The question of vegetarian diet is often discussed among seekers after philosophical truth. Some people give no importance to what they eat or drink, and there are some who give more importance to it than necessary.
There are two things which speak against flesh-eating: one thing is that meat, as a substance, hinders spiritual progress, and the other is that the unkindness toward the animals is a breach of moral law. Speaking about the first question, it is no doubt true that meat causes two kinds of harm to an adept. One is that it produces in man to a certain extent the animal nature; also it has an influence on the character of man. The nature of the animal one eats certainly has an influence upon a person's character. It was therefore that the prophets of Beni Israel forbade their followers to eat the flesh of certain kinds of animals and birds.
Mystically speaking, it clogs the channels of the breath and the important psychical centers which work in one as the instruments of wireless telegraphy. Morally, there is no doubt that it has a hardening effect upon one's heart, which is meant to sympathize, not only with other people, but with every living creature. There is no doubt that if all the people in the world became vegetarians, there would be no more wars. A person who refrained from killing the lower creatures would surely not be inclined to kill other people.
Of course, there is another side to the question: life exists in all aspects of the creation, even in plants; and if one does not see the harm done to the plant, it is because they cannot express. And, looking from this point of view, one can observe that life lives on life.
At the same time, the creation is a process by which the lower form of life evolves to a higher form, and the life used in this process of evolution is not really lost; on the contrary it is raised to a higher consciousness. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the animal which is used as the food for humans has been transformed from the animal kingdom to the human, which is really a natural process of evolution, the human kingdom being the goal of the lower evolution. However, this point of view does not help a person, morally or physically, in one's individual evolution; one has not gained by eating flesh, on the contrary one has allowed oneself to evolve more slowly than one could have otherwise evolved.
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