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

64 / the world peace diet
hidden as shameful secrets that would make us profoundly uncomfortable
if we had to witness them or, worse, perform them ourselves.
Two hundred years ago in the South, a slave could certainly be beaten,
stolen from, confined, raped, mutilated, and killed by the master or
his overseer with no feelings of compunction; such behavior was
encouraged by the culture and the upbringing of the dominating class.
This upbringing dulled natural human feelings of compassion, connectedness,
and justice, inhibited people’s intelligence, and allowed them to
act brutally without a sense of remorse. Deep down, though, they certainly
knew better, just as we know better today when we order a cheese
omelet with bacon because we like the taste. Though our natural intelligence
knows this is a profoundly immoral act, our knowing is suppressed
and our hearts are hardened against the misery that a chicken,
a cow, and a pig endured to satisfy our passing and conditioned taste
pleasure. We prefer not to know and are comfortable in knowing that
no one—not the waitress, nor our friends, nor the media—will in any
way remind us of the enormous animal misery necessitated by our
demand. The animals suffer out of sight and their cries are unheeded by
us. They have no voice as long as we refuse to listen to our hearts.
Defending the Fortress
We can see that the three reasons that we eat animal foods—infant
indoctrination, social and market pressure, and taste—reinforce each
other and create a force field around our food choices that, like a sturdy
fortress, resists any incursions. The walls are up, and they’re well fortified.
Yet the fortress may not be as strong as it looks. For one thing, it
confines us and inhibits our natural urge to fulfill a higher potential and
to evolve spiritually. For another, it is not founded upon the truth of our
basic nature, which is kindness, nor on our sense of interconnectedness
with other living beings, and it militates against our ability to awaken
wisdom and live in freedom together. At the core of our being we yearn
to reach higher in our understanding and to live in peace and harmony
on this earth. The walls of the fortress are built of cruelty, denial, ignorance,
force, conditioning, and selfishness. Most importantly, they are
not of our choosing. They have been, and are being, forced upon us.