Namaskar Consciousness exists everywhere and all things have some consciousness. In inanimate things the consciousness is dormant. In animate life forms the degree of consciousness various: so that lower life forms are governed by instinct; developing life forms (eg animals) are mainly instinctual but some can have a semblance of intelligence (eg as found in dogs and apes); higher life forms have instinct, intellect and intuition - but these are not necessarily used or properly developed. Human beings with spiritual inclinations or who are motivated by service and exploring the unknown tune into their intuition. Otherwise, human beings are good at using their intelligence, but technical intelligence (as compared to higher intelligence) is not always used for the greater good, or even one's own elevation. It is also true that some human beings do still tend to be dominated by their instinctual minds and animal proclivities alone. As spiritual aspirants we want to expand our mind by developing our higher intellect and intuition. This gives the greatest happiness. Reliance on instinctual inclinations narrows the mind and mere technical intelligence does not necessarily give rise to noble endeavours. Once the higher inclinations of mind are opened up, a person feels oneness and sympathy for all and that includes for the animal (and plant) life forms. They recognise animals have some emotions. Regards Dharma --- Understanding and Working with Karma In meditation we make a sincere effort to expand our mind and connect it with the thought of infinite love or infinite consciousness. In the course of this effort we soon experience limitations - shortness of concentration, unseen barriers limiting our horizons and conscious experience, distraction, uncertainty, lack of mental penetration. Where do these limitations come from. Why is it so difficult to expand our consciousness? And most importantly, how can we free ourselves from this experience of bondage and limitation? Yoga explains the source of these limitations through the concept of karma. Actually the word karma means action. The word sam'skara means the reaction in potential form and the word karmaphala means the result of action. People often use the word karma when they really mean sam'skara. Yoga provides specific practices for getting rid of the limitations caused by 'old karma' - strictly this should read sam'skara - and, even more importantly, preventing the formation of new sam'skara and new limitations. As stated, the word karma means action and it is commonly used in the sense that all actions cause reactions, either immediate or delayed. It is the delayed reactions which concern us here (the sam'skara). For it is the stored up potential reactions (sam'skara) to previous actions (past karma) which create the distortions, distractions and disturbances to our consciousness that prevent from enjoying a tranquil condition. As mentioned, the proper Yogic term for these delayed reactions to past karma is sam’skara. How Are Sam’skaras Created Sometimes when we perform a good or bad action we get the reaction in the form of reward or punishment, happiness or suffering, straight away. Often however, we may perform a good or bad action and circumstances will delay the reaction. For example, we steal something and are not discovered or we help someone and the deed is neither acknowledged nor returned or we encounter some object which we desire but are unable to obtain it. These actions or karmas leave a vibration in the mind which disturbs our consciousness. This disturbance can only be removed or cancelled out when the reaction to the original action occurs. For a few days, weeks or months, we may remain conscious of or bothered by this unrequited action, but eventually, in the constant flow of new experiences, it submerges beneath the surface of everyday memory and we no longer are conscious of it. The disturbance however, has not disappeared, nor been forgotten. It is stored in the deeper layers of the unconscious mind, where it remains as a kind of weight which contributes unconsciously to our general sense of unease or unfulfilment. Its presence mars the clarity of our mind and the accumulation of many such disturbances is what creates the sense of mental darkness and agitation which blocks our ability to experience infinite love. Getting rid of Old Sam’skaras In the normal course of events a person will accumulate many sam’skaras or potential reactions to past karma, during a lifetime which are stored deep in the unconscious mind. The actual reactions to these sam’skaras do not emerge because they are suppressed by the activity of the conscious and subconscious mind. At the time of death, when the conscious and subconscious minds cease to function, the stored sam’skaras steer the person towards a rebirth which is suitable for the sam’skaras to get expressed. The person lives their life experiencing events dictated by his or her good and bad sam’skaras but at the same time is busy creating many new sam’skaras which in turn get stored deep in the unconscious and act as the cause and determining factor of the persons next rebirth. When a person gradually tires of this cycle and seeks to be free of the bondages created by the sam’skaras he or she must find a way to consciously get rid of the sam’skaras rather than waiting for their natural emergence at the time of death. This can be done through meditation which helps a person stop or transcend the activity of the conscious and subconscious mind - thus creating space for the contents of the unconscious or superconscious mind to come to the surface. Sam’skaras which normally would not have been expressed till the next life, thus get an opportunity to be experienced in this life. The more the weight of these stored sam’skaras is removed the lighter, more free and more clear the person begins to feel, though naturally the intensity of life may seem to increase as one is virtually fitting two lives into one. In this way, through the practice of meditation, a person can speed up the expression of his or her sam’skaras and move more quickly towards the bliss of pure consciousness. A problem occurs, however, in that while expressing sam’skaras one may also create new ones. Thus it is also important to learn the technique of not creating new sam’skaras. Preventing the Creation of New Sam’skaras Sam'skaras are created when the interaction between the ego and an object creates a disturbance in the mind. Yoga deals with this problem in two beautiful ways. First by training oneself to duck the incoming vibration of the object by learning to see all objects as expressions of God - “This too is God”, that is, as an expression of that One Infinite Consciousness. Thus the imprint of different objects and interactions is not left on the mind because one sees all objects as One. The impression left on the mind is one of wholeness from the spiritual vision, not of multiplicity and separateness experienced by the ego. By seeing all things as God one can escape the turbulence created by attraction and repulsion. One learns to see beneath surface differences and relate to the Infinite within. Secondly, if one interacts with an object, or walks into a situation, thinking “I am doing this” one will certainly acquire the sam'skara of that action. But if one pauses, taking a deeper look, and endeavours to feel that one is merely an instrument and that the whole show is really the unfolding play of divine consciousness, then, as one acted without the sense of “I”, the potential results of the action have nowhere to stick. Everything done is already transformed into higher expression, rather than limited expression by the ego. We get stressed and bound up because we interact with people and things, ego to ego. If these reactions are not played out immediately they become stored as sam’skaras (potential reaction to actions). By using the above techniques we can interact with people and things spirit to spirit, escaping superficial entanglements and their associated sam’skaras. Through this practice and the steady practice of meditation we can gradually become sam'skara free. --- From the New York Times Bestselling Author of Dogs Never Lie About Love ,When Elephants Weep and The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats THE PIG WHO SANG TO THE MOON The Emotional World of Farm Animals Jeffrey Moussiaeff Masson Advance Praise for Jeffrey Masson's, The Pig Who Sang the Moon "Wrenching, yet vitally important--at last a voice for the domestic animals who need it most. While every attention is paid to wild animals and to pets, farm animals are systematically ignored because the fact that we kill and eat these sentient beings is almost unbearable to acknowledge. Yet if that is what we are doing, we must acknowledge it. We must understand our actions. This powerful, excellent book is not for cowards." --Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, author of The Hidden Lives of Dogs "For years now, Jeffrey Masson has been illuminating the emotional world of animals, and helping to restore the beauty of the human-animal bond. I've wondered if he might ever turn his extraordinary gaze to the animals we eat. In this book he has done just that, and it is a whopper! The Pig Who Sang to the Moon will forever enrich, deepen and make real your relationship with extraordinary beings we farm for their meat, eggs, and milk. This is a great book!" --John Robbins, author The Food Revolution and Diet for a New America "At last, we have a book that treats farm animals as individuals, with emotions just like those that dogs and cats have. Masson is a fine writer, and this is his most important book yet. I hope everyone reads it. It will change the way people think about the animals they encounter every day--on their plate." --Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation, Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics University Center for Human Values, Princeton University "In this latest leg of Jeffrey Moussaieff's journey through the animal kingdoms, this perceptive writer peels back our prejudices to reveal the depth of feeling and thought in animals' minds and the leap we must make to be worthy of understanding them. Eye-opening, warm, thoroughly engaging." --Ingrid Newkirk, President of PETA "Jeffrey Masson has written another winner. He skilfully juxtaposes fascinating facts with moving tales about the amazing ways in which farm animals show us how they feel--and rounds off with a forceful ethical challenge to the reader. The days when farm animals were categorized simply as 'products' must surely now be over. This is, without doubt, a vital book of our times." --Joyce D'Silva, CEO, Compassion in World Farming Review of the Book In his beloved New York Times bestseller Dogs Never Lie About Love, former psychoanalyst Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson navigated the inner landscape of man's best friend. His groundbreaking book When Elephants Weep explored the emotions of animals in the wild. His most recent book, The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats, brought new insights into the mysterious, playful world of cats. Now this New York Times bestselling author reveals fascinating and controversial evidence about the feelings of our barnyard friends in THE PIG WHO SANG TO THE MOON: The Emotional World of Farm Animals (Ballantine Books Hardcover; $25.95; November 4, 2003). THE PIG WHO SANG TO THE MOON is the first book about the emotional makeup of farm animals. Farm animals have been with us for 10,000 years, yet no one has ever studied their emotions, only their behavior. "Is it because their main purpose is defined by their death or exploitation until they cease to be of any economic benefit to us? Should it matter to us that a chicken may be capable of great joy but will never experience it because it's kept in a cage?" asks Masson. He maintains that we rarely try and get to know these animals precisely because of what we do to them; it's easier to distance ourselves, he says, and pretend they have nothing to do with us. And yet Masson concludes that "if you eat these animals, wear their skins as shoes or belts, then their lives must be of concern to you. It has something to do with you, because you have something to do with them." In THE PIG WHO SANG TO THE MOON, Jeffrey Masson draws from literature, history, and philosophy, as well as studies and stories from neurobiologists, behaviorists and other scientists, farmers and animal welfare activists. His research took him to ten countries, four continents, and fifteen animal sanctuaries. In addition, he had scores of conversations with people who have devoted their lives to changing the way we think about these misunderstood animals. Through studying chickens, cows, sheep, pigs, ducks, geese, and goats, Masson discovered they have a wide array of emotions similar to those of dogs and cats, among them: love, loyalty, friendship, sadness, grief and sorrow. He asks readers to ponder: "From a philosophical, scientific, or moral point of view, how can animal happiness be trivial?" Does the average dairy cow lead a happy life? Her calves are removed shortly after birth so she never sees them again, she is milked intensively for a few years, kept permanently pregnant, then, old before her time, is killed before her natural lifespan has been reached. Masson asks, "If we were made pregnant against our will, our child taken from us and served the next night for dinner, would we be happy?" He reminds us that each and every animal who is slaughtered for food had a mother, probably siblings, and likely was mourned by a parent or missed by an animal friend. Masson shows that there is a lot that we as human beings can learn from farm animals. He believes we can look at the fidelity in geese, the playfulness in lambs and goats, the need to cuddle in cows (they also apparently enjoy music), to see that animals not only have specific behaviors but also specific emotions associated with these behaviors. Masson is not saying that animals think as we do, but does say that they feel as we do--for example, like humans they derive pleasure from eating, being stroked, and playing. He also shows that farm animals have very individual personalities and this is not just anthropomorphism at work. One can see an animal's stance, posture, gait, demeanor, and even expression all change when an animal bonds with another animal or with a human being. In THE PIG WHO SANG TO THE MOON, Masson weaves wonderful, true stories of farm animals who have shown extraordinary behavior and emotions towards and for their caretakers as well as for other animals. He also looks at the dark existence that almost all of these animals live. He takes readers into slaughterhouses and chicken coops, where cows are terrified and chickens are caged in unduly cruel ways. He enlightens readers on exactly what is done to ducks to make foie gras and how sheep are really sheared. Then he takes them to the sanctuaries where these animals are respected, cared for, and loved. In addition, he suggests actions that can be taken by anyone individually to help farm animals--other than becoming vegetarian or vegan. Masson says that most animal behaviorists and biologists consider the question of animal happiness to be pointless and say we can never know what makes an animal happy. He and other animal advocates disagree. He says "an animal is happy if he or she can live in conformity to his or her own nature, using to the maximum those natural traits in a natural setting." Unfortunately, it is only at farm sanctuaries that these animals are able to live out their lives without fear of being exploited. THE PIG WHO SANG TO THE MOON will captivate readers with its surprises and insights, offering a new perspective on the lives led by farm animals that we rarely see or even think about, and their rich inner world. About the Author Jeffrey Moussiaeff Masson, former Sanskrit scholar and former projects director of the Sigmund Freud Archives, has written more than a dozen books. A longtime resident of Berkeley, California, he now lives in New Zealand with his wife, two sons, and five cats. A film entitled The Emotional World of Farm Animals, based on his new book, will be released this Fall. --- HUMAN EXPRESSIONS AND HUMAN MOVEMENTS Human Expressions First, human expressions. Each and every living entity expresses something from its central point. Human expressions are, in that respect, many in the physical stratum: you sing, you laugh, you work, you do so many things. But all these expressions come from a single entity and a single controlling point. There are several sub-stations, but the controlling station is the same. I said in Timmern [Germany] that the controlling one is called the noumenal entity and the expressed ones are the phenomenal entities. You are one boy, Liila'nanda -- Liila'nanda speaks, he dances, he jumps, he swims, he rolls on the ground -- all those expressions are his phenomenal expressions. But his entity, the controlling entity, the entity from which so many actional waves emanate, is what? In this respect, in the small world of Liila'nanda, Liila'nanda is the noumenal entity. In the sphere of criminology the noumenal entity is falsehood, and all other corrupt practices, all other criminal activities, are phenomenal expressions. In the case of falsehood [as the noumenal entity], sin and crime coincide. In all other cases there are two different entities.* That which is not supported by the law of the land is called crime, and that which is not supported by cardinal human principles is sin. But you know, the law of the land is a creation of certain persons of the land, that is, of those who are elected or selected, representative or king. There are so many people who create the law of the land. Their decision may or may not be correct, but the definition of crime varies from country to country, locality to locality. In America, in the USA, the definition of crime varies from state to state, even in the same country. * Some words that were unclear in the original 'Ba'ba' in Fiesch' publication of this discourse omitted here. --Eds. You know in Japan, to commit suicide is neither a sin nor a crime. In India to commit suicide is a sin under certain circumstances, not always: when one commits suicide for the welfare of a large number of the populace, then it is not treated as sin; when it is a personal issue, it is treated as sin. And so far as crime is concerned in India, it is a crime to try to commit suicide, but it is not a crime to commit suicide. If one is trying to commit suicide, he or she can be punished by the government. In Britain if one tries to commit suicide, it is a crime, and if one commits suicide, even then it is a crime, and in that case also the person will be punished -- his or her property will be forfeited. Do you follow? The definition of crime varies from land to land, but the cardinal human values are the same, not only for this planet but everywhere in the universe. Just now I said that it is falsehood [a noumenal cause] where sin and crime coincide. Now in the case of human expressions, a single entity, a person, is the noumenal cause, and there are so many phenomenal expressions. All those phenomenal expressions depend on the single noumenal entity and on the standard of the noumenal entity. If a person is good, his or her expressions are also good. So what we require is that the standard of each and every human being be raised. If all the bricks of the room are strong, the room will also be strong; so if all the individuals are strong, if at least they are moralists, all humanity will be benefited by it. (1) Now there are so many human expressions in the physical stratum. We do so many things, and for these human expressions in the physical stratum we have got a physical body. A human body is the most complicated biological structure. There are so many propensities in the human mind, and for expression of many propensities in the psychic stratum there are so many nerve cells, so many centres of activity, so many nuclei in the realm of the mind. And for outer expression and for reception of waves from outer worlds, human bodies have got so many nerve fibres -- a human body is the most complicated biological structure. (2) And humans have been blessed with certain excellent structures. There is a heaven-and-hell difference between an animal body and a human body. The most developed animal bodies -- those of apes of certain groups -- are very developed, but there is a heaven-and-hell difference between their bodies and a human body, and it is not very difficult to find the difference between the most developed animal and the most undeveloped human being. So the human body is not only physical but is an excellent medium of higher psychic expressions. (3) And the third human expression which is lacking in other animals is the spiritual expression. A person who has high taste in the aesthetic sphere may forget eating and drinking, and a person who has developed deep love for the Supreme Being forgets all his psychic pursuits even. If you insult a dog, and the next moment call the dog to take food, it will accept that food from your hands. But if you insult a person and ask that person to take food, even a very delicious food, he or she, in order to maintain prestige, or save himself or herself from humiliation, will not accept. Human beings even commit suicide due to psychic pressure. Animals, low-grade animals, also sometimes commit suicide. Certain aquatic animals commit suicide. But that is not due to psychic pressure, it is due to inborn instinct. Whales of certain groups and mice of certain groups do commit suicide, collective suicide. Now human expressions are trifarious -- physical expression, psychic expression and spiritual expression. The spiritual expression is the highest and subtlest expression of human existence. And here lies the speciality of humans. In the physical stratum each and every human being is a species. Nobody is just like others. Even in a small family, brothers and sisters vary from one another. No two face-cuttings are the same. On the psychic level humans are divided into several kinds of ideologies, and they fight amongst themselves, just for ideology, and ideology remains in some sphere of abstraction, and they quarrel amongst themselves. They quarrel regarding religion, regarding different isms with different views, regarding sports. One person will say, "My team will win", while another will say, "But my team can fight" -- in football or any other sport. And there was one very important play in Spain, toros or something like that -- "bullfighting". People were very much interested in it, and they [the fans] used to fight amongst themselves, and it is not a physical fight, it is a psychic fight. But in the realm of spirituality there cannot be any fight, because the Supreme Goal is one, a singular entity. So spiritualism, rather spirituality, is not only the highest and noblest human speciality, but is the only unifying point, the only unifying platform, for the entire human society. There may be so many human races — Negroid, Austric, Mongoloid, Caucasian. Amongst Mongolians there are so many Malays, Japano- and Sino- blendings, Tibeto-Indians, so many of those. Amongst Caucasians there are Nordics, Scandinavians; Alpines in middle Europe; Mediterraneans in Italy, south France, Spain and Portugal. But human society is a singular entity -- humans belong to the same society. So here the Supreme Noumenal Entity is the spiritual nave. Now humans of this last portion of the twentieth century should strengthen that nave, should strengthen that Supreme Noumenal Entity, and on the basis of this Supreme Noumenal Entity lies their universal fraternity -- they are children of the same Supreme Father. The Supreme Progenitor is one; His children are many in number. If the children quarrel amongst themselves on petty affairs, this will certainly not satisfy the Supreme Father. He has given humans, that is, the human body, a developed cranium, a developed brain, developed nerve cells and nerve fibres. Humans should utilize them properly. There should be maximum utilization of all your assets, and by utilizing your assets, you, in your individual and collective capacities, will be assets to human society. Human Movement Now, human movement. What is movement? Movement means change of place. This bolster is here; I bring it here. There is change of place. So I have done some work; some action has been done. Insofar as actions and expressions are concerned, that is, human approaches are concerned, they are four in number: (1) Regarding human existence in the physical stratum, whatever you do in the physical stratum is your physical activity. Whatever you do to maintain your body, to maintain your life, to maintain proper security of individual and collective life, is your physical action. (2) Then again, you are not merely an animal: simply eating, drinking and sleeping is not everything for a human. A human has a subtler life, a more charming life, a more fascinating life, so your physical existence moves towards your psychic existence, and this movement is your quest for higher life, your quest for subtler life, that is, your physico-psychic movement, starting from the physical level and moving towards the psychic level. Your physico-psychic activities are architecture, literature, dance, music -- they are all your physico-psychic movement. And this movement is from crude to subtle, starting from the cruder arena and moving towards the subtler arena. That's why in Ananda Marga I encourage this physico-psychic movement: because it will help you in moving towards the subtler world, in moving towards the supreme spiritual goal. (3) Then the third human movement is on the pure psychic level. Your thought-waves, your subtler thoughts, your aesthetic tastes, they are all your psychic movement. For physico-psychic movement, I encourage boys and girls to start work in the RAWA [Renaissance Artists' and Writers' Association] movement. You know, to work in RAWA, high-grade intellect is not necessary. But for pure psychic movement, pure psychic development, higher intellect is necessary. And in that realm also humans are to be encouraged, because it is even subtler than physico-psychic movement -- it is pure psychic movement. And for that I encourage the intellectuals of Ananda Marga to form RU [Renaissance Universal] Clubs. Let there be psychic development, let there be clashes and cohesions in the realm of intellect. This will help a person to move from crude to subtle. This is the third expression of the human actional faculty. (4) And the last one is psycho-spiritual movement. In psycho-spiritual movement, the action starts on the intellectual level and ends on the spiritual level. And when this movement, this psycho-spiritual development, crosses the last boundary of the sentient principle, that intellectual movement, that is, that intellectual-spiritual progress, is converted into intuitional progress -- that is, you come within the arena of intuition. For intuition you do not require any brain, any nerve cell or any nerve fibre. Where intuition is developed, you become one with Supreme Consciousness [Parama Purus'a in Sanskrit], you become omniscient, that is, all-knowing; you do not even require any physical body. You need not go through so many books; the universe is within you, you are all-knowing. You will know the history of Spain without going through books; you will know the geography of Italy without going through books. That is, when your existence comes in close proximity to the existence of Parama Purus'a (Supreme Consciousness), the two nuclei coincide, you get what you want, and that is called salvation. Shrii Shrii Anandamurti 31 May 1979 evening, Valencia A'NANDA VACANA'MRTAM PART 30 --- Why vegans were right all along Article at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/famine/story/0,12128,865087,00.html Famine can only be avoided if the rich give up meat, fish and dairy George Monbiot Tuesday December 24, 2002 The Guardian The Christians stole the winter solstice from the pagans, and capitalism stole it from the Christians. But one feature of the celebrations has remained unchanged: the consumption of vast quantities of meat. The practice used to make sense. Livestock slaughtered in the autumn, before the grass ran out, would be about to decay, and fat-starved people would have to survive a further three months. Today we face the opposite problem: we spend the next three months trying to work it off. Our seasonal excesses would be perfectly sustainable, if we weren't doing the same thing every other week of the year. But, because of the rich world's disproportionate purchasing power, many of us can feast every day. And this would also be fine, if we did not live in a finite world. By comparison to most of the animals we eat, turkeys are relatively efficient converters: they produce about three times as much meat per pound of grain as feedlot cattle. But there are still plenty of reasons to feel uncomfortable about eating them. Most are reared in darkness, so tightly packed that they can scarcely move. Their beaks are removed with a hot knife to prevent them from hurting each other. As Christmas approaches, they become so heavy that their hips buckle. When you see the inside of a turkey broilerhouse, you begin to entertain grave doubts about European civilisation. This is one of the reasons why many people have returned to eating red meat at Christmas. Beef cattle appear to be happier animals. But the improvement in animal welfare is offset by the loss in human welfare. The world produces enough food for its people and its livestock, though (largely because they are so poor) some 800 million are malnourished. But as the population rises, structural global famine will be avoided only if the rich start to eat less meat. The number of farm animals on earth has risen fivefold since 1950: humans are now outnumbered three to one. Livestock already consume half the world's grain, and their numbers are still growing almost exponentially. This is why biotechnology - whose promoters claim that it will feed the world - has been deployed to produce not food but feed: it allows farmers to switch from grains which keep people alive to the production of more lucrative crops for livestock. Within as little as 10 years, the world will be faced with a choice: arable farming either continues to feed the world's animals or it continues to feed the world's people. It cannot do both. The impending crisis will be accelerated by the depletion of both phosphate fertiliser and the water used to grow crops. Every kilogram of beef we consume, according to research by the agronomists David Pimental and Robert Goodland, requires around 100,000 litres of water. Aquifers are beginning the run dry all over the world, largely because of abstraction by farmers. Many of those who have begun to understand the finity of global grain production have responded by becoming vegetarians. But vegetarians who continue to consume milk and eggs scarcely reduce their impact on the ecosystem. The conversion efficiency of dairy and egg production is generally better than meat rearing, but even if everyone who now eats beef were to eat cheese instead, this would merely delay the global famine. As both dairy cattle and poultry are often fed with fishmeal (which means that no one can claim to eat cheese but not fish), it might, in one respect, even accelerate it. The shift would be accompanied too by a massive deterioration in animal welfare: with the possible exception of intensively reared broilers and pigs, battery chickens and dairy cows are the farm animals which appear to suffer most. We could eat pheasants, many of which are dumped in landfill after they've been shot, and whose price, at this time of the year, falls to around £2 a bird, but most people would feel uncomfortable about subsidising the bloodlust of brandy-soaked hoorays. Eating pheasants, which are also fed on grain, is sustainable only up to the point at which demand meets supply. We can eat fish, but only if we are prepared to contribute to the collapse of marine ecosystems and - as the European fleet plunders the seas off West Africa - the starvation of some of the hungriest people on earth. It's impossible to avoid the conclusion that the only sustainable and socially just option is for the inhabitants of the rich world to become, like most of the earth's people, broadly vegan, eating meat only on special occasions like Christmas. As a meat-eater, I've long found it convenient to categorise veganism as a response to animal suffering or a health fad. But, faced with these figures, it now seems plain that it's the only ethical response to what is arguably the world's most urgent social justice issue. We stuff ourselves, and the poor get stuffed. --- Title: What's New. Source: Natural Life, Sep/Oct2002 Issue 87, p24, 1p, 4bw Introduction of 'The Jumbo Vegetarian Cookbook'; What's New Reviews of new products & services for simple, healthy living Veggie Food for Kids The authors of The Jumbo Vegetarian Cookbook (2002, Kids Can Press) were introduced to vegetarianism when their daughters announced they were giving up meat. Both moms were concerned that their growing teens' nutritional needs wouldn't be met, but a little research taught them differently. So they have created this book with more than 125 nutritious and delicious meatless dishes, designed to appeal to people of all ages, but especially kids, whether they're eating or cooking. The wonderfully illustrated book includes an introduction to vegetarian foods, basic cooking terms, helpful hints, safety tips and great menu ideas. ---