And if after all we do elevate the death of these young soldiers above the “ordinary” death of other Canadians, wouldn’t it be appropriate to not only read the names of the ones who died in the faraway war, but also the names of those who sent them to their Death?

To discuss this posting or to comment, please visit the forum topic dedicated to this article.

This article is not meant to support meat eaters, but to demonstrate that any one way of looking at life is limited and can be dogmatic.

Not everyone is born to be vegetarian!

I do not believe in one way of living (or in this case, one way of eating) for all human beings as we have all evolved from different tribes that came from different climates with different eating habits according to what each environment provided. Some of us originated from tribes that were wandering from place to place for thousands of years like the Tartars, Inuit, native Indian or the desert people in the Middle East, where growing and harvesting food wasn’t an option. As a result, hunting or fishing was the main source of food for these tribes. As a consequence, due to the different evolutions of eating habits there are a great many populations in the world who, genetically speaking, are customised to eat meat and fish. Who is one to say that these people are not entitled to a spiritual practice simply because they eat meat?

North American native Indians were hunters and meat eaters who were very much connected to nature and had a great respect for the animals they hunted. They conducted a highly spiritual life.

Throughout my years of teaching yoga and meditation, I met many sincere yogis who forced themselves to be vegetarians for spiritual reasons and often ended being physically unwell (low blood pressure, anemia, physical weakness, fatigue, etc.) Their bodies were simply not getting nourishment on a foundational level. One of my closest friends who regularly ate meat went to consult an ayurvedic doctor about shifting to a vegetarian diet (this was after a few futile attempts of his own, that made him feel weak and caused him to lose undesirable weight). The ayurvedic doctor told him blandly that because his roots are from the Tartar tribes (which could be seen easily by his large and strong features) vegetarianism was not the right diet for his body and would weaken him.

The main concern in regards to eating meat while doing any spiritual practice is the act of killing.

Any child can tell you about the cycles of nature wherein animals eat other animals to keep balance between the populations of various species. Since we are a part of this food chain, the question is why have we taken human beings out of the structure of balance? Human were always part of the cycle, controlling the populations of other animals by hunting and, at the same time, being eaten by other animals.

As we evolved more sophisticated methods of protecting ourselves, we became less and less vulnerable of becoming meals for other animals; and yet we are still getting eaten – but mostly from the inside out. We may have become too smart to be easily hunted by carnivores but we still often get “eaten” internally by endless bacteria and viruses that can easily wipe us out in huge numbers.

It is also true that now that our population has grown immensely we need to consume more food than before. This definitely changes the balance in numbers, but it does not mean that eating meat is wrong. It is more a problem of us reproducing without control, taking over the planet by numbers and draining all of the resources – not only animals, but also vegetation, minerals, water, etc.

So there is no one way for all of us. Vegetarianism is often taken as an absolute way of living by the ones who were born to be vegetarian. If this way of living is not suitable for your body and you still choose it as a lifestyle you may find yourself in doubt from time to time as your body demands its natural nutrition.

Often, the conflict over vegetarianism makes people who need to eat meat feel as if they are less on the spiritual path than they should be. We need to know for ourselves. Each of us must tune into the needs of our own body with great awareness – discovering the right way of eating that is suitable for our way of living. Even this may change during different periods of our lives or depending upon activities or non-activities that the body carries during our life. Sometimes our eating patterns may change depending on climate, etc. So there is a place for being vegetarian and there is place for eating meat.

If your body tells you that you need to consume meat:

1. Do it mindfully without greed (this means: do not live for eating but eat for living).
2. Tune into your body and see what kind of meat works best for you: how much and how often you need to consume it without making your body and mind heavy.
3. Make sure that the meat you eat is from hormone-free animals and organic.
4. Make sure the meat you eat comes from animals that are treated with respect and live in a healthy environment.
5. If you consume meat, practice pranayam 4-6 hours after your meal. The best time for a pranayam practice is early morning on an empty stomach.

My point here is to give you another perspective on this issue, as opposed to the conventional one-way yoga approach. At the end of the day, the most important thing is to contemplate this matter and reach your own authentic conclusion. If you hold a fear about practicing pranayam while consuming meat, the practice won’t be effective. So you must make sense for yourself.

For every argument I have presented in this article you can bring one to support vegetarianism, especially if you are one of them. The same works vice versa, and it is not because either of us is right or wrong, but because there is no one way for everyone. Anyone that takes one side on principle is missing the whole picture and risks becoming a fanatic by limiting their point of view.

Namaste,

shakti mhi

If you’d like to discuss this topic, please do so here: Meat and Pranayama

To Shakti Mhi
Prana Yoga Teacher College

I wanted to introduce you to the upcoming Western Canadian Hatha Yoga Championship, taking place this January 18th at Sportsplex, Capilano University. This event is being jointly organized by Bikrams Yoga College of Vancouver, Bikrams Metrotown and Simply Eventful Management.

As a supplier to yogis everywhere, we would be excited to welcome Prana Yoga Teacher College to the event. Though this is not the first Western Canadian Hatha Yoga Championship in Vancouver, it is the first with an exhibit portion – adding additional value to the attendees. We are inviting table-top exhibits to yoga-related, sustainable and health-related organizations – in the Sportsplex concourse. See the attached for many other benefits of sponsorship.

This championship will begin with an early morning yoga class, led by Senior Bikram’s yoga master and octogenarian Emmy Cleaves, which will attract hundreds of hatha yogis from the Lower Mainland. The competition has 4 categories – the winners and runners up of each category will be permitted entry to the International Hatha Yoga Championship in L.A. in February.

Overall, we anticipate over 800 attendees! This is the perfect opportunity to begin a partnership with the Western Canadian Hatha Yoga Championship! The goal is to grow the exhibit portion, include educational components and raise global awareness of the health benefits of yoga and clean living.

Please find more information at www.bikramyogabc.com.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks,
Annette McCunn

And my response:

Dear Annette McCunn

When I got your email I had to read it few times to be sure that it is actually not a joke.

How can “hatha yogis” And “championship” be beside each other in one sentence, let alone in one room?

I guess the winner will be the biggest fool that believes the discipline of hatha yoga is for the purpose of showing off.

Hatha yoga competition is the equivalent of organizing a strip show for nuns.

You are asking me to sponsor spreading ignorance to ignorants and leading people astray. That is the easiest thing I ever been asked as a spiritual teacher – but unfortunately that is not my “thing”.

shakti mhi

What do you think about this? Discuss this subject in the dedicated topic on our forum.

Let’s see why “no judging” is such an impossible thing to eliminate completely from your perception and yet how you can integrate the non-judging practice into your spiritual daily life.

If you are interested in exploring this matter, please keep flowing with me.

Life is suffering

Our identification with our physical body as the definition of who we are causes existence to manifest as ongoing suffering with short breaks of periods of happiness.

The reason for this is that the physical body, as a temporary and fragile substance, is in a constant survival mode. It needs food and shelter, it ages, and it can be easily injured or infected by disease. It can be eaten externally and internally; it can be destroyed by the elements and it ceases to exist when its time comes. As a consequence our experience, in the physical body, is based on fear of cessation.

Being conscious of all of the above and fearing it is the ultimate configuration for suffering.

As a result of the above, existence in a physical form turns survival into our first and most powerful drive.

Judging as a survival drive

Making judgments is a device used to evaluate situations, in any given moment, from the point of view of our safety.

The action of judging will always be based on our concern: “Is it good for me or not?”

I do not think he is a nice guy…

She seems very aggressive…

She is very selfish.

He is not trustworthy.

The dictionary definition for judging:

• “To infer, think, or hold as an opinion;”
• “To assess; to form an opinion about something or someone.”
• To estimate.
• To criticize someone or something, especially severely; to condemn.
• The cognitive process of reaching a decision or drawing conclusions

So we can say judging is an evaluation instinct for our safety.

As survivors, we have an instinct that indicates to us in any given moment what is good for us and what is dangerous — who is our ally and who is our enemy. It happens simultaneously with every change that occurs in our environment that we are aware of. Our reaction is based on our instant safety evaluation (or judgment) and it may vary from moment to moment as we rely upon the conclusion of our judgments.

For example:

When you walk on the street and you see a small puppy you will judge the dog (“what a cute one”) and react by walking towards it to play with it. If you see a huge scary dog, you will judge the dog (“this dog is not a nice one”) and then react by crossing to the other side of the street. In both cases, you judged the dogs and the situation.

When your mother enters the room where you are sitting and reading, you judge her and the event as she enters the room.

• You may not even lift your eyes off the book you’re reading because you quickly evaluate the occurrence as a completely safe one.

• You may find her annoying as she is making too much noise and distracting you from reading (“she is so annoying”).

• You may find her sweet as she is bringing you cookies and milk (“she is a cool mom”).

• You may jump up panicky if you are reading a Playboy magazine, knowing the reaction won’t be in your favor if she finds out (“she is so nosey”).

In each of the above examples you are judging the situation and reacting or not reacting upon your evaluation of the situation in relation to your “safety”.

Your judgmental device will act even more intensely when a total stranger enters the room, as you have no advance information about him the way you have about your mom.

He is a weirdo…

He is so unpleasant.

He seems kind…

I do not trust him.

He is phony.

He has an attitude.

He seems aggressive.

All of the above judgments are evaluations from the point of view of your own safety.

Not only do we survive to exist on the physical level, we must also survive on the social level as a remnant of our long ago circumstances when being part of a group or a tribe was crucial for our physical survival. Groups were the protection of the individual.

As a result, judging developed beyond just “fight or flight”. We also use it as a constant classification of the people around us depending on their social relation to us.

So we judge people:

I like him; he is a nice guy,

I do not like him, he seems snobbish.

I like him, he is a gentleman.

I do not like him, he is too superior.

Judging is a surviving reflex that we do instantly and constantly no different than dogs who sense and evaluate other dogs they meet on the sidewalk; we just do it in a more sophisticated way.

Sometimes we are tuned in and our judgments are deadly right. But sometimes we come with old perceptions and we project them onto people and situations; by doing so we may be missing the point. If you meet a person that reminds you of your nasty childhood teacher you may instantly judge this person as unlikable even though she is great. Being aware of our judging reflex and knowing that it can serve us (as well as lead us astray) makes us in charge of our moments. Instead of being driven by being judgmental, you simply use it when it is useful.

Namaste shakti

To discuss this posting or to comment, please visit the forum topic dedicated to this article.

I notice many people seeking spirituality/enlightenment/god and wonder what the purpose of attaining or even putting effort towards attaining it would bring?

if the effort is to attain something that by nature is effortless and formless i wonder how so many people seem to engage the attainment,  knowing the outcome (of the effort) is literally opposite to what they express they are after.

My question is what is the purpose of spirituality, enlightenment or whatever can be considered the opposite of just doing whatever you are doing. Knowing that “doing” spirituality/enlightenment is not possible in Reality.

In short :’) why try to be spiritual or enlightened?

Shakti i was a student at Yoga Prana and Zen center in ’98. Not sure if you remember me. I think about those classes often. It makes me happy knowing that you (and Prana yoga) are out there being who you are.

R.

To read shakti’s reply to this question or, if you’d like to comment on this or discuss it, please visit the forum topic dedicated to this question.

Dear shakti,

We all come from existence and return back to existence. If that is so then why do we have to go through the hassles of a painful life?

Please help me in understanding. I have been practicing meditation often. I have been to OSHO International Meditation Center at Pune, India. I liked your website. Its has a good energy vibe. I would like to know more about relaxing our body and mind.

J.

To read shakti’s reply to this question or, if you’d like to comment on this or discuss it, please visit the forum topic dedicated to this question.

Namaste

shakti