Theos-Talk Archives (December 2003 Message tt00202)

Dec 12 2003

Some Theosophical vies on diet:

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DIET and its Effect on Man's Body.

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Some Theosophical quotations on food and diet:

Available on line from blavatsky.net 


VEGETARIANISM
1

H P B -- The KEY TO THEOSOPHY p. 260-2, Results of diet

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ENQUIRER. I understand now your general idea; but let us see how you
apply it in practice. How about vegetarianism, for instance? 
 
THEOSOPHIST. One of the great German scientists has shown that every
kind of animal tissue, however you may cook it, still retains certain
marked characteristics of the animal which it belonged to, which
characteristics can be recognised. And apart from that, every one knows
by the taste what meat he is eating. We go a step farther, and prove
that when the flesh of animals is assimilated by man as food, it imparts
to him, physiologically, some of the characteristics of the animal it
came from. Moreover, occult science teaches and proves this to its
students by ocular demonstration, showing also that this "coarsening" or
"animalizing" effect on man is greatest from the flesh of the larger
animals, less for birds, still less for fish and other cold-blooded
animals, and least of all when he eats only vegetables. 
 
ENQUIRER. Then he had better not eat at all?
 
THEOSOPHIST. If he could live without eating, of course it would. But as
the matter stands, he must eat to live, and so we advise really earnest
students to eat such food as will least clog and weight their brains and
bodies, and will have the smallest effect in hampering and retarding the
development of their intuition, their inner faculties and powers. 
 
ENQUIRER. Then you do not adopt all the arguments which vegetarians in
general are in the habit of using? 
 
THEOSOPHIST. Certainly not. Some of their arguments are very weak, and
often based on assumptions which are quite false. But, on the other
hand, many of the things they say are quite true. For instance, we
believe that much disease, and especially the great predisposition to
disease which is becoming so marked a feature in our time, is very
largely due to the eating of meat, and especially of tinned meats. But
it would take too long to go thoroughly into this question of
vegetarianism on its merits; so please pass on to something else. 
 
ENQUIRER. One question more. What are your members of the Inner Section
to do with regard to their food when they are ill? 
 
THEOSOPHIST. Follow the best practical advice they can get, of course.
Don't you grasp yet that we never impose any hard-and-fast obligations
in this respect? Remember once for all that in all such questions we
take a rational, and never a fanatical, view of things. If from illness
or long habit a man cannot go without meat, why, by all means let him
eat it. It is no crime; it will only retard his progress a little; for
after all is said and done, the purely bodily actions and functions are
of far less importance than what a man thinks and feels, what desires he
encourages in his mind, and allows to take root and grow there. 
 
ENQUIRER. Then with regard to the use of wine and spirits, I suppose you
do not advise people to drink them? 
 
THEOSOPHIST. They are worse for his moral and spiritual growth than
meat, for alcohol in all its forms has a direct, marked, and very
deleterious influence on man's psychic condition. Wine and spirit
drinking is only less destructive to the development of the inner
powers, than the habitual use of hashish, opium, and similar drugs. 


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2

Crosbie -- FRIENDLY PHILOSOPHER p. 145-6, 196, 

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"One of the Teachers wrote, "Chelaship does not Consist in any kind of
eating or drinking, in any practices, observances, forms, or rituals; it
is an attitude of mind." Another Teacher said, "Seek ye first the
kingdom of heaven and all the rest shall be added unto you." The reason
for this is that it is the mind which is involved. If we resort to
practices, then the mind is bent upon them, becomes more and more
implicated in them, and as they are concrete things, the mind becomes of
that complexion. Jesus said, "Be ye not as the Pharisees who make clean
the outside of the platter." The inner nature has a diet out of our
thoughts and motives. If those are low or gross or selfish, it is
equivalent to feeding that nature upon gross food. True Theosophic diet
is therefore of unselfish thoughts and deeds, untiring devotion to the
welfare of Humanity, absolute negation of self, unutterable aspiration
to the Supreme Soul. This only is what "we can grow upon, and vain are
the hopes of those who pin their faith on any other doctrines."

As to bodily food. It is that which best agrees with you, taken in
moderation, neither too much nor too little. If your Constitution and
temperament will permit vegetarianism, then that will give less heat to
the blood. "If from illness or long habit a man cannot go without meat,
why, by all means let him eat it. It is no crime; it will only retard
his progress a little; for after all is said and done, the purely bodily
functions are of far less importance than what a man thinks and feels,
what desires he encourages in his mind and allows to take root and grow
there." (H. P. B.)

I am saying so much on this subject because experience has shown that it
is so easy for students to slip into bodily observances and stay there;
this is the wrong end to begin on. It is best not to make any particular
selection as to diet; take what best agrees with you and sustains your
body best. There is nothing in vegetarian diet to create spirituality.
The Hindus who have been vegetarians for centuries are, for the most
part, degraded, and the better portion have as much difficulty as the
western man in the acquirement of spiritual knowledge. Also, cows and
sheep would be spiritual if such food had that kind of effect. It is the
motive that counts, too, in anything. If a person stops eating meat in
order that he may, by complying with that condition, attain to a
development he has set before him, he misses the mark and has acquired a
selfish motive for the line thus adopted. Also, of course, you should
know that it has proved to be a real danger for western peoples, whose
digestive organs have become habituated to a meat diet, to change to a
vegetarian one. The trouble does not arise from weakness following lack
of meat, but from imperfect digestion causing disease-due to the
retention in the stomach of vegetable matter for so long a time that
yeasts and other growths, including alcoholic fermentations, arc thrown
into the circulation, sufficiently to bring on nervous diseases,
tuberculosis, and manifold other derangements. It is well known that a
man who has melancholia due to systemia cannot expect to reach a high
development in occultism.

The first thing, then, is to have the right kind of thoughts; the other,
and by far the least important, is diet, in which the main thing to be
observed is, eat whatever will keep the body in the best working
condition, so that it may be as effective an instrument for work in the
world as possible. It is quite true that the foods of the present time
are not ideal. In the future better products will be had, but they will
come from right thinking; our present work is to think from a right
basis and become established in that basis, and assist others to do
likewise. From this will flow what is in accord with it, from within,
outward-a natural growth."
FRIENDLY PHILOSOPHER p 145


" It is never so much a question of what a person does as 'Why does he
do it?" If for self-benefit, it is just as reprehensible as any other
selfish procedure. It is motive and motive alone that makes an action
good or bad, black or white. After all is said and done, "the purely
bodily functions are of far less importance than what a man thinks and
feels, what desires he encourages in his mind, and allows to. take root,
and grow there." "True chelaship is not a matter of diet, postures or
practices of any kind; it is an attitude of mind." F P 196


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Judge -- FORUM ANSWERS -- Pp. 129-30, 

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Q.:	What is the opinion of the leaders of the T. S. in regard to
vegetarianism?

W.Q.J.-Physicians and those who have tried vegetarianism are those who
should speak on this. The opinions of "leaders," as such, are of no
consequence. I tried it for nine years, and found it injurious. This is
because the western man has no heredity of vegetarianism behind him, and
also because his dishes as a vegetarian are poor. They should be
confined to rice, barley, wheat, oats, some nuts and a little fruit; but
westerners don't like such a meager variety. The stomach does not digest
vegetables, it is for meat; the teeth are for tearing and grinding meat.
Most of those vegetarians I know eat a whole lot of things injurious to
them and are not benefited. Had we an ancestry going back thousands of
years, vegetarians always, the case might be different. I know that most
of the experienced physicians we have in the Society- and I know a great
many- agree with my view, and some of them insist that vegetarianism is
wrong under any conditions. With the latter view I do not agree. There
ought to come a time in our evolution when new methods of food
production will be known, and when the necessity for killing any highly
organized creature will have disappeared.

The other branch of the subject is that regarding spiritual development
and vegetarianism. It has been so often dealt with it is sufficient to
say that such development has nothing to do with either meat-eating or
the diet of vegetables. He who gives up meat- eating but does not alter
his nature and thoughts, thinking to gain in spirituality, may flatter
himself and perhaps make a fetish of his denial, but will certainly
thereby make no spiritual progress.
FORUM ANSWERS - Judge 129-30

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Also see:


Judge - THEOSOPHIC DIET -- W Q J Articles, II p. 447, 452, 

Judge - ABOUT KILLING ANIMALS -- W Q J Articles II p. 545-6,

Crosbie -- ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS -- Ocean Class - Pp 199, 208,, 215,

H P B Articles -- Vol. III 167, 175fn, 176; 195, Vol. II 38, 95,

MAHATMA LETTERS (Barker) -- Pp. 65, 276, 400, 406,

H P B -- "THE DEMON OF DRINK" (story) THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT Mag.,
Vol. IX 93, 136, "THE FIRST DISTILLER"

ISIS UNVEILED I xx, 277fn [alcohol & animal magnetism, change of
polarity]

Judge -- GITA NOTES, p. 90, 223 "Right food" defined  

"Neo-Platonists recommended vegetarianism to facilitate the
purification of the personality"
THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY Pp. 149, 257-8

Beginnings of vegetation on earth	S D II 713fn

The Bean of Pythagoras	PATH II 278, 340

"There never yet was a conquering nation of vegetarians" FIVE YEARS OF
THEOSOPHY, p.. 10

Drunken sleep/stupor described	TRANSACTIONS 78

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DTB




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Best wishes,

Dallas  

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-----Original Message-----
From: adelasie 
Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2003 9:19 PM
To:

Subject: Should I give up meat?

rofl