spirituality and vegetarianism

I stole this from teh buddhism forum...

http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma3/vegi.html

I've only read it in part but it got me thinking.... since the person who orginially turned me vegetarian (when I was one) was a holistic (spiritual) healer. He told me it was wrong and could inhibit my spiritual growth. He eventually swayed me 1) bc he didn't have to wear deodarant and didn't smell either, which totally blew my mind, I actually believed people needed it 2) I worked in a restaurant and we had a meeting on how to treat the meat we sell so it doesn't kill us or anyone else, but when it came to veggies it was all good, just don't let the meat drip on the veggies.

So how many religions/spiritual sects support or encourage vegetarianism? the link I provided felt it was unnecessary to restrain from meat for spiritual enlightenment, though some buddhists choose to do so. Do any other forms of religion/spirituality have anyting to say on the subject?

One other thing I can think of is the Celestine Prophecy (which is supposively based on real stuff, and a good read) advocated a vegetarian diet for spiritual growth.

 

i read an interesting thing by joseph campbell the other day about how some primitive religions, based usually on geography and technology, will form religion on the basis of either

a. man is dominant over nature
b. man is equal to nature

depending on the local wildlife, available fruits/vegetables, social structure, etc.

usually it's the former (the one that finds himself superior) are the ones that build infrastructure, largel buildings, temples, and feel that meat animals are theirs to use, eat, sacrifice, etc. (think early jewish religion).

and it's usually the latter that lives at harmony with nature that is able to control their population, build smaller, more reasonable housing, and reveres their meat animals as beings who willingly give their lives for humans (think some native americans).

the problem is, most people today belong to the former group and they don't give a thought to where their food actually comes from. i think if the native americans had organized their own nation, we wouldn't have factory farms haha.



another group, the rastafarIans, also has a set of food rules called 'ital', which usually doesn't include meat (or, the only meat is small fish under 12'' ). usually 'ital' means organic vegetarian food. i'm pretty sure it's lacto-ovo veg, though, but i have known of vegan rastafarIans

 

Essenes were vegetarians and it was a big part of their way of life - Check out The Essen Gospel of Peace