The case for a life-affirming diet

I Fresearch has shown that the universe runs on quantum rules, and every aspect of life is made up of tiny, indivisible units, or quanta, of pure energy; If we have proof through neuroscience, psychiatry and the trailblazing work of Dr David Hawkins that emotions have measurable energy and are, “energies in motion”;

If we understand from the first law of thermodynamics of chemistry that “energy cannot be destroyed, it can only be transferred or changed from one form to another”;

And finally, if more than 2,500 multidisciplinary studies have demonstrated with ample, detailed and empirical facts that animals are sentient beings who feel pain and experience emotions;

Then …

What happens when we torture, kill, and swallow the flesh of over 200 million animals a day to feed ourselves?

As they languish in pain what do these animals feel then release into the world?

In the extreme fear, despair, anger, hatred, and terror that arise in the slaughterhouses, crates, and cages, where do all these “energies in motion” go, if it cannot be destroyed and only transferred?

If results from the clinical applied kinesiology tests of Hawkins have validated these emotions to be “destructive frequencies”;

If neurobiologists such as Dr Richard J. Davidson, best known for his groundbreaking work studying emotion and the brain, along with distinguished institutions like Colombia and Johns Hopkins, have shown us we have independent brain circuits dedicated to compassion and generosity;

And if humans, who are hardwired to care for others, can go as far as brutally torture and destroy an entire race simply because of unrelated prejudice and philosophical differences;

Then …

What can we imagine these animals would express to their intentional killers in the cries of their tortured death and what are the manifestations of these destructive frequencies?

With coronavirus death tolls spiking, isn’t it ironic to find that the tables have turned, and it is now mankind who is the one locked up in “cages”?;

For the animals and wildlife whom men have once caged, is this retribution a form of our collective karma and their victorious celebration?

In the context of the cumulative destructive frequencies released by countless trillions of corpses over the past decades, could there be the slightest correlation between the rate of our killings and the increasing epidemics we are experiencing like Covid-19, SARS, Ebola and MERS?

And …

If a thousand scientists across disciplines have signed the Amsterdam Declaration to state that Gaia is a conscious, symbiotic relationship between life and environment, which evolves together as a single, selfregulating system maintaining the conditions for life on earth;

If the World Wide Fund for Nature involving 59 scientists has reported that “humankind has wiped out 60% of the animal population since 1970”, and has begun “a sixth mass extinction” in cosmological history;

If Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, along with agricultural economists, have concluded that animal farming practices and systems “pose unacceptable risks to public health, the environment and the welfare of the animals themselves”;

If biologists and public health researchers have shown that carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide from the livestock industry are killing oceans with acidic, hypoxic dead zones;

If McKinsey, one of the most prestigious consulting giants, has stepped in with climate risk study to show that by 2030, “over 160 million and 200 million” of our human family will be exposed to “lethal heat waves”, with a growing percent “that exceeds the survivability threshold for a healthy human being”;

Then …

In understanding that all living forms contribute to our wellbeing and that our reckless and apathetic behaviours are causing the current apocalypse, why are we still not awake yet?

With over 4.6 million acres of Amazonian rainforest burnt and “over 80% of the world’s marine fish stocks fully exploited, overexploited or depleted”, what would it be like a few years from now when we have destroyed the oceans and forests that are the lungs and arteries of our only home?

And if …

The Physicians Committee Organisation and reputable institutions like Cornell, Harvard and UCs are advocating the lifesaving health benefits of a plant-based diet and disproving inaccurate nutritional beliefs with studies outlining how it can prevent 20% of adult deaths each year;

Philosophers and sages like Plato, Nietzche, Pythagoras, Einstein, Confucius and Tesla have encouraged “vegetarianism (to be) a commendable departure from the established barbarous habit”;

Despite all of the knowledge in our fingertips, we cannot heed the advice of the wise and informed and subsist on plant-based diets that allow us to perform with advantage;

Knowing Nasa, with its distinguished scientists and satellite tools, have warned of “extremes in the frequency and magnitude of floods and droughts” in our future, that will leave us without crops or water reserves;

Then …

Would the unsubstantiated concern about how much iron, protein, or nutrition we’re getting be a priority when the land is barren, and we’re starving without food?

Will we consider how delicious the meat tastes an essential factor when the world is no longer habitable?

Would we still believe ourselves to be the king of the planet, to take and consume as we wish when we’re fighting to survive manmade disasters and uncurable epidemics?

Does it matter how smart we are or how much more knowledge we can attain if we can’t make the wisest choice for ourselves?

Abstaining from meat means respecting life – the very thing that enables you to live. It is the wisdom of realising that the troubles and the illness we face today comes from what we eat, especially animals.

Yet, because we like specific tastes or particular texture, we eat all kinds of animals when honestly, we should be protecting and cherishing life.

Eating is simply a sensation we feel when the food enters the mouth. Once it’s swallowed, it becomes a contaminated substance churning in our stomach. With so much at stake, is it worth it?

Are we so possessed by our desire for taste that it has concealed the inherent beauty of our human spirit?

Has our rationalism robbed us of our ability to recognise and experience wisdom?

And has our egoic thinking taken away the ability to feel the depth and profound sacredness and luminosity of all life, sentient and non-sentient?

If we access our innate wisdom, we will realise we eat only to sustain our life. If we stop killing animals and keep to a plant-based diet, we not only won’t go hungry, we get to show our love every day to Mother Earth and all its children. And this love we show creates a ripple effect that can be felt by the collective humanity and can change the world in positive and lasting ways.

If things remain unchanged, there will be a day in this lifetime when we’ll have to answer to why we find ourselves witnessing the radical destabilisation of life on earth. At that moment, when the survival of our existence is in jeopardy, I hope one of our reasons isn’t because we couldn’t resist the desire for taste. For if it were, we would ironically go down in history as the most intelligent species defeated by an object no larger than 10cm: the tongue.

“All living creatures are like us. They seek to live and fear death; they’re all made of flesh and blood. While their physical appearance may be different, their lives are just as precious as ours.”

– Dharma Master

Cheng Yen

– AFPPIX If we stop killing animals and keep to a plant-based diet, we not only won’t go hungry, we get to show our love every day to Mother Earth and all its children.