system is established.


I have sat on this the last several days and really let it sink in. I've been told for years by psych professionals and people close to me that I carry alot of guilt within me, and weirdly this conversation has helped offer some kind of absolution.
Nefastos wrote: Wed Sep 16, 2020 12:32 pm
I understand that we are on the brink that makes my idealism seem like evil annihilationism in case one believes in outer change or the fundamental goodness / benevolent reason in human society. Thus I do not try to push my own practical values in these things for the others, but like it is written in the article Our Relation to the Animal Kingdom and Vegetarianism (Unseen Fire II, Finnish version here), I think that any Star of Azazel member or adherent should contemplate these things by himself, from our basic viewpoint of empathy & striving.
I read this again, and it has much to offer someone like me currently in this situation. I have the tendency to be swallowed by despair, and the more I confront the things that cause me this grief, the more my heart opens in acceptance that everything moves in its order, despite my feelings about it. What else is there to do but our best?
"Limited love asks for possession of the beloved, but the unlimited asks only for itself." -Kahlil Gibran
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Benemal
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Re: Vegetarianism

Post by Benemal »

Veganism used to be counter-culture. It was ideological. It was a choice I respected and I didn't believe it was easy. Everything is upside down now. Now when someone says they've gone vegan it means: "I'm now better than you, because I've stopped digesting sin." It's a western consumer instagram lifestyle, or part of the lifestyle, where you share pictures of your seven euro almond latte, because you're vegan, so you're not really a consumer, you're one of the cool righteous people, who know the right way. And because you've purchased moral points over there, you can buy all kinds of garbage you don't need, because you're not really a consumer. And Orange is bad of course. You gotta be purple.
I know some real eco-hippies and hardore punks still must exist somewhere, but I don't see them anymore.

I just remembered, it's now twenty years, since I've eaten meat. You see how cool I am? I was doing it long before it was cool.
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