⚜️Vegetarianism is a By-product of Meditation✨
Osho, why are all your disciples vegetarian?
“I do not believe in vegetarianism, because I do not believe in anything.
My disciples are vegetarian not as a cult, not as a creed. They are vegetarians because their meditations make them more human, more of the heart, and they can see the whole stupidity of people killing living beings for their food. It is their sensitivity, their aesthetic awareness that makes them vegetarians.
While every kind
of delicious food
is available,
what is the need to kill
living beings?
I don’t teach vegetarianism; it is a by-product of meditation. Wherever meditation has happened, people have become vegetarian, always, for thousands of years.
The oldest religion in the world is Jainism. It is a small religion, that’s why not much is known to the outside world; it exists only in India. Jainism has no God; hence, there is no possibility of prayer.
When God and prayer are discarded, then what is left for a religion? God is somewhere outside, your prayer is addressed to someone outside. Discarding God and prayer you are really saying, “I would like now to go inward.” And meditation is a way of going inward.
For thousands of years Jainas have been vegetarians. You have to know this fact, that all their twenty-four teachers – they call them tirthankaras, their messiahs – came from the warrior caste. They were all meat-eaters. They were professional warriors. What happened to these people?
Meditation transformed their whole vision. Not only did their swords fall from their hands, their warriorhood disappeared, but a new phenomenon started happening: a tremendous feeling of love towards existence. They became absolutely one with the whole. Vegetarianism is just a small part of that great revolution.
The same happened in Buddhism. Buddha did not believe in God, did not believe in prayer.
I want you to understand it: the moment God and prayer are discarded, the only thing that is left is to go in.
Buddha also was from the warrior caste, son of a king, trained to kill. He was not a vegetarian. But when meditation started blossoming in him, just as a by-product the vegetarian idea came into his being: you cannot kill animals for eating, you cannot destroy life.
While every kind of delicious food is available, what is the need to kill living beings?
This is nothing to do with religion. This is simply to do with your sensitiveness, your aesthetic understanding.
Jainism and Buddhism are the only religions without God and without prayer, and both automatically became vegetarian. The same is happening to sannyasins.
- sequel follows👇
