Transition to Vegetarianism

Increasing numbers of people
are choosing a flesh-free diet for
health and spiritual awakening

by Leonard and Jenness Perlmutter

It's an age-old truism, "You are what you eat." In fact, the quality, quantity, timing and combinations of food and water you consume do recreate your body, in a particular way, from the inside out every day. Your health or dis-ease is, in large measure, the consequence of what foods you've chosen to consume. In our own experience, a vegetarian diet--guided by the principles of Ayurveda--has enhanced our overall health, health, boosted our immune systems, provided us more sustained energy and a reliable access to our intuitive, creative resources.

Lots of people are experimenting with a vegetarian diet these days. Whatever the motivation--to lower cholesterol, to lose weight, a concern for other living creatures, revulsion over flesh putrefying inside the colon for two to three days at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, or as an integral part of their spiritual practice-more Americans are making the switch to a meat-free diet.

We made no sudden decision to become vegetarians. Like most aspects of our sadhana, the transition to vegetarianism followed a slow, logical progression. Our diet began to change in the mid-nineteen seventies, when, like many other young Americans, we became part of a "back to the land" movement. In 1975, we bought a house in the country. For thirty thousand dollars we not only bought a home (where we still live today), but five acres of land, a large barn and a tractor.

We had learned that most vegetables contained harmful pesticide residues and that both meat and poultry were riddled with hormones, antibiotics and often, disease. We studied the writings of Patanjali, the codifier of yoga science, and encountered the idea that happiness could be experienced by adhering to the practice of saucha: the purification of body, heart, mind and environment. Furthermore, neither of us had ever found the normal American diet physically comfortable. So, serving our desire to make pure, wholesome food choices an integral part of our sadhana, we decided to plant an organic garden and to raise and slaughter our own animals. From 1975 through 1978 we raised a calf (named Maide after the farmer who sold it to us), numerous goats and sheep (among them, Day, Trudeau, Rain, Eva, Rosa, Bonheur, Leafy and Amana) and lots and lots of chickens (including Duke, Chuck, Russell, Blackie, Red and Egypt).

When the chickens grew to a size fit for eating, Sunday afternoons were spent replaying a familiar ritual. Following the instructions from Homesteading magazine, we made a killing cone out of an empty plastic half-gallon milk jug. This method of slaughter, referred to as kosher killing, was supposed to be the cleanest and the most humane. The bottom of the milk jug was cut out to accommodate the body of the bird and the neck of the jug was enlarged just enough to allow the butcher to pull the chicken's head through. The killing cone was then nailed to the side of the barn upside down. Once the chicken was placed within the confines of the killing cone, it was effectively immobilized. The mouth of the bird was opened, a sharp knife was placed down the throat, and with one quick movement of the hand the bird's jugular vein was severed from within. The heart pumped the blood from the body until the chicken died quietly, without a struggle.

On the days I ventured outside to catch and slaughter one or two of our free-range chickens, Jenness was busy boiling an industrial size pot of water and covering the kitchen floor with newspapers. When I returned with the dead birds we dropped them into the boiling water for a couple of minutes to loosen their feathers. Then we sat together cross-legged on the kitchen floor while we plucked the carcasses clean. Finally, on an old-fashioned maple cutting board, we carefully separated each bird from its internal organs. This was not a job for the squeamish. Many of the animals had become pets and our attachment to them, together with the gruesome sights and smells, proved increasingly difficult to deal with.

Ahimsa is essentially the Golden Rule, which is quite simple. To experience unbounded happiness, human beings must do onto others as we wish to have done unto us. In order to be led for our highest and greatest good, every thought, word and action is to be non-injurious, non-harming and non-violent. The underlying philosophy of ahimsa is based on the realization that--on the highest level of consciousness--the entire, ever-changing universe of human, animal, plant and mineral is a divine manifestation of one eternal, Supreme Reality. Therefore, if we think, speak or act injuriously toward any "other" form (an animal, for instance) that injury eventually comes back upon us. This is the law of karma: "as we sow, so shall we reap."

Our growing respect for and practice of ahimsa--in mind, action and speech--had made us increasingly dubious about the necessity of having to take a sentient life in order to sustain our own. By early 1978 we were meditating once a day and our growing understanding of ahimsa had led us to eliminate all red meat. Still, we continued to slaughter and eat our few remaining chickens. But that ended abruptly. That year we experienced an epiphany that completed our transition to vegetarianism.

For three years we had kept a very athletic chicken we called Blackie. She spent her nights in the hayloft of our barn and flew to the back door every morning for a hearty breakfast of cracked corn. Her amazing feats and my consistent inability to catch her combined to make Blackie an elusive prize. Finally, one Sunday morning, I caught her. Pride in my accomplishment, however, was tempered by my respect for Blackie's independence and the recognition that age had slowed her down.

With Blackie held firmly in my arms, I marched to the barn for the slaughter. Respectfully, I placed Blackie's body upside down into the killing cone and pulled her head through the opening. Then, as was my normal routine, I held her head between my left thumb and index finger as I delicately maneuvered the knife blade into her mouth. As the blade came into position for the kill, my eye met Blackie's eye in a moment of truth. Before my hand could move the knife, Blackie let out a shriek that vibrated every cell of my body and carried my attention to the core of my soul. It was a sound so intense and fraught with meaning that it had the very same effect on Jenness--inside the house some hundred yards away. At that instant I knew that I could not kill Blackie, nor would I ever consciously choose to take another animal's life to sustain my own. Irrevocably changed by that profound experience, I released Blackie from the confines of her death-trap to live free and safe for the rest of her natural days.

Since that day, Jenness and I have never knowingly eaten anything with a mother. In our homesteading years we had unexpectedly come to know, first hand, the suffering and violence that are inherent aspects of a flesh-centered diet. Through the study and practice of yoga science and philosophy, however, we began to consciously make changes. Have we missed eating beef, fish or chicken? No. Unequivocally. When a transition to vegetarianism is based on your own inner wisdom, and the needs of your body are being met, the desire to enjoy more wholesome foods grows very strong. When you act on your intention to purify the body and to become an instrument of ahimsa (non-injury), the universe supports your effort by enhancing your health, energy and creativity and by reducing your attraction and attachment to those foods that do not serve your long-term well being.

IN SERVICE -- WITH LOVE
LEONARD AND JENNESS PERLMUTTER

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Forward from The Heart and Science of Yoga^™

By Linda Johnsen Linda resides in Sonoma, California and is the author of:   A Thousand Suns Hinduism for Idiots Meditation Is Boring? The Living Goddess

It wasn't what I'd expected. I'd spoken at many yoga centers before; they were often large, empty rooms where students could unroll their hatha mats and launch into a series of stretches and twists imported from India. When I'd show up to lecture, folding chairs would materialize from hidden closets and an audience would listlessly filter in from the dirty city streets.

The American Meditation Institute, it turned out, was more like a beautiful estate than a yoga business. The grounds were magnificent, colored with an astonishing array of flowers and flowering shrubs. A sparkling pond brimming with minnows and a small, man-made waterfall interrupted the rolling green lawn. This oasis twenty minutes outside Albany, New York was a paradise of tranquility and fragrant blossoms.

The AMI building was friendly and clean, scented with the inviting aroma of vegetarian cooking and filled with co-founder Jenness Cortez Perlmutter's paintings of country landscapes, scenes from Indian mythology and especially--everywhere--horses. Jenness herself was tall and lean, exuding both warmth and intelligence. Her husband and fellow AMI founder Leonard Perlmutter had a thick beard that made him look like an Indian baba who'd just come down out of the Himalayas after years of meditation. He appeared very serious but the moment he began to speak, not only his vast knowledge of the world's mystical traditions but also his totally disarming sense of humor were immediately evident.

I didn't for a moment feel I was visiting a yoga "institute." Len and Jen made all of us at the seminar feel like family. Their emphasis on yoga as a preeminently practical form of spiritual discipline kept their teaching very real, grounded and relevant to their students' everyday lives.

The Perlmutters are students of Swami Rama of the Himalayas, the yogi who revolutionized our understanding of human physiology back in the 1970s. Before Swami Rama allowed researchers at the Menninger Institute in Topeka, Kansas to hook him up to their EEGs, EKGs and temperature monitors, Western scientists had never believed India's yogis could do what the Indians always claimed they could, controlling every component of their physical bodies to the extent that they could appear virtually lifeless according to the electronic printouts, yet remain fully conscious. The swami repeatedly demonstrated full mastery of his autonomic nervous system, which until then most Western doctors had assumed was impossible.

I studied with Swami Rama for some years when he founded a graduate program in Eastern Studies here in the United States in the 1980s. Swamiji complained that the experiments the researchers conducted at Menninger were comparatively trivial. The real value of yoga lay not so much in stopping one's heartbeat or regulating the temperature in individual cells in his body (skills he actually demonstrated there) but in its deep and transforming effect on human consciousness. That, unfortunately, the scientists didn't know how to measure.

Swami Rama left his body permanently in November, 1996. He died like a yogi, having announced the exact moment of his departure earlier that day. He sat up in a yoga posture and, in full consciousness, vacated the body we'd come to love so well. He taught us how to live and, in his final moments, showed us how to die.

Swami Rama's work lives on through the efforts of his students. Swamiji strongly encouraged the Perlmutters to teach. His blessings have transformed their originally modest home into one of the finest yoga centers in North America. The Heart and Science of Yoga™ is the story of yoga as they live it, in the vibrant tradition of Swami Rama of the Himalayas.

Linda Johnsen
 Sonoma, California

Linda is the author of A Thousand Suns, Hinduism for Idiots,
Meditation Is Boring? and The Living Goddess

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QUESTION: The idea of giving up meat is difficult for me. Can you list a few benefits of a plant-based diet?

LEONARD: The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a non-profit organization for preventive medicine claims that vegetarians tend to be better nourished than non-vegetarians. According to the organization's founder, Neal Barnard, M.D., a vegetarian diet can greatly reduce the risk of breast and colon cancer, coronary heart disease, strokes, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, kidney and gallbladder disease, diverticulitis, constipation, gall stones and allergies. Barnard also cites a recent twelve-year study that found that, on average, vegetarians live ten years longer than the general flesh-eating population. They also enjoy better overall health. Barnard's group estimates that annual medical costs attributable to flesh consumption range from $30-75 billion dollars a year in the United States alone.

QUESTION: I have heard that rice and beans provide a complete protein, and is the basis of most vegetarian diets. Can you offer a basic recipe--one that will not produce too much gas?

LEONARD: The mung bean is considered the "queen of beans" in vegetarian and Ayurvedic cuisine. It burns efficiently and produces minimal amounts of gas. Don't forget, however, that some comfortable "downward wind" indicates that food is being digested and assimilated well and that elimination will be complete.

Simple Bean Soup (DAL) Serves: 6 - 8
Preparation time: 45 minutes, plus soaking time (preferably overnight)

PREPARATION OF MUNG BEANS: Pick through beans, removing any organic debris and stones. Rinse well and soak in the refrigerator at least one hour and up to 24 hours. Water level should be about 1 to 1 1/2 inches above beans.

PREPARATION OF ONIONS AND COOKING: Clean onions and cut in half, top to bottom. Place cut side down and cut into very thin slices. Set aside. Discard soaking water from beans, rinse once, place in one-quart sauce pan, add the 4 1/2 cups of hot water and bring to a boil on high heat. Lower heat to medium and continue boiling. A white foam will form. Remove the foam by skimming with a large spoon. Lower heat and continue to simmer. At this point, put the 4 teaspoons of ghee in a medium skillet on medium-high heat and add sliced onions. Cover pan. Stir occasionally as onions brown, loosening any areas that stick and always replacing the cover after each stir. Continue until about half the onions have browned and all are translucent and limp--about 25 minutes. When the beans start to lose shape and form a creamy soup, add salt, Mrs. Dash and cooked onions. Reduce heat to very low, cover and simmer 5 minutes to blend flavors.

SERVING: Place approximately 1 cup of cooked rice on plate and top it with
1/2 cup of dal bean soup. Serve with two or three vegetable dishes, yogurt on the side, and a slice of spelt bread. Enjoy!

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Join us for Friday Night Dinner, Movie & Satsang 5:30 - 10 PM Yoga Science in the Movies AMI will present a series of entertaining and thought-provoking films and documentaries reflecting the practical philosophy of yoga science. Each Friday night program will begin at 5:30 PM with a gourmet vegetarian dinner followed by a movie. After the video will be a discussion (satsang) on how yoga philosophy can help uncomplicate our lives. A group meditation will conclude the evening. $15 per person (dinner & complementary film). The Flowering of Consciousness ·  February 11 · Eckhart Tolle In the Flowering of Consciousness you will come face to face with Eckhart Tolle for a transformational meeting with this respected teacher and author. In clear, simple language, Tolle explains the process of entering a "miraculous" state of presence that is always available to us. Amadeus · March 11 · F. Murray Abraham and Tom Hulce This is a sumptuous epic celebrating the life and music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Set in 17th-century Vienna, court composer Antonio Salieri is maddened with jealousy discovering that the musical talent he longs for has been given to obnoxious and inappropriate Mozart. Throughout the movie, he plots to destroy Mozart by any means necessary. Reservations must be received no later than the Thursday before the program you plan to attend. Top

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If you have the time, please call the Institute at (518) 674-8714.

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