In regards to eating meat

[Will]

Swami Sri Yukteswar wrote a book called The Holy Science in which he touches on the whole question of eating meat that I found interesting. If I remember correctly, he ate meat in his younger days before he took up the Yoga Path, and I believe he even used to hunt. The reasons he gives for suggesting a yogi not eat meat are a bit more physiological than moral. For the yogi, it is more about what makes the body function at its highest so that the yogi can perform yoga more efficiently.

He relates the length of our digestive tract and our digestive enzymes to other meat eating and non-meat eating animals and how our digestive tract length is best suit to fruit etc. And I remember Carla metioning the same thing once. (She must have read the same book.) He also touches on our natural inclination (for most people anyway,) to enjoy the smell and taste of an orange versus the natural inclination of a tiger to enjoy lapping up the blood of a dying animal which at least most humans probably wouldn't enjoy. And our aversion to the smell of slaughterhouses and rotting meat that most predators find quite pleasing.

I found it to have some interesting points anyway. And I have to say that I have far fewer stomach troubles since I stopped eating meat and started trying to eat in a more conscietious manner, not to mention what it has added to my yoga. That being said, if someone serves me something that has chicken or fish in it, I won't make a big deal about it. I'll eat around it if I can and not put too much importance on it as my beingness is not dependent on anything I do to my body, and worrying so much about what you eat can distract you from more important matters.