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Video Information: An interview with Kip Andersen on Veganism, 29.03.2017, Advait Bodhsthal, Noida, India

Context:
~ What are various view of religions?
~ What is veganism?
~ Why should one stop consuming eggs and milk?
~ Why do human cause cruelty and extreme harm to animals?
~ Why non-vegetarianism is prevalent throughout the world?
~ Why should one head towards a vegan lifestyle?

Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~ .

Category

📚
Learning
Transcript
00:00Do you think, do you feel it's possible to be spiritual and animate?
00:09No it is not at all possible.
00:11It is just not possible.
00:23Because to be spiritual is to simply know.
00:30The spiritual one would know who he is and what is happening through him.
00:44He would not be blind to what is kept on his plate.
00:50To be spiritual is to be not fragmented.
00:56One would then really know what is this thing called hunger, what is this thing called food
01:05and what is this thing called food chain.
01:08One would just not open the can and take the flesh and munch it.
01:21One would know where the whole thing is coming from.
01:25Coming from both in a physical way and in a mental way.
01:32When you know where the entire thing is coming from, it simply does not happen.
01:40You see a spiritual man does not relate to the other in terms of body.
01:52It is something of the I.
01:57I often ask those who consume meat, instead of proceeding with a packaged product like
02:07meat, why don't you slaughter the thing yourself?
02:11And when you slaughter the animal yourself, why don't you know it fully even as you slaughter
02:19it?
02:22After all, even from a perspective of self-interest, if something is going into your body, it makes
02:31sense to know it fully.
02:33Why don't you look into its eyes as you slaughter it?
02:39And when you look into the eyes of an animal, and if you are really awake, you will only
02:48see your own deep innocence which might be hidden from you.
02:55It is impossible to see anything or anybody else when you really look around.
03:03And that thing that you look at and that which looks back at you is most prominently visible
03:13in the eyes.
03:15It is visible everywhere.
03:16It is visible even in a leaf, it is visible in the sand, it is visible in stone.
03:24But given the limits of our identification and consciousness, it is the most visible
03:30in the eyes.
03:32So look at the animal, pause, meditate for a while and then go ahead and slaughter it
03:40if you can.
03:41You will only be slaughtering yourself.
03:43I repeat, those eyes are your own primitive eyes.
03:49And when I say your own primitive eyes, that brings us to another interesting way of looking
03:59at it.
04:00That which you call as man is divinity at the core, then animal by evolution,
04:27and intellectual by society.
04:36The animals that you see outside of you are all present within you as well.
04:47To really know an animal is to know that of yourself which remains hidden, suppressed
05:00beneath all the social conditioning.
05:05Have you looked at kids playing?
05:09If you look at kids playing and if you look at animals playing, you won't find much
05:13difference.
05:14In fact, human kids go along very well with animal kids.
05:20Later on, when we cover ourselves with a lot of acquired knowledge, with a lot of social
05:30conditioning, then the animal within us gets suppressed and the more suppressed it gets,
05:39the more we live in frustration and sorrow.
05:46What does that tell us?
05:47That tells us that more we are violent towards the animal on the outside, actually more we
05:53are violent towards the animal inside of us.
05:58And if we are violent towards the animal inside of us, we cannot live in any kind of
06:08relaxation.
06:09I just returned from a learning camp and it was on the Himalayas, where we saw a lot of
06:18these jungles being hacked down.
06:22And I said, when man is hacking down these jungles, he is actually destroying the greenery
06:29within himself.
06:32When man is polluting the rivers, he is actually polluting that which flows within himself
06:41and keeps him wet from the inside.
06:46So you cannot have this misbehavior towards animals unless you are adamant that you will
06:55misbehave towards yourself as well.
06:59You are the universe.
07:02You look into the animal and you see yourself, now how will you misbehave?
07:07You look into the animal's eyes and you find you are looking at a mirror, how will you misbehave?
07:18You pollute a river and you find that you are polluting yourself, now how will you do
07:22that?
07:23And that is not a concept.
07:24If you really look at a river, you are reminded of something very very ancient within yourself.
07:32That is why you are attracted to the river.
07:33Have you ever wondered why men go to the forests and to the hills?
07:38Why you enjoy a waterfall so much?
07:41It is because the waterfall is you.
07:44It is because that pristinely clear gargle is your own.
07:58That is why you like it so much.
08:01That animal is your innocence.
08:04That animal is what you are if all language is taken away from you.
08:12And you are really craving to be that animal.
08:18That is why given the first convenient opportunity, we like to do away with our clothes.
08:28Have you seen how kids often resist clothes?
08:32Even if their mothers would deck them up, the moment they find an opportunity they would
08:38just unbutton themselves and go around naked.
08:41That is the animal within us seeking expression.
08:45When you kill that duck, you are killing the kid within you because the kid identifies
08:52with the duck.
08:53The kid is the duck.
08:56The more you sit in a man-made place and have all this stuff on your plate which is
09:04actually just meat, the more you are acquiescing with the society, the more you are identifying
09:14with the intellect and the further you are going away from the rabbit and the squirrel
09:21within you.
09:23Even the lion, I don't want to be some kind of a species, even carnivorous animals are
09:32alright.
09:40These jungles are very important to us, not because they provide us stuff, because they
09:48are what we are.
09:51When you bring down a tree, you have brought down a part of yourself and having brought
09:58down a part of yourself, you have unnecessarily made yourself incomplete.
10:03From completion you have moved to incompletion.
10:07How can a spiritual man do that?
10:09Spirituality is about moving from incompletion to completion and killing this, destroying
10:15that is about moving from completion to incompletion.
10:21So it is not possible, not at all possible to be spiritual and yet a consumer of this,
10:31that and I am not referring only to meat.
10:34I mean when you raise crops from a perspective of destroying them after their season and
10:44after their utility, it is much the same.
10:52In fact if you are that kind of a vegetarian, it will not really take much of a push to
11:00turn you into a meat eater.
11:05And that is why you see it is not uncommon, in fact it is fairly common for vegetarians
11:11to flip into meat eating.
11:14That which was not there cannot suddenly appear.
11:18The seeds of violence were there even when one was a vegetarian and that is why upon
11:24persuasion and upon opportunity, one moves to meat.
11:31Vegetarianism or veganism cannot be a taught quality.
11:37It has to be something of the heart.
11:40You cannot give arguments in favor of it.
11:45It has to be a destroyer of all arguments.
11:49You are really a vegan.
11:52If in spite of all arguments you are still a vegan, tomorrow a body of evidence may arise
11:58which says that if you are a vegan, then such and such minerals and vitamins get deficient
12:04within your body.
12:06Now in spite of all that evidence, and that evidence might be scientifically accurate,
12:12but if in spite of that evidence you say, I am what I am and I refuse to do that which
12:19is against my nature, then you are really a vegan, because veganism is about having
12:25the right relationship with the world around you.
12:30Veganism in its essence is religion.
12:33You cannot just say, I am a vegan.
12:37You are actually stating your religion when you say that.
12:43One does not look at it that way, but that's what it really is.
12:49To be a vegan does not feel pleasurable.
12:57I know this might disappoint you, but please.
13:00It does not feel like anything.
13:02In fact, to live rightly and to have a right relationship with the world is to gain freedom
13:10from various kinds of feelings.
13:13As long as one eats to get a certain feeling, the eating would always involve violence.
13:22So if you are promoting veganism, kindly do not promote a culture of feeling, because
13:31all feeling is excitement, all feeling is experiential, all feeling is sensory and all
13:38feeling is fleeting.
13:41One does not live by his feelings.
13:44One cannot live by his feelings.
13:46One has to live by the truth.
13:49One feels a lot in his everyday life, and that feeling itself is man's hell and torture.
13:59Why do you enjoy sleep?
14:01You enjoy sleep because sleep is a cessation of all feeling.
14:07Sleep is a non-feeling, and that's why it's the best feeling.
14:13Being a vegan, I do not feel a lot of things that others feel.
14:19I do not feel tension.
14:20I do not feel excitement.
14:23And because I do not feel pleasure, I also do not feel pain.
14:28It's a beautiful silence.
14:30It's a lovely thing.
14:31And this love that I'm referring to is not a feeling.
14:36It's something far more deeper than feeling.
14:40I'm tempted to use the word mystical, but that has its own images and connotations.
14:47So I would rather avoid.
14:51Don't live by feelings.
14:53Don't live by images.
14:55Don't live by experiences.
14:58You go to any of the restaurants and they'll say, come, experience this new kind of food.
15:08Is this not new cuisine?
15:10Not really exciting?
15:13Now excitement, experience, feeling, emotion, titillation, pleasure, they are all words
15:20belonging to the same family.
15:22And as long as these words carry value in our mind, as long as these words carry value
15:32in our mind, man will not be able to be kind to himself or to the world.
15:42If excitement is a value, then there is a lot of value in hunting.
15:49If experience is a value, then it is always a new experience to kill a new species.
16:03Really understanding that is the highest value, that is the highest freedom.
16:11And if one does need to have a feeling, the feeling can be, must be, to be situated in
16:21that understanding.
16:23This feeling is love.
16:26That is the only thing that one wants, really wants, then it really is love.
16:30I want to understand.
16:32I want to live by my nature.
16:34I want to live simply, innocently.
16:37This want is love.
16:40Love obviously denotes wanting.
16:43But what is it that one wants?
16:46One needs to look very carefully into that.
16:49What is it that I am wanting?
16:52That which you want will decide your life.
16:57So want only the highest, nothing less than that.
17:00Do not want feelings, they are not the highest, rather a freedom from feelings.
17:07That does not mean killing the feelings.
17:10That only means that one is not a slave of feelings.

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