Most people feel that a meal without meat is
incomplete, for from time immemorial it has been regarded as an axiom that meat
is the most strengthening food we have. All other foodstuffs have been looked
upon as mere accessories to the one or more kinds of flesh on the menu. Nothing
could be more erroneous; science has proven by experiments that invariably the
nourishment obtained from vegetables has a greater sustaining power, and the
reason is easy to see when we look at the matter from the occult side.
The Law of Assimilation
The Law of Assimilation is that "no particle of food may be
built into the body by the forces whose task that is until it has been overcome by
the indwelling Spirit." The Ego must be absolute and undisputed ruler in
the body, governing the cells as an autocrat, or they would all go their own
ways as they do in decay when the Ego has fled.
The level of the consciousness of the cell determines its power
as a unit. The lower its consciousness, the easier it is for the Ego to act as
the governing head of the bodily functions. Cells taken into the body also have
their individual and collective consciousness. Therefore, the level of their
spiritual attainment is a factor to be considered when food is to be used by the
organism. The different kingdoms have different vehicles and consequently a
different consciousness. The mineral has only its dense body and a consciousness
like the deepest trance. It would, therefore, be easiest to subject foods taken
directly from the mineral kingdom. Mineral food would remain with us the
longest, obviating the necessity of eating so often; but unfortunately we find
that the human organism vibrates so rapidly that it is incapable of assimilating
the inert mineral directly. Salt and like substances are passed out of the
system at once without having been assimilated at all. The air is full of
nitrogen which we need to repair waste; we breathe it into our system, yet
cannot assimilate it, or any other mineral, till it has first been transmuted in
Nature's laboratory and built into the plants.
The plants have a dense and a vital body, which enables them to
do this work. Their consciousness is as a deep, dreamless sleep. Thus it is easy
for the Ego to overpower the vegetable cells and keep them in subjection for a
long time, hence the great sustaining power of the vegetable.
Animal Food
In animal food the cells have already become more
individualized, and as the animal has a desire body giving it a passional
nature, it is easily understood that when we eat meat it is harder to overcome
these cells which have animal consciousness resembling the dream state, and also
that such particles will not stay long in subjection. Hence a meat diet requires
larger quantities and more frequent meals than the vegetable or fruit diet. If
we should go one step farther and eat the flesh of carnivorous animals, we
should find ourselves hungry all the time, for there the cells have become
exceedingly individualized and will, therefore, seek their freedom and gain it
so much the quicker. An excess of meat is burned up, but leaves poisonous uric
acid, and it is being more and more recognized that the less meat we eat, the
better for our well-being.
It is natural that we should desire the very best of food, but
every animal body has in it the poisons of decay. The venous blood is filled
with carbon dioxide and other noxious products on their way to the kidneys or
the pores of the skin to be expelled as urine or perspiration. These loathsome
substances are in every part of the flesh and when we eat such food we are
filling our bodies with toxic poisons. Much sickness is due to our use of flesh
foods.
There is plenty of proof that a carnivorous diet fosters
ferocity. We may mention the well-known fierceness of beasts of prey, while the
prodigious strength and the docile nature of the ox, the elephant, and the horse
show the effect of the herb diet on animals.
Healthy Foods
As soon as we adopt the vegetarian diet, we escape one of the
most serious menaces of health: the putrefaction of particles of flesh embedded
between the teeth. Fruits, cereals, and vegetables are from their very natures
slow to decay; each particle contains an enormous amount of ether which keeps it
alive and sweet for a long time, whereas the ether which interpenetrated the
flesh and composed the vital body of an animal was taken away with the Spirit
thereof at the time of death. Thus the danger from infection through vegetable
foods is very small, and many of them are actually antiseptic in a very high
degree. This applies particularly to the citrus fruits: oranges, lemons,
grapefruits, etc., not to speak of the king of all antiseptics, the pineapple.
Instead of poisoning the digestive tract with putrefactive elements as meats do,
fruits cleanse and purify the system, and the pineapple is one of the finest
aids to digestion known to man. It is far superior to pepsin and no cruelty to
sentient life is used to obtain it. Some modern nutritionists advise that for
full benefit of the nutrients, citrus fruits should not be mixed with other
foods.
Cell Salts
There are twelve salts in the body known as cell salts; they are
very vital and represent the twelve signs of the zodiac. These salts are
required for the building of the body. They are not mineral salts as generally
supposed, but are vegetable. The mineral has no vital body, and it is only by
way of the vital body that assimilation is accomplished. Therefore, we have to
obtain these salts through the vegetable kingdom.
Raw or Cooked?
Heat destroys the vital body of the plant and leaves only the
mineral part. Therefore, if we desire to renew the supply of these salts in our
bodies, we must obtain them from the uncooked vegetable. Since cooking destroys
the valuable cell salts, our diet should contain a large percentage of raw food.
Herb teas, which should be steeped and not boiled, are also very rich in
vegetable salts.
But we must not jump to the conclusion that everyone should stop
eating meat and live entirely on raw plant food. At the present stage of
evolution there are very few who can do so. We must take care not to raise the
vibrations of our bodies too rapidly, for we, to continue our labor in the
present conditions, must have bodies fitted for the work.
Harmless as Doves
Occultists know that there is a flame in the skull at the base
of the brain. It burns continually in the medulla oblongata at the head of the
spinal cord, and is of divine origin. This fire emits a singing sound like the
buzz of a bee and is the keynote of the physical body. It builds and cements
together that mass of cells known as our "body."
The fire burns high or low, clear or dim, according to how we
feed it. There is fire in everything in Nature except the mineral kingdom. It
has no vital body and therefore no avenue for the ingress of the Life Spirit,
the fire. We replenish this sacred fire partly from the forces from the Sun
entering the vital body through the etheric counterpart of the spleen, and from
there to the solar plexus where it is colored and then carried upward through
the blood. We also feed this fire from the living fire we absorb from the
uncooked food which we eat and thus assimilate.
Looking at the matter of flesh-eating from the ethical side
also, it is against the higher conception to kill to eat. We have a heavy debt
to pay to the lower creatures whose mentors we should be, but whose murderers we
are; the good law which works ever to correct abuses will in time relegate the
habit of eating murdered animals to the scrap heap of obsolete practices.
Man, in his earlier stages of unfoldment, was like the beasts of
prey in certain respects. However, he is to become God-like and thus he must
cease to destroy in order that he may commence to create. Flesh food has
fostered human ingenuity of a low order in the past; it has served a purpose in
our evolution; but we are now standing on the threshold of a New Age, when self-
sacrifice and service will bring spiritual growth to humanity. The evolution of
the mind will bring a wisdom beyond our greatest conception, but before it will
be safe to entrust us with that wisdom, we must become harmless as doves.
Otherwise we would be apt to turn it to such selfish and destructive purposes
that it would be an inconceivable menace to our fellow men. To avoid this, the
vegetable diet must be adopted.
Practical Considerations
From the purely practical standpoint, too, the vegetarian diet
is advantageous. The ever more prohibited price of meat is causing housewives to
turn to substitutes, and people are gradually being taught that the God-given
food, the vegetable, is most delicious and healthful. Many people who have been
eating more fruits and vegetables are coming to realize that they are gaining in
health and, in many cases, that this physical betterment has been accompanied by
moral and mental improvement. It has been claimed that it takes twelve acres of
pasture to raise the meat sufficient to feed one man. If these twelve acres of
land were used for truck gardening, they would produce enough to feed several
fair-sized families. With the population increase all over the world, it will
soon become necessary to discontinue stock raising and devote the acreage to
wheat and vegetable growing.
In this changing age, when more advanced Egos are born, many of
them are naturally vegetarians; a new race having a higher consciousness is
coming to birth, especially on the Pacific coast. The coming age will be a
vegetarian age, and all who are progressive will naturally fall in line and
become vegetarians--the others will remain behind and be classed among the
stragglers of humanity.
|