How Spirituality and Awareness Naturally Lead to a Plant-based Diet
Being present in the moment is important just one aspect of a spiritual life. Spiritual Purpose beyond the present moment helps make the moments of life better by giving life a meaningful direction while experiencing the present moments. Without the bigger picture, or sense of unity with the divine, people tend to trample nature, exploit sentient beings and pollute the environment, while for filling more present moment serving hedonistic desires. A balance of honoring the present moment and having a long term life purpose is required to live a spiritual life.
What is unique to being spiritual is an expansion of awareness and one’s place in relationship to a higher power. This comes from a sense of unity with the divine. In the perspective of pantheism, it’s a desire to live in harmony with nature and all sentient beings we share the Earth with. Once you get that level of awareness, it never goes away because life becomes more beautiful. By not giving in to hedonistic desires that violate spiritual principles, the depth and quality of my life is much higher overall, with less suffering and karmic debt.
Ill use the example of Eating an animal product from a factory farms, because it’s such an obvious one to work with, as it is not spiritual. In the bigger picture it causes more suffering than the pleasure it creates for the person who is eating it in that moment. An ignorant person may say “This food is good”. but from a spiritual perspective, it is evil. In the same way a vampire drinking the blood of it’s victims is evil. It may taste good, but in the bigger picture, it is out of harmony with nature, and causes a deep level of suffering for that sentient being who’s entire life in a factory farm was an exploited tortured slave to that one moment of taste.
Karmically, you inherit that suffering and it’s expressed in sublet ways, including how people treat you and what topics people bring up when in conversation with you. Our society is sick, and we all have to deal with the evil of factory farms, especially if we want to experience the benefits of being spiritual.
On the other side, when we build something that is in service to others and in harmony with nature, karmically, it comes back to us in positive ways, or at least may cancel out some of the negative karma we cause. This is why services to the divine and others is such an important part of spirituality. Which ties back to my answer of what’s important.
