|
The Spirituality of Compassion by Light & Sun Co-founders of Gentle World |
|
Some of the brightest, most significant minds in the history of our world, such as: Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Plutarch, Da Vinci, Tolstoy, Tagore, Buddha, Rousseau, Shelley, Thoreau, Isaac Bashevis Singer, George Bernard Shaw, Einstein, Gandhi and Schweitzer, were vegetarians, for ethical reasons. In their quest for truth, they all experienced a similar epiphany: compassion is the heart of love. |
 |
 |
Vegetarianism for them was a religion, based upon a concept of God as perfect love. They reasoned that in order to understand God, one must first aspire to understand love. When they realized that compassion is the heart of love, opposing cruelty became an essential prerequisite for this aspiration. |
|
In these present times, we see so much that we long to change: violence, world hunger, greed, waste, war, disease. Too often, we feel powerless to do anything about it. And yet, simply by refusing to support cruelty, we, like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., will exert a power over insensitive bigotry, be it toward other humans, or other species. Miguel Cervantes says in Don Quixote, "The maddest thing of all is to see life as it is and not as it should be.". For those of us who seek the higher spiritual levels, it is not enough to see life as it should be; we must do all we can to make life as it should be. |
 |
 |
The pitiable plight of animals calls out to our conscience, pleading with us to extend our boundaries of compassion to encompass their suffering. Vegans hearing these cries, are experiencing a new form of self-esteem, which invariably accompanies acts of kindness and altruism. Better health of body and mind, a safer, cleaner environment and a spiritual renaissance, offer even further inspiration for such commitment. |
Try this life-changing, life-giving experiment. Abstain from all animal products for one month, and be assured that you can expect to feel better about yourself, because you have done something to better yourself. photos from Animal's Voice Magazine. |
 |