The Heart Centric Perspective on Veganism

[Emerald]

Hello all!

As someone who eats a plant based diet, I’ll often find threads on here about Veganism.

And there is a pattern I notice around lack of holistic thinking relative to this topic... and others.

Lots of more intellectual and logic-based perspectives and not a lot of credence given to heart-based perspectives.

For example, someone might share the truth that... ‘There is no way to stop causing suffering to other beings. We kill so many life-forms every time we step on the grass.’ OR ‘Plants are alive too.’ And the list goes on.

And these are perfectly true and logical perspectives. But they are often used to bypass and overlook more heart-centered perspectives like the darker and grittier empathy we can realize when we observe the suffering of another sentient being.

So, these more intellectual truths often insulate a person from the awareness of how they really feel about animal suffering.

This isn’t the only topic this happens in relation to. Lots of elevating mind-based perspectives over heart-based perspectives in general. It’s just the clearest example of this.

The main point here is to say that, if you value becoming multi-perspectival and holistic in you POV, you must integrate the heart-based POV.

And you must be discerning enough to know which perspective is wisest to take in any given situation. We can use truths from either perspective to lie to ourselves. That’s how sneaky self-deception can be.

Sometimes, the logic/mind-based perspectives will be wisest. Other times, choosing this perspective will lead to major blind spots, rationalizations of “devilry”, and intellectual bypassing.

Sometimes, the heart-centered perspective will be wisest. Other times, choosing this perspective will lead you into ungroundedness and distorted thinking.

Basically, with regard to Veganism and topics like it... don’t bring a knife to a gun fight. 

[Snader]

I see that all over this forum, but it's quite natural as there is no entrance evaluation on your state of consciousness or test for holistic thinking when signing up.

I think lots of people here have heart-based opinions and points, but as the baseline here sometimes tends to be pretty low, it is much easier to rationalize the subject than it is to give valid holistic points based on wisdom. After all, folks here mostly want to chat and interact with others, so it's much easier to stay on rational plane than it is to twist your arguments with nuanced points which others will probably just piss on.

[ilja]

Fills my heart to hear this.

i think that lack of heart is the factor for people thinking veganism is just another ideology, because a one-sided focus on the rational in oneself makes it only to see this part.

[aurum]

@Emerald

I agree that people are extremely disconnected from their hearts when it comes to animal suffering. If slaughterhouse videos don’t make you cry, I’m not convinced you are human.

Where I would strongly disagree with vegans is that the most “heart-centered” POV is inherently to not eat animals. And that anyone who eats animals must be disconnected from their heart and the suffering of animals.

In fact, I’m going to go one step further and say you are unlikely to develop a healthy relationship with animals unless you eat them.

So yes we should watch our rationalizations if we eat meat. But speaking as someone who was vegan for about two years, it’s not the answer for most people.

[Emerald]

2 hours ago, aurum said:

@Emerald

In fact, I’m going to go one step further and say you are unlikely to develop a healthy relationship with animals unless you eat them.

What is your rationale here?

[Emerald]

12 hours ago, ilja said:

Fills my heart to hear this.

i think that lack of heart is the factor for people thinking veganism is just another ideology, because a one-sided focus on the rational in oneself makes it only to see this part.

Veganism can certainly be an ideology too. But ideology is useful sometimes.

Ideology is basically a form of mental technology that we invent in order to look at the world from a particular perspective. Ideology is a lens.

And all major shifts in consciousness come to the masses in the form of ideology.

The problems come in when a person gets attached to one ideology and can’t see beyond it.... aka being ideological. 

[Emerald]

13 hours ago, Snader said:

I see that all over this forum, but it's quite natural as there is no entrance evaluation on your state of consciousness or test for holistic thinking when signing up.

I think lots of people here have heart-based opinions and points, but as the baseline here sometimes tends to be pretty low, it is much easier to rationalize the subject than it is to give valid holistic points based on wisdom. After all, folks here mostly want to chat and interact with others, so it's much easier to stay on rational plane than it is to twist your arguments with nuanced points which others will probably just piss on.

Yeah, I think it’s mostly because there is a strong cultural under-current that says logic/rationality is always more wise than intuition/emotion.

So, if a person can come up with a rational truth, they will often use that rational truth to invalidate the more emotional truth.

And rationalization can be a very sneaky self-deception mechanism. 

And this topic is particularly prone to this because the emotional truth is VERY unpleasant to observe. And it’s kind of like opening Pandora’s Box. Once you really let yourself be emotionally aware of your true feelings about animal suffering, you can’t go back to innocence and convince yourself that you don’t feel the way you actually feel.

Once you eat of the tree of knowledge, you can’t go back into the blind bliss of paradise.

This is why you find a lot of avoidance relative to this topic.

A great many people (probably most) have Vegan feelings/values... and they don’t want to become aware of how they’ve been living out of alignment with those feelings/values. And all the negative feelings about that disalignment have been underneath the surface... until a major shift happens.

When I went Vegan 5 years ago, in the first couple weeks, I had to face a lot of negative feelings rising to the surface once the rationalizations and cognitive dissonance around animal product consumption no longer needed to exist.

Also, the feeling of powerlessness in relation to how meager my capacity to effect change is in relation to this issue was rough to deal with.

If a person really wants to know the truth about how they feel about factory farming, I recommend watching Earthlings.

If you watch with an open mind and heart, it will show you what your feelings and values ACTUALLY are, up underneath the rationalizations.

[Consilience]

40 minutes ago, Emerald said:

In fact, I’m going to go one step further and say you are unlikely to develop a healthy relationship with animals unless you eat them.

It feels like my relationship with all animals has vastly improved since I stopped eating them. I'd be interested in hearing your rational for this as well. 

[Emerald]

45 minutes ago, Consilience said:

It feels like my relationship with all animals has vastly improved since I stopped eating them. I'd be interested in hearing your rational for this as well. 

You quoted me as saying that. But it was @aurum

I was curious about his rationale.

[aurum]

11 hours ago, Emerald said:

What is your rationale here?

It’s nuanced.

For starters, I’m not referring to just unconsciously eating animals. The average person going to eat a cheeseburger from McDonalds is not going to have a healthy relationship with animals either.

I’m speaking mostly of indigenous wisdom.

I think it’s fair to acknowledge that indigenous people had a much more sustainable, connected, healthy relationship with animals. Sure, there may have been cases when they over hunted. But generally speaking, we moderns could learn a thing or two from them.

Where did this wisdom come from? Were our indigenous ancestors just naturally more compassionate and happened to hunt and eat animals to survive? 

That is what most vegans would argue. Indigneous people ate animals because they had to. And now that we are more evolved, we no longer have to.

I think it’s the exact opposite.

Indigenous folks had that relationship with animals precisely because they ate and hunted animals.

Taking a life so that you can live, consciously, is what cracks open someone’s heart.

Our modern relationship with nature is very much out of alignment. Either we ruthlessly exploit it, or we attempt to distance ourselves as far as possible from it, usually as a counter-reaction to the exploitation. 

Veganism to me is a counter-reaction to the ruthless exploitation of animals. A swinging of the pendulum to the other side. But neither places us as a part of nature. 

There’s a great book on my website called Heartsblood that goes into some of these ideas.

Granted, consciously killing and eating animals is not an easy thing to do in modern society. Society is not set up for that. So it is a challenging task, but it’s something I’m working towards the best I can.

[ilja]

32 minutes ago, aurum said:

It’s nuanced.

For starters, I’m not referring to just unconsciously eating animals. The average person going to eat a cheeseburger from McDonalds is not going to have a healthy relationship with animals either.

I’m speaking mostly of indigenous wisdom.

I think it’s fair to acknowledge that indigenous people had a much more sustainable, connected, healthy relationship with animals. Sure, there may have been cases when they over hunted. But generally speaking, we moderns could learn a thing or two from them.

Where did this wisdom come from? Were our indigenous ancestors just naturally more compassionate and happened to hunt and eat animals to survive? 

That is what most vegans would argue. Indigneous people ate animals because they had to. And now that we are more evolved, we no longer have to.

I think it’s the exact opposite.

Indigenous folks had that relationship with animals precisely because they ate and hunted animals.

Taking a life so that you can live, consciously, is what cracks open someone’s heart.

Our modern relationship with nature is very much out of alignment. Either we ruthlessly exploit it, or we attempt to distance ourselves as far as possible from it, usually as a counter-reaction to the exploitation. 

Veganism to me is a counter-reaction to the ruthless exploitation of animals. A swinging of the pendulum to the other side. But neither places us as a part of nature. 

There’s a great book on my website called Heartsblood that goes into some of these ideas.

Granted, consciously killing and eating animals is not an easy thing to do in modern society. Society is not set up for that. So it is a challenging task, but it’s something I’m working towards the best I can.

The reduction of this would be:

"There is a conscious way of having sex with children, I know it's hard to see and society has very much conditioned us to despite that, but think about it. A human rights activist today might say, the catholic priests back then were primitive, although I would rather say they were more close to the divine source and used children for sex consciously. They understood the divine source and they used children for sex with humility for the greater good of all people. Now I agree that there is an unconscious way of having sex with children, which is rape, what is mostly done today, but I try to do it consciously now, paying it the proper respect it deserves.

There is a book in my list called the Qur'an. In it you can find a wise prophet who was shown to have had even marriages with children."

 

[Emerald]

2 hours ago, aurum said:

It’s nuanced.

For starters, I’m not referring to just unconsciously eating animals. The average person going to eat a cheeseburger from McDonalds is not going to have a healthy relationship with animals either.

I’m speaking mostly of indigenous wisdom.

I think it’s fair to acknowledge that indigenous people had a much more sustainable, connected, healthy relationship with animals. Sure, there may have been cases when they over hunted. But generally speaking, we moderns could learn a thing or two from them.

Where did this wisdom come from? Were our indigenous ancestors just naturally more compassionate and happened to hunt and eat animals to survive? 

That is what most vegans would argue. Indigneous people ate animals because they had to. And now that we are more evolved, we no longer have to.

I think it’s the exact opposite.

Indigenous folks had that relationship with animals precisely because they ate and hunted animals.

Taking a life so that you can live, consciously, is what cracks open someone’s heart.

Our modern relationship with nature is very much out of alignment. Either we ruthlessly exploit it, or we attempt to distance ourselves as far as possible from it, usually as a counter-reaction to the exploitation. 

Veganism to me is a counter-reaction to the ruthless exploitation of animals. A swinging of the pendulum to the other side. But neither places us as a part of nature. 

There’s a great book on my website called Heartsblood that goes into some of these ideas.

Granted, consciously killing and eating animals is not an easy thing to do in modern society. Society is not set up for that. So it is a challenging task, but it’s something I’m working towards the best I can.

So, do you consume animal products in the same way that indigenous people did?

And do you think Vegans have a worse relationship to animals than those who get their meat and dairy products sourced from factory farms?

And also, if you don’t get your meat and dairy the way indigenous people did, what makes you err on the side of participating in factory farming?

[aurum]

7 hours ago, ilja said:

The reduction of this would be:

"There is a conscious way of having sex with children, I know it's hard to see and society has very much conditioned us to despite that, but think about it. A human rights activist today might say, the catholic priests back then were primitive, although I would rather say they were more close to the divine source and used children for sex consciously. They understood the divine source and they used children for sex with humility for the greater good of all people. Now I agree that there is an unconscious way of having sex with children, which is rape, what is mostly done today, but I try to do it consciously now, paying it the proper respect it deserves.

There is a book in my list called the Qur'an. In it you can find a wise prophet who was shown to have had even marriages with children."

 

False equivalency. You cannot reduce my argument to what you just said as eating animals is not at all the same as having sex with children. 

6 hours ago, Emerald said:

So, do you consume animal products in the same way that indigenous people did?

No and I don’t expect I will in the close future. As I said, society is not really set up to make that happen. My goal is to get to a point where all animal products I am consuming have come from my own hands. 

6 hours ago, Emerald said:

And do you think Vegans have a worse relationship to animals than those who get their meat and dairy products sourced from factory farms?

No. I’m usually happy with people go vegan, at least they are thinking about their relationship with animals and where their food comes from. That’s certainly a step in the right direction.

6 hours ago, Emerald said:

And also, if you don’t get your meat and dairy the way indigenous people did, what makes you err on the side of participating in factory farming?

The meat I eat is from regenerative farms practicing ethical animal agriculture. Yes, animals still die. But you could hardly call it factory farming like what is portrayed in most vegan documentaries I’ve seen.

Aside for the reasons I’ve already outlined, I also do not believe veganism to be a healthy diet. Which also influences my choice to eat animal products for sure. That is another whole debate we could back and forth on forever.

[aurum]

2 hours ago, Myioko said:

You can tell me if you think I'm wrong here, and I'm being blunt here, but from my perspective I see from your words here that you're as not being completely in tune and empathetic with the animals perspective and feelings.

That’s understandable. With respect, I would disagree.

I very much resonate with what you were saying about your pet rabbits. I cannot even go into pet shops because it kills me to see animals stuck in cages and being put on display like some sort of cheap product. Nor can I even own a pet because I can’t get over the fact that it feels like borderline slavery to me.
 

If I am going to “own” a pet in the future, perhaps some farm animals, I’d like them to live as close to their natural life as possible.

I take no pleasure in causing suffering to an animal. But I also do not believe I am above taking a life to sustain life. And I don’t take that responsibility lightly.

2 hours ago, Myioko said:

but I guess what I'm saying is that I think it's really really hard to convince someone into a heart perspective view, without that person having a certain level of empathy in that area.

Yes I agree. There is no “convincing” because convincing is a tool of the mind. This is something to be felt. Either your heart recognizes the truth that this other being is actually You or the mind blocks it out.

2 hours ago, Myioko said:

I think most people can agree that lab grown meat is the best thing for the future, for both the animals and peoples health.  (I haven't looked much into lab grown meat though, I'm just assuming it would be as healthy as regular meat.)

My prediction with lab grown meat is that we will discover it cannot be done in a way that truly replaces meat. Much in the same way we are discovering there really aren’t healthy GMOs. There will be downsides to people’s health.

[kieranperez]

I personally have no problem with someone (particularly me) taking a moral or ethical stance when it comes to veganism if...

• The decision is made as an ethical form of protest when it comes to say the suffering that is caused by say factory farming and what not. 
• There is the non dogmatic understanding that life is life. Plants actually do in fact feel pain, we just aren’t usually in a sensitive enough state to have that be a conscious experience.

I do resonate with what @aurum said regarding pets. I have a dog and I’ve already had some many insights regarding just how we anthropomorphize our relationship with these different species for almost purely selfish motives. We can have so many different perspectives on this but at the same time, lose sight of the fact that these are merely perspectives, ways of looking at what is the case regardless of how we color it. We can also have perspectives of how these animals can live rather happy lives if they are treated well. For example, take people that rescue dogs that might be strays and really help them. It very much can just come down to our relationship to the reality of the matter. There’s very poignant examples of stories about enlightened beings that were executioners and so forth, a job that we might believe inherently lacks compassion in and of itself, but that’s not true because compassion is experienced in and through individuals, not jobs. Hunters that hunt animals can do so from a place of great respect, compassion, and love. That’s why there’s ethical codes in the hunting community. You can prepare your meat with great gratitude and reverence for the animal for providing the sustenance you are about to get from it. Certain cultures did have these in place.

However this belief that enlightened would, should, and are vegans or whatever is pure hogwash. This is not true. Just a belief. 

Unfortunately there’s a lot of complicated stuff when it comes to the world of food, nutrition, and the sourcing/growing of our food as well as the economic sides of things that would be useful to take into account. Not everyday has the time it takes to research and adjust to such a diet that might be more expensive down the road. Vegan diets don’t fit everyone’s personal priorities for their life. There’s also the trade off of supporting corrupt forms of farming of our fruits and vegetables that have lead to the decrease in quality of nutritional value should more people choose to go vegan that would increase demand and create messy issues on how to produce enough supply and what corners might be cut in order to meet the challenge. 

In the end though, this is a dynamic play between suffering and survival and the two, by and large, go together. There is no perfect way around this. There is no binary ethical/non ethical switch here. It’s very much relative and my invitation is to consider the relationship we have. 

[Emerald]

16 minutes ago, Myioko said:

 

@Emerald

Do you have any thoughts on how to distinguish intellectual truth from a heart centered truth? And how does someone even know if their heart side is integrated or not being suppressed?

It’s a feeling state not a thought process. It comes from tuning in to the emotions and the body.

You’ll know if you experience it as a feeling instead of as a rationale.

[ilja]

@aurum it's not the same, it's the same logic behind it, so it's not an equivalance, but similarity relation, both positions have the same basis of functionality.

 

and regarding your claim that veganism is unhealthy is another failure.

[aurum]

2 hours ago, ilja said:

so it's not an equivalance, but similarity relation, both positions have the same basis of functionality.

Call it whatever you want, I do not see your argument as holding any weight. The logic is not the same at all.

2 hours ago, ilja said:

and regarding your claim that veganism is unhealthy is another failure.

Well for that one we might need another thread. For now I'll just say to long time vegans that you might want to get your bloodwork done. As well as a dexa scan for osteoporosis and a visit to your periodontist / gastroenterologist.

If you're healthy on a vegan diet, great. But many people, perhaps the majority of the planet, will not. And so I see it as foolish to push such a diet ideologically.

10 hours ago, kieranperez said:

I personally have no problem with someone (particularly me) taking a moral or ethical stance when it comes to veganism if...

• The decision is made as an ethical form of protest when it comes to say the suffering that is caused by say factory farming and what not. 
• There is the non dogmatic understanding that life is life. Plants actually do in fact feel pain, we just aren’t usually in a sensitive enough state to have that be a conscious experience.

I do resonate with what @aurum said regarding pets. I have a dog and I’ve already had some many insights regarding just how we anthropomorphize our relationship with these different species for almost purely selfish motives. We can have so many different perspectives on this but at the same time, lose sight of the fact that these are merely perspectives, ways of looking at what is the case regardless of how we color it. We can also have perspectives of how these animals can live rather happy lives if they are treated well. For example, take people that rescue dogs that might be strays and really help them. It very much can just come down to our relationship to the reality of the matter. There’s very poignant examples of stories about enlightened beings that were executioners and so forth, a job that we might believe inherently lacks compassion in and of itself, but that’s not true because compassion is experienced in and through individuals, not jobs. Hunters that hunt animals can do so from a place of great respect, compassion, and love. That’s why there’s ethical codes in the hunting community. You can prepare your meat with great gratitude and reverence for the animal for providing the sustenance you are about to get from it. Certain cultures did have these in place.

However this belief that enlightened would, should, and are vegans or whatever is pure hogwash. This is not true. Just a belief. 

Unfortunately there’s a lot of complicated stuff when it comes to the world of food, nutrition, and the sourcing/growing of our food as well as the economic sides of things that would be useful to take into account. Not everyday has the time it takes to research and adjust to such a diet that might be more expensive down the road. Vegan diets don’t fit everyone’s personal priorities for their life. There’s also the trade off of supporting corrupt forms of farming of our fruits and vegetables that have lead to the decrease in quality of nutritional value should more people choose to go vegan that would increase demand and create messy issues on how to produce enough supply and what corners might be cut in order to meet the challenge. 

In the end though, this is a dynamic play between suffering and survival and the two, by and large, go together. There is no perfect way around this. There is no binary ethical/non ethical switch here. It’s very much relative and my invitation is to consider the relationship we have. 

Sounds like a balanced position, thanks for your insights.

[ilja]

@aurum

you are hopelessly deluded. we can take a bet on my bloodwork, 9 years vegan here.

you are actually the one being ideological about your meat consumption, look at the deluded emotional nonsense you wrote on "indigenous people eating meat".

Edited May 3, 2021 by ilja

[integral]

22 hours ago, ilja said:

"There is a conscious way of having sex with children, I know it's hard to see and society has very much conditioned us to despite that, but think about it. A human rights activist today might say, the catholic priests back then were primitive, although I would rather say they were more close to the divine source and used children for sex consciously. They understood the divine source and they used children for sex with humility for the greater good of all people. Now I agree that there is an unconscious way of having sex with children, which is rape, what is mostly done today, but I try to do it consciously now, paying it the proper respect it deserves.

I agree, we should be having high consciousness sex with children. Its just unwise to incorporate into our current environment. It would be a disaster. Just like going all vegan would be a disaster. We are all standing on a pile of dead bodies and suffering to write these comments, completely detached from the whole. 

Edited May 3, 2021 by integral