Vegan lifestyle articles that discuss ways of living in peace with humans, animals, and the environment.
Will Tuttle,PhD,
World Peace Diet
July 2016
The vegan wave is building and is irresistible because it is our true nature calling. May our words and example instigate the benevolent revolution that liberates animals and all of us from the herding delusion of materialism, healing our hearts so that we discover our purpose and celebrate our lives as we are intended to on this bountiful and beautiful Earth.
Recent events highlight the injustice and violence of racism, sexism,
heterosexism, and gross economic inequity, which cause tremendous suffering
in our world, and even within many social justice movements, including the
vegan movement. How can we get to the roots of these issues, and what role
does the accepted materialism of our society play in this? How can each of
us contribute most effectively to cultural healing?
To meaningfully address these questions, we are called first of all to break
the great taboo and pull back the curtain of denial, and doing so, to
clearly recognize that all of us are born into an industrialized herding
culture that is organized at its core around reducing beings to things.
Billions of other animals are seen and treated as mere commodities that have
no other purpose than to be imprisoned, fed, impregnated, used, and killed
by us through an obsolete and hauntingly unquestioned food system. We are
trained from infancy by our culture’s relentless meal rituals not just to
eat the flesh and secretions of these abused animals, but to eat and embody
the attitudes of this herding culture as well.
Art by
visionary artist Madeleine Tuttle
Herderism and Materialism
It’s vital to make an effort to understand how and why these foods are
harmful to us and others, and further, to understand how and why these
attitudes are unhealthy and destructive as well—though our indoctrination to
these foods and attitudes is most definitely profitable for the elites
controlling the
military-industrial-meat-medical-pharmaceutical-media-banking complex. Meals
are the foundational indoctrinating ritual in every culture, and the
pervasive violence of our society against animals used for food and other
products not only destroys their freedom, peace, and well-being, but also
harms and reduces ours as well, in ways that are typically invisible and
unrecognized.
We are forced from infancy to adopt a set of mutually reinforcing
mentalities in order to participate in this defining activity of our
culture. These mentalities include disconnectedness, desensitization,
denial, exclusivism, elitism, domination of the feminine, reduction and
commodification of living beings, predatory competitiveness, gullibility,
and materialism.
Being ritually compelled to adopt these attitudes and to live and function
within a society that routinely imprisons, attacks, and consumes millions of
animals daily wounds us all deeply on many levels. However, the wounding is
hidden, and, like the violence, is mostly invisible because it is pervasive,
all-encompassing, and normalized. Fortunately, each of us can make an effort
to understand this, and we can each, with help from others, undertake a
journey of healing, and free ourselves from both the behavior of eating,
purchasing, and causing unnecessary abuse to others, and also from the
underlying attitudes that cause this unnecessary suffering not just to other
animals, but to each other and to ourselves.
The Two-Part Journey of Healing
This journey of healing and awakening is the vegan journey, and it is in
many ways the greatest gift we can give to ourselves and to our world today.
In fact, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that if we don’t, as a culture,
take this healing journey to a more conscious and non-exploitive way of
living, our industrialized violence will destroy the possibilities of a
viable future for all of us.
It’s a two-part journey. The first part, freeing ourselves from the abusive
behavior of purchasing and consuming animal-sourced foods, is relatively
straightforward. The second part, freeing ourselves from the sticky web of
interrelated attitudes injected into us by our herding culture, is more
complex.
We have been herding animals now for about ten thousand years. It’s a
practice that’s utterly obsolete, but it has insinuated its devastating
tentacles not only into our planetary ecosystems and our culture, economy,
and institutions, but also into our bodies, minds, feelings, and
consciousness. Everything these tentacles touch, they damage, pervert, and
destroy. Hamburgers, hot dogs, fish sticks, cheese, eggs, ham, tuna,
chicken, yogurt, and ice cream are falsely portrayed as benevolent and
required foods for us, when in fact they are completely malevolent and
unnecessary. Animal agriculture and animal-sourced foods are destroying our
health, our society, our ecosystems and other animals, and they also
insidiously damage the landscape of our consciousness.
Being born into a herding culture, and into the exploitive structure of
corporate capitalism that herderism has inevitably generated, injures us all
from infancy. We all know in our bones that we are products of our
communities and culture, and that the only reason any of us eats
animal-sourced foods is because we are following orders that have been
injected into us by our parents, families, and by every institution and
tradition in our society. It is anything but a free choice.
With ten thousand years of practice in the attitudes required to herd
animals, we have now unfortunately thoroughly incorporated the delusions of
herderism into our worldview, to our detriment, and we have obediently
passed these traditional delusions from generation to generation. In doing
so, we have passed on herderism’s inexorably accompanying furies as well:
war, slavery, exploitation of the feminine, the macho male role-model for
boys, a wealthy elite class, racism and other forms of social injustice,
poverty, disease, hunger, anxiety, competition, and disconnectedness from
animals and from nature.
The sprawling and traumatizing delusion of herderism can be summed in one
word: materialism. The defining educational practice of our culture is
teaching us from infancy to harden our gaze, and to see certain beings as
mere matter: as nothing more than physical objects, like sacks of cement.
All of us, whatever our race, gender, orientation, or class happen to be,
are ritually wounded by our cultural food program, compelled to mentally
transform someones into somethings. We participate, buy, and eat cows, pigs,
chickens, turkeys, geese, fishes, and other animals by their material
weight. Their value is determined by the mass of the flesh on their physical
bodies, and by the secretions and offspring they can produce for their
owners. For us, they are mere material objects to be consumed. Our culture’s
food rituals numb us into believing this patent falsehood.
After practicing this extreme form of materialistic and ritualized delusion
for ten thousand years, generation upon generation, meal upon meal, bite
upon bite, we have drifted farther than any culture ever has from the basic
wisdom of connecting with and respecting life—both our own and others. We
have become a thoroughly materialistic culture in the deep sense that
materialism is, philosophically, the attitude and way of seeing and acting
that reduces everything to matter. Not only are other animals reduced to
being mere physical objects that are born and die, but we are taught to see
ourselves and each other, and all life, this way as well. This delusion of
materialism pervades our unjust economic system, as well as our reductionist
science, religion, and education, and all our institutions. It devastates
not just animals and ecosystems, but also our inherent wisdom, compassion,
and well-being.
Veganism is the struggle to free ourselves from this delusion of
materialism, and to see beings as beings, rather than as objects to be used.
This awakening from materialism is a challenging endeavor, liberating our
awareness and thus liberating animals and all of us by helping us regain our
ability to see beings as subjects rather than objects. Opening our hearts
and unblinding our eyes, we respectfully release other animals to once again
celebrate their lives in the natural world as they are intended, and as they
did for millions of years before we began to steal their freedom, and
imprison and commodify them. This awakening also helps liberate us from our
cages as well: the persistent and unrecognized cages of injustice and
delusion. We can respectfully release other people from indoctrinated mental
categories based on race, gender, and so forth, and this helps free us from
the delusions underlying injustice. As we open our minds and question our
culture’s narrative of abuse, we take the journey to overhaul not just our
outer behavior, but also our underlying attitudes, assumptions, and way of
being.
Veganism is nothing to be proud of because it is not so much an
accomplishment as it is an ongoing process of questioning, and of
recognition, realization, remembering, and of returning home to the
ever-present wisdom and grace that have been taken from us. When we see
beings, we naturally see beings, not things—and relate to them as such, with
respect. Veganism is no big deal, really; it’s our natural vision,
increasingly liberated from the hijacking influence of our culture’s toxic
herderism. Yet it is an ongoing endeavor of enormous consequence also,
because vegan living is a liberating adventure of questioning the official
narratives both externally as well as the aspects that we have internalized.
Deep Veganism: The Antidote to Herderism and Materialism
Now we get to the real issues we face as vegans, which are connected to the
wounds that we have all endured by being born and raised in a herding
culture of materialism that treats beings as things and indoctrinates all of
us into this mind-set. What gives veganism its power is that it’s solidly
practical and behavioral, and as praxis, it also has a theoretical and
internal dimension as well. As concrete behavior, it’s an effort to minimize
the violence toward animals flowing from our actions, so we eat, wear, and
use no foods, products, or services that depend on human abuse of other
animals, including human animals. Internally, vegan living is a journey of
healing as we work our way out of the toxic brambles of materialism and
reductionism, and recognize the beauty of other expressions of life, and
regain our natural human yearning to protect and care for what we value and
appreciate.
As our heart and mind both open, we begin to see that, while the outer
expression of veganism in our patterns of consuming is certainly important
and helpful, there is much more to veganism than boycotting industries and
products. We begin to see that vegan living is rejecting the delusion of
materialism that is often internalized in our unconscious assumptions, and
that it calls us to realize that all life is a manifestation of
consciousness that is, essentially, infinite, benevolent, joyful, and
eternal.
What this means in practice is that we take the journey to deep veganism,
questioning and transforming not only the materialism of our outer actions,
but also the philosophical materialism that has been injected into our
consciousness by the herderism of our culture. As vegans we move to a
plant-based way of eating and living for ethical reasons, to promote
justice, compassion, freedom, and health for animals, for hungry people, for
workers, for ecosystems and wildlife, and for future generations of all
beings. We do this mindfully, and while our organic, whole-food plant-based
way of eating and living benefits our health and happiness, it also helps
and uplifts everyone.
As our awareness continues to expand, we realize that the only person we can
change and liberate is ourself, and that the way to be an effective vegan
advocate is to strive to ever more deeply understand ourselves and to uproot
the materialist and reductionist tendencies that still remain in our
consciousness, that bind us in dualism, and that generate our tendency to
blame, judge, exclude, and criticize others, and to see others as the
problem.
Deep veganism is an ongoing process of maturing emotionally and
existentially beyond the indoctrinated and materialist view of trying to
change other people, and recognizing that this manipulative effort is a form
of violence that is based in the materialist delusion that we are
essentially a separate self, an object that was born and will die, and that
others are as well. This delusion propels us try to maneuver other people
into changing. It also pushes us to try to find ways to effectively market
this vegan message to others as if veganism is a mere commodity that we are
packaging for consumption. With deep veganism, we realize that efforts to
manipulate others to change in a way that we want them to, and arguing with
or criticizing or blaming them, run contrary to the spirit of inclusiveness
and respect that is the essence of vegan living. We realize that we’ve been
vegan in our outer appearance, but internally we’re still trapped in the
shallows of the materialist herder delusion of separateness, exclusiveness,
and manipulativeness. Veganism is a call from our true nature to radical
questioning of virtually all of the assumptions of our cultural programming.
It is a call from our future and more evolved awareness to remember that
there is no way to spread veganism, which is love, kindness, and respect,
other than embodying love, kindness and respect for all animals including
human animals. The path is the goal.
Farming Children
With deep veganism, we become more effective in our advocacy because we
begin to understand herderism and that through well-meaning but injured
parents, relatives, and authorities, we’ve all been wounded. This helps us
deepen our compassion for everyone.
Art by
visionary artist Madeleine Tuttle
We see more clearly that forcing infants and children to eat the flesh
and secretions of abused animals is a pervasive and culturally approved form
of child abuse on several levels. First of all, it causes us as children
tremendous physical suffering in the form of sore throats, earaches,
obesity, diabetes, constipation, and many other conditions. But the abuse we
endure runs to much deeper levels than this.
When as children we realize what hot dogs and bacon actually are, a cold
darkness enters our chest. Our natural sense of kindness toward other
animals is crushed under the weight of the overwhelmingly pervasive,
inescapable, relentless, and hypnotically ignored cultural practice of
heartless killing and eating, and we are thrown forever out of the garden of
kindness, innocence, self-esteem, and harmony. What we refer to in The World
Peace Diet as Sophia, the inner sacred feminine dimension of consciousness
that naturally yearns to love and protect life, is stomped on and repressed
by the harsh and inexorable violence of herderism. We know, and we eat this
profoundly disturbing knowing every day, that there is no compassion or
justice for other animals. The devastating effects of this daily
reality—that we are ritually compelled by those we trust implicitly to both
eat and cause violence with every meal—cannot be overstated.
Our entire culture is, in many ways, modeled on a farm where we, as newborn
infants, are treated like calves on a dairy, as exploitable commodities in a
heartless economic system. Like the calves we are not allowed to bond with
our mothers properly. We have foods and pharmaceutical injections forced on
us that are not in our interest but are advantageous to our exploiters, and
we enter a system of intense social and economic competition where we are
seen as objects, and are taught to see ourselves and other people in the
same way, as competitors, as different, and as instruments to be manipulated
and used. We are forced to eat foods of embedded terror, despair, and
anxiety. Our natural sense of kinship with other animals (and ultimately
with each other) is fractured as we dine on their misery.
Our capacity for sensitivity and intuition is repressed as we undergo the
emotional numbing that herderism requires, and our sense of celebrating our
lives in an essentially benevolent and loving atmosphere is compromised if
not completely shattered. With deep veganism, we grow to understand how all
of us have been psychologically wounded by being born into this herding
culture’s violent and materialistic way of living, and through this
understanding, we reawaken our compassion not just for animals but also for
other wounded people. As this happens, our tendency toward prejudice, blame,
criticism, and trying to change others dissolves into a deeper yearning to
show them love and respect, and to help them take the journey of healing
that we are in the process of taking. A new sense of respect informs our
advocacy efforts, and while we are still keenly aware of the misery and
abuse inflicted by animal agriculture and the actions of indoctrinated and
wounded people, we are grateful for the opportunity that we have daily to
learn more, grow, and contribute our unique gifts to bring healing to our
world.
We can realize that, because we are all wounded by our culture’s herderism
and pervasive materialistic assumptions, we can cultivate a sense of
solidarity with other people and a sense of compassion and understanding for
them, even though they may be acting in ways with which we disagree. We see
that the perpetrators are also victims. Hurt people hurt others. We all need
healing and healing comes from love. Disrespect cannot heal disrespect; only
respect and love can heal. The most effective contribution I can make is the
effort to heal my consciousness, so that I am ever more authentically living
the truth of veganism, which is kindness and understanding for all beings,
including other human beings and myself.
Effective Advocacy as Self Awareness and Self-Liberation
The movement to liberate animals is the movement to liberate ourselves. This
is the liberation movement that goes to the essential root of all our many
problems, injustices, and crises, which is herderism, the mentality of
materialism. It requires us to question the old dualistic way we have
engaged in social campaigns—that we are right and they are wrong—and to
honor the deeper truth that we share similar wounds and in healing them in
ourselves, we help others to heal them in themselves.
It seems that a vegan movement is developing that is based increasingly on
this understanding. As we take responsibility for changing the one being we
each can change, we create a new foundation for embodying vegan values of
respect for all. As more of us question the official story of materialism
and strive to embody deep veganism, we are creating an unstoppable movement
that will positively transform our world. Undertaking the challenging inner
work to more fully embody the presence of loving understanding, we will
attract and motivate others to take the same journey.
What is this inner work? Essentially, it is the practice of cultivating
mindfulness and inner listening. Just as we’ve been relentlessly programmed
by our culture, we’re called to be relentless in our effort to free
ourselves from this conditioning. A regular and unrelenting inner practice
of meditative openness, and of questioning the inner stories, concepts, and
ongoing internal dialogue can liberate consciousness to glimpse its true
nature. Through cultivating receptive awareness and inner stillness, we can
realize that our consciousness is essentially free, pure, and vast, like the
clear and unencumbered sky. Through this, we can see more clearly the clouds
of conditioned thought and habit as they appear, and that we are not these
clouds; we are the space of awareness in which they arise and to which they
return. We see that we are not things nor are others ever things. We can
discover directly the deeper truth that we are all manifestations of eternal
consciousness, and the blinding spell of materialism and herderism begins to
dissolve. Our relationship with ourself, and with other expressions of life
is transformed. The roots of speciesism, racism, and other delusions are
recognized as the programming of herderism’s materialist delusion, and as
they dissolve we naturally see with new eyes and new hearts.
Veganism is far more than working for the rights of other animals. It calls
us to a complete social transformation through transforming our attitudes,
assumptions, and relationships at the deepest level. It’s the adventure of a
lifetime to awaken our awareness and ever more deeply live the truth of our
interconnectedness with all life. We can transform ourselves, and this
transforms our advocacy efforts so that, in Walt Whitman’s words, “I and
mine do not convince by arguments. We convince by our presence.” It’s not so
much what we say; it’s how we say it and how congruent we are in manifesting
the message we are conveying.
As individuals and as a movement, as we increase our capacity to embody
veganism as kindness and respect for other human animals, our movement will
become itself the change we’d like to see in the world, dramatically
increasing our effectiveness. We will plant seeds of positive change in
others with every word, intonation, and gesture, and, awakened from the
dualistic materialism of herderism, others will change without our trying to
change them. The heart of the vegan movement is education, and authentic
education is self-discovery that takes place in a context of trust and
respect. As vegans, our main effort is to embody veganism, connect with our
intuitive wisdom, and let that guide our actions and interactions. From this
can flow a profusion of campaigns, films, restaurants, books, blogs,
websites, products, sanctuaries, music, art, and grassroots educational
efforts that all embody the vegan message. As we let go of being attached to
the fruits of our actions, we free others and ourselves. Not trying to
change others, but to respect and understand, we become the space of
authentic change and instigate it by sharing our experience, example, and
insights. Ironically, this is what helps create lasting and empowering
change in others. It also frees us as advocates from burnout, anger, and
despair.
As vegans, we are most effective in our advocacy as we recognize this and
inspire others through respectfully sharing our stories and perspectives,
and healing herderism’s materialism within our consciousness and within our
way of communicating and relating. As love, joy, and gratitude increasingly
inform our thoughts, words, and actions, we naturally plant seeds of
veganism wherever we go. The vegan (r)evolution of kindness, inclusion, and
healing calls us to take the ongoing inner steps to deepen our veganism.
Through this effort, we will become the people who can co-create the
fundamental social and personal transformation that our positive future is
calling from us.
Buckminster Fuller emphasized that the way to a positive future is not
through fighting against an abusive and inefficient system or situation.
Rather, it is to build an alternative that reflects the harmony, freedom,
and integrity that we envision, and that naturally renders the existing
system obsolete. Veganism is not merely a critique of a violent and outmoded
system; it is living an inner and outer alternative that is nutritious,
delicious, sustainable, healing, liberating, and positively transformational
on every level.
Art by
visionary artist Madeleine Tuttle
Each of us can contribute to it with our unique abilities and insights,
and help heal the foundation of our relationships with the Earth, with other
animals, and with each other.
The vegan wave is building and is irresistible because it is our true nature
calling. May our words and example instigate the benevolent revolution that
liberates animals and all of us from the herding delusion of materialism,
healing our hearts so that we discover our purpose and celebrate our lives
as we are intended to on this bountiful and beautiful Earth.
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