Where Spirituality, Compassion & Veganism Intersect
By Prarthana Jayaram

What lies at the intersection of spiritual health and ethical choices? How can diet speak to our beliefs and our holistic health? What are the connections between spirituality and a sense of community? These are questions the growing vegan spirituality movement seeks to answer.

Promoting compassionate living, spiritual vegans align themselves with the broad themes of universal peace and love. As the name suggests, vegan spirituality focuses on the spiritual implications of a vegan lifestyle – the connections between heart, body and mind that manifest in vegan living and a respect and compassion for all life.

Activists approach this movement in a number of different ways. From yoga and meditative practice to public speaking to animated discussions, spiritual vegans are seeking new ways to form and cultivate community.

In 1998, Philadelphia-based activist Sandi Herman began to use the term “vegan spirituality” and inspired friend Lisa Levinson to start the first vegan spirituality group in 2010, under the auspices of Public Eye: Artists for Animals, an organization which Levinson co-founded to teach compassion for animals through the arts. For the past few years, Public Eye: Artists for Animals has hosted monthly vegan spirituality groups and annual Vegan Spirituality Retreats in the Philadelphia area to provide a community for those interested in topics like spiritual practice and the connection between mind, body and diet. Levinson went on to create monthly groups and the annual Vegan Spirituality Retreats in Los Angeles. More groups are sprouting up, including one in Vancouver, BC.

Herman says it has been a blessing to find so much understanding and sense of community. A longtime vegan, Herman has been a part of groups that share her compassion for animals (such as animal rescues) and groups that value spirituality (such as Reiki practitioners and yogis) as she does, but it wasn’t until she found other spiritual vegans that she felt like she truly belonged.

“Finding people who share my beliefs, I think, is really important. It’s wonderful to be able to get together with people and create rituals, in the same way that all cultures have rituals, and connect with other beings,” she says.

Rituals, as Herman mentions, are central to developing the community. Indeed, for Will Tuttle, musician and author of World Peace Diet, the opportunity to gather with others who share his beliefs is a chance to grow. He explores veganism and spirituality on a metaphysical level, delving both into the practicalities of diet and the philosophy. Tuttle believes his spiritual journey has led him to a place of compassion – a compassion he sees manifesting in veganism. Focusing on the interconnectedness of all life, Tuttle engages in many forms of community-building and outreach with his work. Along with practicing meditation and being a part of meditation retreats, he is a renowned speaker on the topic of compassion for animals, as well as an accomplished musician. Tuttle says his original piano concerts are spirituality-based and designed to help people see music as a spiritual consciousness.

“I see it as an opportunity to inspire people. We come to this planet and we are each other’s teachers,” Tuttle says, “[Events are] an opportunity to explore together with the other participants the deeper reasons (why we practice veganism), to go as far as we can with understanding the interconnectedness of all life.”

Similarly, activist and founder of Plant Peace Daily Rae Sikora tries to seize any opportunity to foster community.

“Sometimes, I just want to be with a bunch of other people who are on the same page. It feeds me to get together with chosen family for the best family reunion you can imagine!” she says.

“Vegan spirituality is very inclusive,” says Levinson, “For some of us, vegan spirituality is our main spiritual practice, while for others it augments our religious practices.”

Derek Goodwin, a yoga teacher from Massachusetts, maintains that, “The value of a spiritual community is to find a common ground, and to be open to others’ beliefs. If we can maintain the openness to others’ beliefs, as long as compassion and non-violence are at the core, then there is great value. If we try to become an organized religion that becomes dogmatic, then the value is lost,.”

Judy Carmen, a Kansas-based activist and author of Peace to All Beings, adds, “We need the community to keep us centered and at peace so that when we are confronted with the cruelty to animals, we don’t look away. To me, that’s the most important part of the spirituality movement— to give people encouragement and faith that we are on the right track.”

Vegan Spirituality is an organization that merges ethics and spirituality by offering public forums to discuss themes, create rituals, and build community centered on compassion for all living beings. The 2013 annual Vegan Spirituality Retreat is bicoastal, with one in California 6/1 and one in Pennsylvania 7/20.

❋ If you liked this story you may want to read . . . ❋

~ Cher and Share Alike—Alicia Silverstone
~ Moby Has a New Ax to Grind
~ Protein in a Veg Diet
~ Eating Vegan to Save Our Planet