| Home | Who is Dr. Keki Sidhwa? | Books | Next Page>> |
|
Many people make the mistake of choosing a fragment and building a total way of life around it. Vegetarianism is one of them. Being a vegetarian (i.e., one who abstains from flesh of animals, birds and fishes) although a step forward in the totality of life, is by no means the be all and end all of human life, lived at its best. Dietetic laws are only part of the laws laid down by nature to ensure healthy, happy and harmonious living. Even in diet there are other things that are far more important than an exclusive vegetarian diet for superior nutrition of the human individual. Unless these other conditions are fulfilled, superior nutrition will not result. Most vegetarians are so because of ethical reasons. "Thou shalt not kill" is emphatically laid down in the text of most religions. Ahimsa, harmlessness is the creed of vegetarians. So far so good, and that is what it should be. But, putting aside ethical and moral values re animals and other creatures, most vegetarians haven't a clue as to their own welfare and wellbeing. Otherwise the millions of vegetarians all over the world would be brimming with health. Alas, such is not the case. Many vegetarians are ignorant about ways and means of attaining superior nutrition and good health. Others are so bigoted that they ridicule, like other non-vegetarians, any attempt to teach them the laws of health, secure in their half-baked knowledge that abstaining from flesh, fish or fowl is passport enough to a health paradise. Vegetarians who claim to know about ethics and morals completely sidestep the issues when it comes to practising Ahimsa, harmlessness toward their own self their body, designated by some as the temple of God. They practise, either in ignorance or wilfully, the cruelty and brutality upon their own body that they so emphatically fight against those who practise it upon animals. They vilify their own body by such harmful living habits that no wild animal will perpetuate against itself. Vegetarians smoke, drink alcohol, chew tobacco, take snuff, overeat gluttonously, take very little exercise, breathe foul air, drink tea, coffee, cocoa and other harmful beverages; consume a lot of eggs, cheese, nuts, pulses and grain foods, to make up for their loss of steak, kidney and livers; eat devitalised, demineralised, denatured, foodless foods from supermarkets, eaten all mixed up together in bad combinations; indulge in drugs, herbs and various orthodox medical gimmickry, and keep bemoaning that wars will not stop until mankind learns to stop butchering animals for their food, not realising that mankind is slowly devastating not only animals but the whole earth, including mankind, by the chemical and nuclear pollution of our air, water and soil. Like the Temperance Society, the vegetarians, by harping on only one theme, defeat their own purpose. For, unless mankind is revolutionised into changing his whole mode of life and living mentality, morally and physically, a partial reform will only fail ultimately. Respect either for animals or humans, together with reverence for life, can only come if there is self-respect. Self-respect is and should be the keyword, as it is with those whom I call "Health Watchers" or Natural Hygienists. Natural Hygiene embraces a vegetarian diet, believing that the natural diet of man is based on man being classified as a frugivore, but it goes beyond and embraces all other primordial requisites of life and health, which an ordinary vegetarian does not. Vegetarianism goes so far and no further. Natural Hygienists believe that, "Knowledge is proud that he has learnt so much, Wisdom is humble that he knows no more." and thus go on to embrace a more comprehensive whole than the fragment of a divided self. Giving up one kind of stimulation for another is a bad practice. Diet alone will not give us spirituality. Tea and toast vegetarians will not reach their Nirvana any more than a steak eating Physical Culturist, but both of them can attain a state of awareness that comes with "Joie de vivre" of buoyant health and wellbeing of an integrated personality. Health and wholesomeness go together, physical health coupled with emotional and moral wellbeing, and together with intellectual and mental excellence, spell perfect manhood. This then is the fine contrast between the promise and the fulfilment. |
| << Previous Page |
| Next Page >> |
|
Shalimar 14 The Weavers Farndon Road Newark-on-Trent NOTTS. NG24, 4RY ENGLAND Phone: 01636-682941 (From USA 011-44-1636-682941) Website: drsidhwa.com |