Benefit Yourself through Veganism – Interview with Acharya Prashant (vegan), Part 2 of 2

“Wisdom, love, truth. Deep, deep consciousness that takes one so high, that one can then escape away from consciousness. How then can one be full of disrespect for any sentient, any conscious being?” “And if you can look at yourself and see that you are really, really eager to get love, to get freedom, to get security, how will you not see that, when you look at other human beings or other conscious beings? If you are violent towards other beings, it only means that you are violent towards yourself as well, because you and the other beings are essentially one.”

To reach the spiritual height of oneness, the spiritual teacher reminds us that practitioners must possess wisdom and love, and to deeply care for others as they would their own self-interests. “To be existent is to be desirous of liberation, otherwise why would you exist at all? We exist to be loved and liberated. And you cannot have liberation in isolation. To move towards your liberation is to realize that nothing like isolation exists. Your deepest desire is also the deepest desire of your neighbor. And the deepest desire of you and your neighbor is the same as that of the insect crawling in your neighbor’s lawn and of the bird perched on your terrace.” “Those who are violent towards other living forms are fundamentally violent towards themselves. Do not turn vegetarian or vegan for reasons of mercy or pity; turn vegan in your own self-interest.” “One wants to kill and consume because one is forgetting his real intention; one is forgetting his real need; one is forgetting why he exists at all.”

Acharya Prashant believes that true spiritual practitioners must pursue the truth for their own self-interest, and on a final note, urges all of us to stand up for ourselves and for a better world. “We all are, at our respective positions on the curve. But there is a lot of falseness that is obvious, open, evident, conclusive. Kindly do not tolerate it. Kindly do not live with it, encourage it, because falseness is ugliness. Only truth is beautiful.” “So to have a beautiful world, have the courage to stand up for the truth. Don’t be a victim to your own habits, or culture, or conditioning. Once you have seen something as a fact, support it. And if the support requires commitment or sacrifice, pay the price.”