The World Peace Diet: Eating For Spiritual Health And Social Harmony

The Metaphysics of Food / 149
relations with both humans and animals. The Buddha says, for example,
in the Mahaparinirvana-sutra, “Eating meat destroys the attitude of
great compassion.” 16 The twelfth-century Tibetan Buddhist poet-saint
Milarepa sings, “Accustomed long to contemplating love and compassion,
I have forgotten all difference between myself and others.” 17 The
seventh-century Christian mystic Saint Isaac the Syrian asks,
What is a charitable heart? It is a heart which is burning with love
for the whole creation, for men, for the birds, for the beasts . . . for
all creatures. He who has such a heart cannot see or call to mind a
creature without his eyes being filled with tears by reason of the
immense compassion which seizes his heart; a heart which is softened
and can no longer bear to see or learn from others of any suffering,
even the smallest pain being inflicted upon a creature. That is
why such a man never ceases to pray for the animals . . . moved by
the infinite pity which reigns in the hearts of those who are becoming
united with God. 18
John Wesley, the eighteenth-century founder of Methodism, writes,
“I believe in my heart that faith in Jesus Christ can and will lead us
beyond an exclusive concern for the well-being of other human beings
to the broader concern for the well-being of the birds in our backyards,
the fish in our rivers, and every living creature on the face of the
earth.” 19
The ninth-century Islamic Sufi saint Misri says, “Never think of
anyone as inferior to you. Open the inner Eye and you will see the One
Glory shining in all creatures.” 20
Albert Einstein articulates it in this way:
A human being is a part of the whole, called by us the “Universe,” a
part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts
and feelings, as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical
delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for
us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few
persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this