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wrote:
> I am curious as to the reasons why someone would eat vegetarian. Is it
> for health or for animal-rights or other reasons?
>
> Can you all please respond with a quick indication of your reasons to
> chose to eat vegetarian?

There are, of course, many arguments both for and against
vegetarianism. I have been vegetarian for over 30 years,
and the change over was motivated by a friend who was
involved in a particular spiritual practice. Later I
became aware of other supporting information.

This first item is a brief statement, in my words, from
the spiritual path I referred to:

It is an enigma of life that we must destroy other life
forms in order to sustain our own, and this destruction
causes us to take on kharmic indebtedness. Life forms
are made up of 5 elements or attributes - water, earth,
fire, air and ether. Plant life has water active and the
other elements dormant. More elements are active in
higher life forms, with ether being active in man only.
The debt we take on increases with the number of active
elements. In order to progress on the spiritual path
one is advised to partake of plant life only in order
to minimize the taking on of new debt!

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Some years ago I had a book (since lent out and not
returned) called something like 'The Essene Gospel of the
Disciple John' - I'm not sure I remember the title.
It purported to be a scholar's translation directly from
an Aramic text located at the Vatican, and it contained
talks by Jesus devoted solely to methods to purify the
body and the necessity of the vegetarian diet if one
wanted to progress on the spiritual path.

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A book 'Faith, Love, and Seaweed' by Ian F. Rose details
his family's experience going to the vegetarian diet, how
it saved his life, and how it helped his son Murray go on
to be a famous olympic swimmer.

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I have heard that young children, if their parents have
been somewhat relaxed (not insistant on a specific plan)
and who make alternatives available, will over time auto-
matically select for themselves a balanced diet and, when
starting solid foods, will avoid meat if they can. We
tried this with our older son and he showed an aversion
for meat of any kind; he carefully ate around any meat
included in the dish. This was one of the many things that
influenced us to become vegetarian, and we have been so
for 30 or so years.

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Kindrick