Greetings everyone and Happy New Year to you!
In September 2012, I read a potent book called the Engine 2 Diet, authored by Rip Esselstyn, a Texas firefighter whose family has an impressive medical background.
This book is a convincing stand for being vegan, and includes account after account of medical healing success stories as well as interesting tales from his fire fighting experience.
The book was introduced to me by a friend whose doctor handed it to him instead of handing him a drug prescription to lower cholesterol, and within a few months after reading the book and turning vegan, his cholesterol dropped dozens of points.
In response to this, my wife and I chose to become vegan, and she has been cooking exquisite diets from both this book and a companion book called "Forks over Knives".
As a former devoted meat eater, upon occasion the smell of roasted chicken or the thought of salmon would perk my attention since starting this diet. However, I have remained committed to being vegan for my health and a more recent discovery of the brutal farming practices chickens are subjected to.
The other night, I had a dream underpinning this diet to an even greater extent.
This dream had two parts; the first part consisting of me eating thick juicy hamburger meat and enjoying it; thinking to myself "hmmm this is good".
In the second part, I am standing in a pond that has recently been stocked with sardines.
In waking life, I've never actually seen a sardine, but in this dream they were small dark gray, almost charcoal fish swimming around the pond.
I caught one with my bare hands, thinking "wow I can eat this and I know it will taste good".
Then I held it in my hand and looked into it's eye facing me. As I looked into its eye I could see deep into the soul, the spirit of this fish. It had a depth, a presence, a vast aliveness that touched me. Seeing this I thought to myself "I can't eat this". Then the dream ended.
Thus in my dream time I was given a vast spiritual underpinning for going vegan.
My overall awareness of the sacredness of sentient beings has expanded deeply these past several months.
For years my commitment has been to refrain from killing anything unless it presented a direct threat to me.
Flies, wasps and water bugs in the house were caught in a jar and let outside. The only things I killed were mosquitoes landing on my arm. If I saw a cockroach, I would catch it and flush it down the toilet hoping it would survive the journey.
When we had an ant infestation I grimaced when needing to put out poison that I knew would kill them.
Sometimes when I did kill a critter, it seemed it's spirit came to me almost immediately and said "why did you do that?" This only served to increase the regret I felt for killing it in the first place.
I explained my reason and asked for forgiveness. Forgiveness came swiftly, much swifter than the time it took for my regret to fade away.
During the past couple months, the ante has seemed to increase even more.
A couple weeks ago I killed a silverfish ( an insect found in houses and can eat holes in cloths). Afterwards I felt the same feeling of regret and remorse.
This week I found another one sitting on the bathroom floor. It was large, about 1/4" or 3 mm long. This time, thinking of prior regret I chose to not kill it and instead to leave it there. (they are very hard to catch and usually die in the pursuit and release experience anyways)
I thought to myself "well, if it eats something, the material will eventually need replaced anyways". There was no remorse or regret after this, and instead a peace came over me.
Many cultures, especially the traditional Native and Buddhist cultures honor the sacredness of all life.
Before snipping a cutting off basil, I pause to connect with the plant and ask for a piece.
Both being vegan and honoring the sacredness of all things at this level is a more complicated way of being, yet one bringing more depth of peace and onement with all of life to me.
Mosquitoes with their dangers are still a challenge for me, and at this point I believe if killing a mosquito on my arm or buzzing around my face will likely preserve my optimal health, this will justify taking its life - however not without regret.
I welcome your thoughts on all this.