i think there’ve been many strands of my life that have lead me to this point.

i’ve always liked animals and the natural world. i guess it helped a lot being brought up in a rural setting. perhaps the earliest indications that i was destined to consider the implications of diet was that i hated finding any pieces of bone in my food. i would remove these from my plate immediately. so, at a subconscious level, i’ve always been uncomfortable about eating meat. similarly, i intensely disliked my father shooting jays, pigeons and rabbits. to me this seemed at best unnecessary and at worst cruel.

so, as i’ve stated elsewhere, when i came across the concept of vegetarianism in lynda goodman’s ‘star signs’ it was like someone telling me something i felt i already knew. and i embraced the concept at the earliest opportunity, which was when i took a job away from home.

i’ve always had an interest in spirituality too, though i felt this was frustrated in my youth by the apparently dogmatic doctrines that the church seemed to follow. but having established a broader basis for my beliefs, i can now interpret these doctrines in a more subtle manner. in that respect, i have something of a reluctance to call myself a christian, which is how i was brought up, as my beliefs go well beyond that. i also feel that all religions have something to offer their followers.  so, i’m very averse to religious intolerance.  in particular, i like buddhism and have read pretty much everything by the dalai lama.  but my taste in spirituality is fairly eclectic and not bound by tradition.  others that have influenced my world view are m. scott peck and edgar cayce, to mention but a few.

as i’ve also stated elsewhere, i came across the concept of a raw food diet about the time i became vegetarian, through reading ‘the essene gospel of peace – book 1’. unfortunately, at the time i didn’t take it as seriously as i perhaps should have. and i also thought that being vegan was impractical for someone who didn’t really do any cooking. so, i thought vegetarianism was a more realistic and workable choice at that time.

i guess i only really reconsidered a friutarian diet when, after a chance meeting with a vegan, i started to re-assess the choice i’d made. so, i decided to read up on the subject of raw food and was drawn to the version of this diet described in genesis 1:29. if i’m honest, i’m still only really feeling my way along this path. but i do feel this has been an important step for me and i do feel committed to making it work.

Very interesting, Raspberry!

i’m very averse to religious intolerance

I don't know what you mean by it exactly, but if you mean showing disrespect to followers of a particular religion, then I am opposed to it too, as soon their teaching is not violent and hostile.

I do not consider Buddhism a religion, btw. It is a philosophy, made to religion by people that don't understand it deeply, imo.

My question is: what ideas you found in religions brought you to fruitarianism?

the essene gospel of peace

It's a nice book, but I think it's just a book like many others, written recently.

if i’m honest, i’m still only really feeling my way along this path.  but i do feel this has been an important step for me and i do feel committed to making it work.

I wish you much success!

hi lena,

most religions believe theirs is the only true faith, christianity included.  i don't think this at all.  i see all religions as offering a path of spiritual growth.  i don't necessarily think one is better than the other or closer to god or whatever.  i think it's the individual and their own spirituality that creates their relationship with god, not primariliy their religion.

now, buddhism is interesting because as i understand it the ultimate goal of buddhish is to escape the 'wheel of life' and merge once more with the 'infinite', from whenst one came.  now if on takes the view, as i do, that this ultimate destination is reunion with god, then i see no fundimental spiritual difference between this and any other spiritual path with the same goal.  it might be stretching it a bit to say that this is what religion is ultimately about, because as the word implies religions have become bogged down in religious (or repetatitive and dogmatic) practices that do not serve any real spiritual purpose.  but look at it from another perspective too.  philosophy is formed from the words philo and sophy (sophia).  the first means man and the second means wisdom.  from my knowledge of buddhism, it's more of a theosophy or god-wisdom than a philosophy or man-wisdom.  certainly buddhist practices seek to attain knowledge not through mortal endeavour but by tapping into the infinite source of all knowledge (which is effectively god) through meditation and other spiritual practices.  or am i wrong about all that???

as for "what idea you found in religions brought you to fruitarianism?", that's such a big subject i just couldn't do it justice in the little i'm going to bang out here!!!  but i'll put it in a nutshell for you.  matthew 25:40 says "Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me".  in reality, what this is saying in a spititual sense is the everyone, every living creature, every part of creation is a part of the same whole.  if you kill your neighbour you kill yourself.  if you eat your chicken you eat yourself.  if you defile your world you defile yourself.  it's not a great leap of faith from that perspective to a fruitarian diet!!!

the 'essene gospel of peace' was allegedly translated from the dead sea scrolls.  but perhaps i'm wrong about that too!!!

raspberry.

from my knowledge of buddhism, it's more of a theosophy or god-wisdom than a philosophy or man-wisdom.

There is no any god in Buddhism.

certainly buddhist practices seek to attain knowledge not through moral endeavour

You are profoundly wrong about that. I wonder how could you come to this conclusion.

but by tapping into the infinite source of all knowledge (which is effectively god) through meditation and other spiritual practices.

The notion that one god is the one and only source of all knowledge - is only your personal understanding, maybe shared by other religious people.

Raspberry, Buddhism means a lot to me, I could go on and on for pages :) But this would be off-topic.

I prefer to say, that for me it is very interesting to learn how people come to common moral credo in so many different ways, including religious. I was very impressed by Tanya's understanding and by yours, and I am very happy about the fact that such different people could be so close mentally and come to similar conclusions! I respect your way a lot, even though I don't quite understand it or it is not suitable for me personally.

Hi raspberry,

Thank you for sharing. I definitely feel the same - all religions are just different ways to the one Absolute that we call God.

As a person who sees spirituality as central to my life, religion is an issue of interest. I suppose I see many religions as generally similar to the relationship between community and the state, community is about cooperation and equality for me, government is based upon authority and limitations in some senses. You could also compare religion and spirituality to the relationship or not between love and the institution of marriage, which was based on inequality, something that cannot be spiritual in my understanding of what a spiritual life is.

I have drawn from writers such as Leo Tolstoy and have also been inspired by Christians, Quakers, Jains and Buddhists who start from a foundation of equality and non-violence. But somehow I feel that a spirituality rooted in personal and social evolution and the understandings of science is the way forward.

It is interesting as Lena points out how people can come to the same point through varying avenues. I often wonder how much of our nature leads us to a particular understanding coloured by the cultural influences with which we have grown up. For one type of person Christianity will justify murder, such as in the case of capital punishment, for another it will support their opposition to murder.

Religion is a cooked version of spirituality, that is, by nature, raw.

So we see here a clear human attempt to modify what's already perfect just to please physical, emotional and mental senses that have been perverted by our ego (selfish thinking). Animals do eat when they are hungry; "we", human, learnt to eat just because we want to, until present day when we have been clearly enslaved by our own guts! hehe

When we re-turn raw 360°, in all areas of our life, not only with food, we connect again with spirituality and thus we stop eating religion in its cooked version, by switching to  raw (spirituality). That is way we all came from so called "different" religions/beliefs etc and now we find we reached the "same" point.

A personal note:

Very often, as I keep on my appletarian diet day by day, feel like I could go apples the night too but I do not want. I asked myself why and came to the conclusion that it is cos I "want" to get pleasure from sitting to a table and enjoy my salad at least once in a day, to relax. It's a very strange form of relax though, cos to get this distorted sensations I have to waste 20 min of my time chopping (that is, killing) fruits to ingest them all together and loose my lucidity...

Why do I loose lucidity? Cos I am eating "dead fruits" (compared to a whole fruit) and especially cos a earthly fruit such as tomatoes, peppers, zucchini etc are closer from the ground than apples...

I am still toxic. I still enjoy killing to eat. But I can work on it, now that I know who's my "enemy"... AN important factor is awareness.

In Hebrew the word for God (Elokim) and Nature (Teva) have the same numerical value (gematria) of 86; nature is the tangible aspect of God.

The more we return to Nature, the more we are closer to God (in its re-vealed face). In Hebrew panim = face and pnimi = inner.

this should have read ...

"certainly buddhist practices seek to attain knowledge not through mortal endeavour but by tapping into the infinite source of all knowledge (which is effectively god) through meditation and other spiritual practices."

... i've corrected it in the original post too.

and yes, it's my 'personal' understanding that "The notion that one god is the one and only source of all knowledge".  but you also have to appreciate that we are not separate from god.  everything is one.  division is an illusion.  everyone has their own 'personal' understanding of everything.  there is no other type of understanding.  candidly, i see no real inconsistency in drawing a parallel between the 'non-religious' buddhist view of the infinite and the more religious view of god.

but, in my opinion, there's one undeniable certainly: what ever the truth is, we're all subject to that truth.

@Graham, I am sometimes astonished too:

I often wonder how much of our nature leads us to a particular understanding coloured by the cultural influences with which we have grown up. For one type of person Christianity will justify murder, such as in the case of capital punishment, for another it will support their opposition to murder.

@Tanya, this is a totally cool statement:

Religion is a cooked version of spirituality, that is, by nature, raw.

@Raspberry, what did you mean by "mortal endeavour"?

I absolutely agree with you on this:

everyone has their own 'personal' understanding of everything.  there is no other type of understanding.

Of cause you can draw the parallel:

candidly, i see no real inconsistency in drawing a parallel between the 'non-religious' buddhist view of the infinite and the more religious view of god

But only a parallel :)

the underline was to highlight the typo which should have read 'mortal' nor 'moral'.  i'm sure i'd have typed the 't' but characters drop-out because the software doesn't recognise all the key strokes.  mortal simply means those that have mortality or will die ('la mort' is 'the dead', in french).  for example: science is a mortal endeavour, which focuses on the concept of repeatability as a means of delineating truth. i assumed your concern was the prior unintended implication that buddhism didn't concern itself with moral endeavour, which isn't what i meant.

maybe you should try drawing a few parallels of your own.  you might then come to appreciate how all humanist and spiritualist thought is bound by common goals and principles.

 @Raspberry, you said:

 I've got that and yes, "moral" was the word that striked me. But I do not understand what you meant by "mortal endeavour" regarding Buddhism, even after searching for the usage of the phase in the internet. It may be my own linguistic problem, my English is poor. I want to say that in Buddhism all kinds of endeavour - mortal or not, whatever it should mean - are accepted if they confirm the moral principles, as as well a non-doing.

maybe you should try drawing a few parallels of your own.  you might then come to appreciate how all humanist and spiritualist thought is bound by common goals and principles.

Thank you for the teaching. Interesting, that it came after I expressed my appreciation with bold font a little higher on the page :)

there is much devision and even conflict in the world because people would rather focus on the differences between them rather than the things they have in common.  it never ceases to amaze my how christianity has splintered into nearly countless differing groups, of which i think my favourite is the quakers (society of friends) because of their openness and commitment to personal spiritual enquiry and growth.

as for the bit in bold previously, i'm not sure that figured in my mind set when i wrote that reply.  but nor can i be absolute sure it didn't now either.  i tend to write what moves me at the given moment.  i find i can get into a sort of free flow, which is when i usually do my best expressiveness.  but it helps if i'm not too upset at the time as this disrupts the process.  after the moment has gone, often i can't remember exactly the though processes that took place that created it.

I would agree about the Quakers, one of the best examples of Christianity. George Fox was extremely influential on Leo Tolstoy and thus Gandhi.