Different types of food
Yoga categorises three types of foods according to their qualities. These qualities correspond to the three Gunas - Sattvic, Rajasic and Tamasic. Sattvic food is found in a lacto-vegetarian , whole food diet which includes grains, vegetables, pulses, fruit, nuts, seeds, milk and milk products. Vegetarian food detoxifies, cleans and purifies the body and increases our resistance to illness.
All beings are God's children
Apart from the health aspect, the main reason lies in the fact that all living beings are God's children - this includes animals. God is the creator of us all. God's light dwells in animals as well as in humans.
Vishwa Prani Meri Atma Hai
All living beings are my Self
All beings want to be happy and avoid suffering. Animals experience fear and pain just as humans experience fear and pain. Animals also fear death, just as humans fear death. Yoga rejects the killing and eating of animals, for there is the inherent awareness that all livings beings are united in the one consciousness.
There is a proverb that says, “You are what you eat”. Two factors, society and nutrition, principally determine the type of qualities that a human develops. An improper diet not only causes us physical illness, but also confuses the mind. It destroys the Pranic energy and produces aggression, depression and fear. We cling to life with every fibre of our being and consider freedom and happiness the ultimate goal of existence. Every animal and every living being also wants to be free and happy.
Prana in Food
All creatures, such as birds, dogs, cats, horses and cows, intuitively feel the impending danger of a natural disaster. In the same way, animals are instinctively aware of their own death in advance. In the days before cattle are brought to the slaughterhouse, they are fearful and restless. The fear of death floods their entire body and their endocrine glands secrete vast quantities of “fight and flight” hormones. These hormones lodge in the tissues of the animal. We cannot see these subtle substances stored in the flesh of a dead body, but inevitably we ingest the animal’s fear of death whenever we consume its flesh.
In addition to this, we also take in the animal’s Prana – that is, the animal’s qualities and the nature of its consciousness. This greatly impedes our spiritual development. The aggression and fear of the animal’s consciousness deeply penetrates our subconscious mind and rises again into consciousness at the hour of our own death. Also, in meditation and in prayer this fear arises whenever we try to withdraw deeply into ourselves. It is due to this unaccountable fear that many people have an aversion or fear of meditation and religion.
However, at some time we must go through this unconscious fear. Either we purify ourselves consciously through meditation, prayer and good deeds, or we go through the fear again at the hour of death. But at that time we can do nothing about it. Our destiny is fulfilled according to the law of Karma. This can be compared to the predicament a mountain climber faces when his rope breaks. At this moment his own will has no power, no influence on the consequence. He falls whether he wants to or not.