I told you about the conflict that a gay friend of mine had because his guru didn’t accept his sexuality. This was not his only inner conflict – he had one more which he shared with several others of my friends: he was attracted to shamanism, in a similar way as he was attracted to yoga. But yogis are vegetarians – shamans absolutely not! That is an interesting contradiction which I reflected upon a lot in 2006.
A friend of mine who was in this situation explained the whole dilemma to me because I was not exactly aware of what shamanism all included. One thing I had heard however was that they ate a lot of meat. I had even heard rumours that they sacrificed animals – and had found this to be a very cruel practice by someone who claimed to be spiritual!
A friend told me that it was true, people interested in shamanism were not usually or normally vegetarians, even if this did not mean that they killed their rabbits or guinea pigs for worshipping god. Oh well, so they did not cause cruel animal suffering on their own but were still responsible for some of it by eating meat themselves!
My friend said that this exactly was the problem! He felt attracted to the rituals, the philosophy of a spirit in everyone and every being and even stones, plants or the wind. At the same time however he followed not only yogic philosophy as well but also yogic nutrition! He was a strict vegetarian and had recently even started a vegan diet – long before it was so much in fashion as today.
How could you say that there is a spirit in everything and then eat meat? Dead animal? He told me the most common answer of his shamanic friends: we thank the animal before we eat it for sacrificing his life and becoming our food.
No, that did NOT make it okay for him to eat meat. He did NOT feel that saying ‘thank you’ made the animal suffer any less.
I felt his conflict and told him just to stay with his vegetarian and vegan diet. Why do you have to follow such paths if you don’t feel it is right for you? You like the rituals? Fine, find your own rituals and include them in your life. You want to talk to wind and rain, to sun and moon? Fine, do it with your own words.
Just be yourself. Accept and respect your sensitivity and listen to your body, mind and heart. Then there won’t be any such conflicts!
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