Is food a barrier towards spiritual practice?

It's a tricky subject isn't it? There are no hard and fast rules with diet, that's why it's impossible to right down the 'perfect' diet for all. As you say one must listen to the inner voice.

Originally Posted by peacegarden

Does it work like that? I mean, if you're eating meat, then you're still partly responsible for it's death and suffering are you not? So still bringing about bad karma?

It depends how you view karma. All life is energy vibrations.

I view karma as energy vibrations that in certain situations rise to the surfice.

Karma can be neutralised with the right mindset . In vajrayana in death tantric practice demons,gods,etc are products of the subconscious that rise to the surfice.
We end up being our own judge and jury

Originally Posted by knightofalbion

1) If your diet was having a detrimental effect on your life, there must have been an imbalance somewhere.
People usually fall down on the issue of protein. It does require some research to discern that you've got everything covered. There's a science to it.

Some people do claim the same thing - that they followed a vegan diet and became ill. Famously Denise Minger for example has seemingly made a career out of putting down veganism...
She gave an interview to NAIA a few months ago. For the first time, as far as I'm aware, she declared what she was eating. (She was a 15 year old schoolgirl at the time and she followed this diet for two years) "Fresh fruit and vegetables and smoothies and some nuts here and there - all unheated."
No wonder she became ill. And veganism gets the blame...!

2) I rather think it is man who has made these things "edible", not God. Some primitive tribes used to engage in cannibalism. Apparently, human flesh is edible too!

Did man create all life forms? The creator of this world created the food chain as a natural way to cull and keep things in balance.

Originally Posted by knightofalbion

Eating living foods (Fruits esp.berries, seeds and nuts) raise your vibrations. Eating meat lowers your vibrations. Quite apart from the compassion/oneness of all life issues, if you're genuinely on the spiritual path, why would you want to lower your vibrations?

"Eating meat grounds you". Do you think that there are no grounded vegetarians/vegans? The great majority of the world's masters, saints and teachers of righteousness have been vegetarian/vegan.
In any case, wisdom is down to soul evolution.

The problem here is we are talking subjectively . Eating meat can lower or help to increase the vibration .Depends on the person in my oppinion. Again I am talking subjectively .

Yes there are grounded vegetarians and grounded meat eaters. How do you know the majority of the worlds masters have been vegetarian?

Is this fact? or part of a belief system?

Also that brings a whole new arena in to place .How do we define a master?

Originally Posted by knightofalbion

A fine post, Johnty.

Respect to you for standing by your principles and following the path of compassion.

As you say, the body is the temple of the spirit. However we perceive Truth, we should live as kindly and as harmlessly as we can, in all ways.

Even you must draw the line somewhere? If you wash your bed sheets you kill lots of bed bugs, if you get pest control to your house to deal with cockroachers etc you give these little creatures the death penalty. Just by washing our bodies we kill all sorts of microcosmic organisms etc.

The food chain is not nice its what the creator has made.

Originally Posted by knightofalbion

1) That is something that irks me. People who declare that the animal willingly made a scarifice (of its life) so that 'you' could eat its flesh. How do they know? Did they ask it?! No.
The animal didn't want to die anymore than you or I do, certainly not in the manner it did in the slaughterhouse.

2) I don't think anyone held up India as the "Mecca" of vegetarianism. India is a vast melting-pot of ideas, beliefs and cultures, but it does have a huge number of vegetarians and a long history of vegetarianism stretching back thousands of years.

3) Truth is constant and eternal, it is only our understanding and perception of it that alters. Eventually all souls on earth will follow a vegan diet, a spiritual vegan diet, because it is the way of love and non-violence. Wisdom tells you that that is inevitable, in the fullness of time.

Bad karma is created by the baggage one has about eating meat. Equally bad karma is created by the baggage we have of not eating meat

[psychoslice]

If you believe you are the mind body, then yes a glutton of food or anything, can keep you away from realizing your self, but we are not the mind body, when this is truly realized, then tuck into that food and be merry.

is it true, is it really true that all these animal parts are used in all these products?

[Xan]

Originally Posted by peacegarden

It's not just that though is it? I mean, to say it's ok to eat meat so long as someone else kills it, well it's kinda selfish is it not? It's like saying "I don't want this bad karma, so I'll let someone else take it for me, someone who's ignorant enough not to know the consequences of their actions".

It seems kinda hypocritical when we're supposed to have compassion for all sentient beings, the animal is still dead, and someone picked up bad karma for killing it.

I'm not having a go, I still eat meat on occasions, but I must admit I'm being more drawn to leaving it behind.

I understand what you're saying, peacegarden. In my viewpoint killing animals is not the worst thing we can do, as death is just the end of physical existence in this world.

For me, being with people in unconscious unloving judgmental ways is far more damaging, more prevalent and harder to change.

Of course one must follow their own sense of what is right for them, always.


Xan

Originally Posted by Xan

I understand what you're saying, peacegarden. In my viewpoint killing animals is not the worst thing we can do, as death is just the end of physical existence in this world.

For me, being with people in unconscious unloving judgmental ways is far more damaging, more prevalent and harder to change.

Of course one must follow their own sense of what is right for them, always.


Xan

I see. That makes does make sense. Although they say in buddhism that killing another human is a really bad thing because it disrupts their natural cycle of birth and death and they have to start over again. Would it not be the same for animals? I suppose that, a cow in a slaughter house for example, is a life that soul chose to have, to experience?

It is nice to know that eating meat isn't a terrible thing, spiritually. I personally believe that if everyone in this world decided to eat meat only once in a while rather than at least once a day as a lot of people do, then the lifestyle and death of these animals would be much more humane, the carbon footprint considerably less and in general there would be much less suffering. Of course, a lot of people couldn't care less, or at least couldn't care to think about it.