CHICAGO MEDITATION | Classes and Support from Science of Spirituality

Mary Pomerantz manages our sister blog on vegetarianism, www.sosvegetarianlife.com, and is a regular contributor here. In addition to our monthly vegetarian cooking classes that Mary mentions at the end of her post, we have a special diet-related event this week. You may know Mona Grayson from Veggie Fest, where she leads an extremely popular raw foods demonstration. A raw foods coach and overall great presenter, Mona will lead a free raw foods demo at the Naperville center on Saturday, March 26, from 1:00 to 3:00 pm. See the Events page for details.

by Mary Pomerantz

All religious traditions advocate non-violence and love for all. In the holy Bible, one of the commandments that God gave to Moses was, “Thou shalt not kill.”  Vegetarianism is practiced in the Hindu, Jain and Buddhist faiths because by eating a plant-based diet, we can nourish the body with the least amount of destruction to creation.

Many Christian mystics were also vegetarian.  Many think that St. Francis of Assisi was a vegetarian.  Stories abound about his love of animals and how he was able to charm even the ferocious wolf.  There were other Christian vegetarians that we know of including, St. Catherine of Sienna, John Wesley (founder of Methodism), Ellen White (Founder of the 7^th Day Adventists), and Mary Baker Eddy (founder of Christian Scientists) [source].

The human body has been called the “Temple of God” or the “Roof and Crown of all Creation.”  This is because within the human body exists our soul, which is a part of God.  It is that part of us that gives life and animation to our physical existence.

We keep our churches, mosques, and synagogues pristinely clean because we see them as the houses of God. What if we were to extend the same approach to our human bodies?  What if we also kept our bodies pure by eating a plant-based diet that does the least amount of harm?

The Masters of Sant Mat tell us that ethical living is the stepping-stone to spirituality. One aspect of leading an ethical life is taking up a vegetarian diet. They tell us that in addition to not eating animals, we should also show love and compassion toward them in the same way we do to our fellow human beings.

In this regard, Sant Rajinder Singh Ji Maharaj tells this story:

There was a holy man who had to go on a long journey.  He packed a bundle, filling it with enough bread to last him for the trip.  He traveled on foot and stopped at a mosque to rest for the night.

The next morning he set out again on the journey and walked quickly for about ten miles and then decided to stop for breakfast.  He sat down and opened his bundle to take out the bread.  When he opened the pack, he found that it was full of ants.

“Oh, this is too bad,” he thought, “I have taken these poor ants a long way from their home in the mosque.  They must be missing their families, parents, and children.”

He felt so bad and he had so much compassion for the ants, that the holy man walked the ten miles back to the mosque to take the ants back to their home.

This story illustrates the high level of compassion that is available to us; a state where not only do we not want to kill animals for food, but we also don’t want them to suffer in even the slightest way.  Compassion toward animals has to start somewhere. For many, adopting a vegetarian way of eating is the next step on their journey toward living a more compassionate life.

Sant Rajinder Singh Ji Maharaj reminds us:

We can gauge our own lives by the depth of compassion we experience for the suffering of others.  How many of us even consider the tender feelings of the lesser brothers and sisters in God?  The vegetarian diet is a compassionate one.  If we saw what animals had to go through to be used for food, we would feel compassion and would never want to see them hurt.

If you want to adopt a more compassionate way of eating but aren’t sure how to prepare tasty, satisfying vegetarian meals, you’re invited to join us for our free monthly vegetarian cooking classes at the Science of Spirituality Meditation Center in Naperville. They are scheduled every second Saturday of the month at 2:00 pm.

For recipes, please visit our vegetarian recipe blog, www.sosvegetarianlife.com.