Osho - Vegetarianism is a by-product of Meditation

Question - Beloved Osho, Why are all your Disciples Vegetarian?

Osho - I do not believe in vegetarianism, because I do not believe in anything. My
disciples are vegetarian not as a cult, not as a creed. They are vegetarians because
their meditations make them more human, more of the heart, and they can see the
whole stupidity of people killing living beings for their food. It is their sensitivity,
their aesthetic awareness that makes them vegetarians.

I don't teach vegetarianism; it is a by-product of meditation. Wherever meditation

has happened, people have become vegetarian, always, for thousands of years.
The oldest religion in the world is Jainism. It is a small religion, that's why not much
is known to the outside world; it exists only in India. Jainism has no God; hence,
there is no possibility of prayer.

When God and prayer are discarded, then what is left for a religion? God is
somewhere outside, your prayer is addressed to someone outside. Discarding God
and prayer you are really saying, "I would like now to go inward." And meditation is
a way of going inward.
For thousands of years Jainas have been vegetarians. You have to know this fact,
that all their twenty-four teachers -- they call them tirthankaras, their messiahs --
came from the warrior caste. They were all meat-eaters. They were professional
warriors. What happened to these people?

Meditation transformed their whole vision. Not only did their swords fall from their
hands, their warriorhood disappeared, but a new phenomenon started happening: a
tremendous feeling of love towards existence. They became absolutely one with the
whole. Vegetarianism is just a small part of that great revolution. The same
happened in Buddhism. Buddha did not believe in God, did not believe in prayer.

I want you to understand it: the moment God and prayer are discarded, the only
thing that is left is to go in. Buddha also was from the warrior caste, son of a king,
trained to kill. He was not a vegetarian. But when meditation started blossoming in
him, just as a by-product the vegetarian idea came into his being: you cannot kill
animals for eating, you cannot destroy life. While every kind of delicious food is
available, what is the need to kill living beings?

This is nothing to do with religion. This is simply to do with your sensitiveness, your
aesthetic understanding. Jainism and Buddhism are the only religions without God
and without prayer, and both automatically became vegetarian. The same is
happening to sannyasins. Christianity is not vegetarian, Mohammedanism is not
vegetarian, Judaism is not vegetarian -- for the simple reason that these religions
never came across the revolution that meditation brings. They never became aware
of meditation.

They went on praying to a fictitious God -- which brings no transformation in life,

because he does not exist. Your prayers are just addressed to the empty sky. They
never reach anywhere, they are never heard by anyone, they are never going to be
answered. There is nobody to answer them. All the religions that have remained
hooked with the idea of God have remained meat-eaters. So this is a simple
phenomenon to understand.

Why are my sannyasins vegetarians? We don't enforce vegetarianism, we are not

concerned with it. My sannyasins are not like George Bernard Shaw and his Fabian
Society, where vegetarianism was a religion. Neither George Bernard Shaw knows
anything about meditation, nor does his Fabian Society. They are just eccentric
people who want to do something different from everybody else so they look better,
they look higher, they look holier. Vegetarianism is their philosophy.

It is not my philosophy, it is simply a by-product. I don't insist upon it. I insist upon
meditation. Be more alert, more silent, more joyful, more ecstatic, and find your
innermost center. Many things will follow of their own accord; and when they come
of their own accord, there is no repression, there is no fight, no hardship, no torture.
But if you live vegetarianism as a religion or a philosophy, you will be continually
hankering for meat, continually thinking, dreaming of meat, and your vegetarianism
will be just a decoration for your ego. With me, meditation is the only essential
religion.

And everything that follows it is virtue, because it comes of its own accord. You don't
have to drag it, you don't have to discipline yourself for it. I have nothing to do with
vegetarianism, but I know that if you meditate you are going to grow new
perceptivity, new sensitivity, and you cannot kill animals.

Have you observed one fact? -- that the vegetarian societies have the most delicious
kinds of foods. The Buddhists, the Jainas -- they have the best dishes in the world,
for the simple reason that through their meditations they had to drop meat-eating.
They became more inquiring into delicious food so they didn't miss meat, on which
they had been brought up from their childhood -- it had become almost their second
nature.

There are millions of people who have never thought of vegetarianism. From the
very childhood they have been killing living animals. It is not different from
cannibalism. And since Charles Darwin it is absolutely a scientific fact that man has
come, evolved, from the animals -- so you are killing your own forefathers and
eating them joyously. Don't do such a nasty thing!

And the earth is capable, man is capable of creating enough vegetarian food --
vegetables, fruits, new fruits which have never existed before. Just crossbreeding is
needed, and we can have the best kind of food available for everybody.
Your sensitivity and perceptivity, your aesthetic understanding is immediately
understood by the animals. Here you can find so many deer -- they have come
because this is the only place in the whole of America where they are absolutely
safe. Nobody is going to hunt them.

In Oregon, for ten days per year, the government allows people to hunt deer. The
deer are such beautiful animals, so agile, so lovely.... We stopped hunting on our
own ground, so from other ranches deer have moved to our place. And now they
must be the best-fed deer in the whole world, because we are taking care of them.
We are growing grass that they like, specially for them.

They would never have thought that people would be so considerate. They like a
certain grass called alfalfa, and I have told my people, "Grow as much alfalfa as
possible, so all the deer of the whole of Oregon by and by start moving to our
commune. And they will be respected as members of the commune."

And they already understand it. They stand on the road -- you go on honking your
horn, they don't care; they are meditating in the middle of the road. And they
understand one thing: that you are not going to do harm, so there is no need to be
in a hurry.
In my garden I have three hundred peacocks. The moment they see my car, they all
start moving in front of it. They know that they cannot be hurt, that nobody is going
to run over them. They will not move; sometimes Vivek has to get out and push
them. They are enjoying!

There are a few really crazy ones -- the moment they see my car they come running
from far away, just to stand in front of my car. I will move slowly, and they will
move slowly backwards, but they will not move away from the road. They
understand something, their hearts have felt something, that "these people are not
enemies; these people are part of us, friends."

And the whole animal kingdom is part of us, even the trees. Now the scientists have
come to an established conclusion that trees are living beings. Not only that, they
have a very fine sensitivity, far more sensitive than you have. They have placed
machines around trees, plugged wires into the trees -- machines like a cardiograph
which shows your heartbeat. It shows the heartbeat of the tree, and if somebody is
coming to chop the tree, immediately the graph on the cardiogram goes crazy. The
tree is feeling really afraid and trembling.

Not only that, other trees around also go crazy, although they are not going to be
cut. But someone, some friend is going to be cut and they have a great feeling for it.
And the most strange thing that has come to the knowledge of the scientists is that if
the person who is coming with an axe is just pretending -- he is not really going to
cut the tree -- the graph remains harmonious. This is something unbelievable, that
the tree knows whether the man intends to cut it or is just pretending.

They are more sensitive than you. You will not be able to figure it out: if somebody
comes with a sword at you, you will not be able to figure out whether he is really
going to hit you or is just pretending, acting. You will not be able to find out through
your sensitivity. The reason is, man has lived for millions of years so insensitively
that he has lost one of the greatest qualities of his being. Meditation slowly slowly
gives you back your sensitivity; and a man who has reached to the ultimate ecstasy
of meditation is as sensitive as any tree, any animal, anything in the whole
existence.

This sensitivity makes my people vegetarians. And it is a gain, not a loss. It will
make you simultaneously more loving, more compassionate, more feeling, more
understanding of beauty. It will make you aware of great music, even the music that
happens when the wind blows through the pine trees, or the sound of the running
water-even the music that happens, that is happening, in this gap, in this silence.

Silence is the highest music. It is soundless, but it can be felt. Can't you feel the
silence here? Can't you feel that the people who are here are all one, pulsating in the
same rhythm, their hearts beating in the same rhythm? Vegetarianism is a small
thing. We have to create a world of really sensitive people, who can understand
music, poetry, paintings, who can understand nature, who can understand human
beauty, who can understand the world that surrounds them: the stars, the moon,
the sun. Just a bird on the wing can fill you with immense rejoicing. The freedom of
the small bird, the song of the small bird, may make you dance, sing. Humanity has
lost its heart, and we have to give it back to everyone who is willing. That's the
meaning of my sannyas.

Source : from Osho Book "From Death to Deathlessness"