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Volume 3 - Issue 5

MAY 2005

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BECOMING A VEGGIE... ...

-By Jeroo Captain

 

 

I grew up in a family where meat, fish and eggs were part of the daily diet. I

had some friends who were vegetarian, but the thought of becoming a vegetarian

myself never occurred to me.

In 1993, I heard about Sathya Sai Baba’s work and my two children and I

started attending weekly bhajan sessions at our local Sai center in Sacramento,

California. Soon after that, my daughter, a teenager, watched a T.V. program

that was particularly disturbing for her—it portrayed the inhumane

treatment of poultry and cattle prior to being slaughtered for food. “I

am not eating any meat or chicken any more,” she announced.

`Oh well, just another teenage fad,’ I thought, ‘This will probably

last a week, or may be two.’ But I agreed as long as she was ready to

prepare her meals herself.

Weeks passed and I marveled at her resolve. She did not flinch even once as she

quite happily prepared her veggie meals. Soon she started working on her

younger brother. Being very resolute and articulate, she had him convinced in

no time. Now they both began to work on me.

We had d to the Sanathana Sarathi, and each time it arrived in the

mail, my daughter read it cover to cover. She would run to me with any quotes

from Swami she could find to support her case. Trips to the supermarket became

battlegrounds: my son would look at me with big soulful brown eyes, “How

would you feel if you were this chicken’s mother—would you like

your kid to be cut up and served for food?” Oh please! Up until then,

chicken was simply a well-packaged piece of high-protein food—I did not

think of it as having been alive at some point, let alone having a mother!

Soon my defenses began to crumble and I half-heartedly agreed to try. I decided

to give up cooking meat every other day and so Tuesdays, Thursdays and

Saturdays became vegetarian days for a while. But my heart was not in it--and

needless to say, I did not succeed. Giving up a habit of over 40 years was not

easy, I found out.

Then one day I was in my back yard. There is a small lake behind our property.

The water was clear and I could see the fish swimming around. Does God really

exist in all creatures, I wondered. Without much thought, I threw out a

challenge. “OK, Swami, if you are really present in every creature, make

that fish swim to me,” I said in my mind. Sure enough, a fish made its

way slowly to the shore where I was standing, then turned to the right and swam

away. My doubting mind jumped right in “Oh that was just a

coincidence,” I thought. “Surely the fish was just swimming with

the current!” No sooner had I finished this thought, the fish made a

sharp turn around, swam swiftly back to where I was standing, paused in front

of me, and for several seconds, looked directly into my eyes.

After that experience, the desire to eat any fish, meat or fowl simply vanished,

and to this day I remain a happy vegetarian.

Mind full of doubts?

Habits too hard to bend?

Ask—He will reveal the Truth

In ways you can comprehend:

On land, sea or sky

Creatures great or small

Bhagvan Sri Sathya Sai

Resides in one and all.

Jai Sai Ram!

- Jeroo Captain

 

 

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