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

Evolve or Dissolve / 227
rational knowing that sees and makes wholes from parts, and that lifts
us out of the prison box of self-preoccupation. Intuition is direct knowing,
unmediated by the illusion of an essentially separate self, and it is
knowing that brings healing, for it sees the larger wholes that the self,
through logical analysis alone, can never see. Analysis and rationality
rely on dividing and comparing, and are helpful tools only when subordinated
to the wisdom and compassion inherent in the direct knowing
of intuition. Without intuition, rationality and analysis become profoundly
irrational; they become tools of exploitation and conflict,
agents of confused self-destruction. Lacking intuition’s guiding sense of
compassion and interconnectedness, they easily serve the hysterical fear,
aggression, and scapegoating projection that invariably arise when we
commodify and eat animals.
Not surprisingly, rationality and analysis are prized in our academic
and educational institutions while intuition is ignored and repressed.
Intuition liberates, connects, illumines—and threatens our herding culture’s
underlying paradigm of violent oppression of animals and of the
feminine. Intuition sees the shadow clearly, and disarms it by embracing
it and not feeding it. It sees the animal hidden in the hot dog, ice cream,
and omelette, feels her misery and fear, and embraces her with love.
Intuition opens the door to healing. It never sees any living being as an
object to be used but sees all beings as unique and complete expressions
of an infinite universal presence, to be honored, respected, learned from,
and celebrated. Intuition is Sophia, the beloved wisdom we yearn for
and seek.
The evolutionary imperative is an intuitive imperative. Intuition is
the fruit of spiritual ripening, and it is cultivated by practicing compassion,
which is the sacred masculine. The ability to leave our selfpreoccupied
perspective and see things from the perspective of others
gives rise to compassion. Through this we learn to leave the imprisoning
illusion of being an isolated object, and enter into the ecstatic knowing
of the interconnectedness of all life. This can bring the understanding
that life is consciousness and that consciousness is, in essence, eternally
free, complete, radiant, and serene. Our true nature is thus undefiled
and resplendent.