One can still meditate and eat meat. One can be spiritual and eat meat. One can still love deeply and eat meat. One can still be a beautiful person and eat meat. But if one really has the desire to go deep into the experience of becoming a spiritual person, one has to be very aware of his or her actions and the joy or suffering that each action causes. It is the intention and understanding of each action that makes the difference between "right" and "wrong." For example, from the perspective of a cat, a mouse stealing a piece of cheese is the evil-doer. But for the mouse, the cat trying to catch him is the evil one. Good and bad, right and wrong are subjective and a matter of perspective.

Many people who eat meat are somewhat oblivious to the process that an animal goes through until it winds up in their Big Mac. They eat meat with a sense of innocence and therefore the negative karma is less. There are those who know the suffering the animal goes through but choose to ignore it. For them the karma is greater. A child who eats meat not knowing whatsoever the concept of what meat really is cannot accrue any of the psychological burdens that an aware adult bears.

With the understanding that perspective matters, that is intention and understanding, a Native American that relied on caribou or buffalo for survival, or the Inuit that relies on whale meat, will bear significantly less negative karma than the average North American who buys butchered meat at a grocery store or a burger at the drive-thru. This is an example of necessity over laziness. In the same way, a lion in Africa cannot be thought of as evil when it stalks a zebra for its survival. The lion acts according to its nature and its actions cannot be judged.

Man, unlike the lion, can go beyond instinct, for he has consciousness, can choose for himself what is right or wrong, and can understand the suffering of other creatures. Humans have a choice to exist as carnivore or herbivore; lions do not. The herbivore can exist without meat, but the carnivore will not last long without vegetables.

There have been all kinds of debates about the physiology of the human body and whether we are designed to eat meat or not - from the shape of our teeth to the design of our digestive system. But this is not a discussion over the design of the human body. We know that people can live happily as vegetarians and happily as meat eaters. The question here is whether or not one system serves us better spiritually. I do not wish to preach or judge, but merely pose circumstances and examples for you to analyse. If after assessing your own life you feel there is nothing wrong with eating meat, then continue on as you were. If you feel that you have been ignoring the facts so that you can continue eating meat, perhaps work slowly towards cutting out meat from your diet.