In this episode, Supreme Master Ching Hai answers audience questions about vegan diets and global warming. Then, the next panel discussion on the sacredness of all life is introduced.
(We have another question here from fellow Canadian, Florence Etiene.) Welcome.
(Hallo, Master. I’m Florence Etiene. I’m a linguist and I’m so pleased to be here. And I want to thank You so much for teaching us the one main language – the language of Love.) Yes. (My question is for You. What percentage of the American people would be necessary to make a major change in climate change and in world hunger?)
Master: Good, good question, madame. Good question. I’m sure you must have been very concerned in order to think of this question. In all my calculation and insight and humble opinion, in the USA, if we want to make a truly real contribution to halt global warming, then 70% of the population of Americans should be vegan. I hope they will be. The trend is growing, madame. The trend is growing. I hope we will reach 70% pretty soon. And the more people join vegan, the more time we gain to be able to deal with the global warming. And also, vegan will stop world hunger as well, you know that.
MC：Jane Velez-Mitchell: Supreme Master, I think that that wraps up our questions for this panel. Thank You so much, Supreme Master Ching Hai, for Your wisdom. Thank you so much, our amazing panel, for their wisdom.
We have another extraordinary panel for you on spirituality – why all life is sacred.
Master: Thank you, Jane. Thank you. It’s not just wisdom, Jane. It’s the information. Information that is available nowadays on the internet.
MC：Jane Velez-Mitchell: I’m an investigative journalist and proud vegan, Jane Velez-Mitchell, and we are talking about how to save the world. People from all around the world are watching this broadcast, not just on the internet, but on satellite television, more than 14 satellites downloading this around the globe. So, you in the audience and you at home, we are changing the world today. We have had amazing discussions so far and it continues. Now we have a panel about spirituality and diet. And those two things are very, very linked. If you’re talking about spirituality, but you’re eating fast food and you’re eating burgers, something is wrong. We’re going to talk about why all life is sacred and of course we are as always delighted to have with us Supreme Master Ching Hai, the Woman who is bringing all of this together today, the Woman who is responsible for this message being spread around the world. Thank You once again, Supreme Master. (Thank you, love. Thank you, my love.)
We also have an amazing panel. And I’m very, very delighted to be able to meet in person Lionel Friedberg, who is the Emmy Award-winning producer and director of “A Sacred Duty,” which is an amazing documentary about the horrors of animal agriculture. And really, “horror” is the word. If any of you have ever seen this documentary, it really exposes the toxic secrets and the underbelly of this industry.
Also delighted to have somebody who I am a big admirer of, Dr. Elliott Katz, who is the president of “In Defense of Animals,” an organization that does so much for animals and really spreads the word about a host of problems involving the animal community – whether it’s factory farming, testing on animals – across the board. And finally, once again, we have Dr. Will Tuttle who is the best-selling author of the amazing book, “The World Peace Diet: Eating for Spiritual Health and Social Harmony.” And as I mentioned, Supreme Master Ching Hai is joining us on an international web and satellite hook-up. And we are very much delighted to have Supreme Master participating in this panel discussion.
(Thank you, Jane. Lionel, in your opinion, what is the role of religious organizations and their part in overcoming today’s dire crisis?)
Lionel: Well, clearly there are many facets and aspects to this whole business of global warming and climate change.
And one of the most overlooked, I think, certainly in the media and in the mainstream media we’re talking about here, is the matter of ethics and morals, asking yourself the question, “Is there anything morally wrong with what we’re doing to our world, to our planet, to the species with whom we share it?” It really comes down to that. And the fact is that, when you go beyond the political arguments and the scientific questions and the engineering aspects, and so on and so forth, you really have to get into the profound moral side of global warming if we’re going to touch the hearts of people and make people ponder on this on the deepest level. Ethics are what drive so much of what we do, and our moral fiber is what lies at the heart of so much of our decision making.
If we don’t exercise the right decisions in that aspect, what’s going to happen? We might get more gas mileage out of an engine, but if we let the polar bears go extinct, what’s the point of that? I think we have failed in our mission. And what we’ll be left with is a morally bereft and depleted world. And I don’t think any of us really want that. So, religion, I think, plays a very large role in addressing these issues. I made a film called “A Sacred Duty” which was produced for an organization called Jewish Vegetarians of North America – they underwrote the film – JVNA for short. And it dealt with all the aspects that we’ve been discussing here today: from the agricultural side, from the scientific side, from global warming, carbon dioxide, you name it, everything. But at the end of the movie, we addressed, in no uncertain terms, that really what it comes down to is, “What are we doing to those beings with whom we share this world with?”
And we’re treating them pretty awfully. And it pulled no punches in showing that. And it turned a lot of people away from the film because they didn’t want to know about this. They didn’t want to deal with that sequence. And so I had to put a menu up front at the beginning of the DVD to allow people to jump over that segment if they wanted to. I didn’t want to do that, but I was made to do that. Because people say, “Oh, well, I can’t show this to kids. I can’t show this to my mom-in-law,” and whatever else. But we have to start thinking about it on that level. We had hoped that with this movie, which was made by a Jewish organization, but it addresses universal issues. It doesn’t specifically address Jewish questions. It was made by a Jewish organization, but it looks at what does the Bible have to say, what do the great books of the Bible have to say, the five books of Moses. It incorporated texts and quotations from that in order to touch people. Because a lot of people go to synagogues and temples and churches and mosques and whatever else, and this resonates with them.
And so, the film had this religious theme running through it, in the hope that we would reach a very large audience, not only in the Bible belt, but everywhere. And what we had hoped was that established religion – be it Christianity or Islam or Buddhism or Judaism or Rosicrucianism or whatever – would eventually get together and come to a common platform and start addressing the issues of climate change, of global warming, and of our relationship to ourselves because of the health issues involved, and to the animals that we are abusing so horrifically in labs, on factory farms and slaughterhouses. I don’t have to go into details; you all know what goes on.
But we didn’t reach enough people in the religious community. The religious community has unfortunately been very reticent to get together and to address these issues on a common platform. And I still to this day am wondering what that may all be about, why there is such apathy. I do think that in about a hundred years, or maybe less from now, we’ll be able to look back on this era and wonder how we allowed the Amazon rainforest to go up in smoke; how we allowed the great apes of Africa and Asia to become extinct. How did we allow the coral reefs to disappear? Didn’t we know what was going on? Didn’t those who occupy the platforms, the religious platform, realize what was going on and speak out loudly about it? I shudder to think about what our grandchildren will say to us one day when they say to us, “Well, didn’t you know?”
But of course, we do know. And I think this is a fundamental issue that should be addressed by the religious community. They are not at this point taking up the cudgels and looking at these issues. And I think we need to break through that barrier. We all know what goes on today. If you look recently at the meat recall here in Chino, in California, where 143 million pounds of meat was called back from the school system and supermarkets purely because downed cows, these are cows that are too lame or ill to walk in slaughterhouses, were being brutalized and therefore their meat was regarded as “contaminated,” and all this meat was pulled back.
So, it’s not that we don’t know what’s going on anymore. We do. And I fail to see why we have not been able to break through this barrier of apathy. And this is a question I would like to ask Supreme Master later on. Maybe She has some insight into that. It’s not that we’re dumb or we’re not informed. We’ve been to the Moon and back, and we’ve got little robotic explorers out there at the edge of the solar system.
So we have the intelligence to make these moral choices and question these issues, and we’re not doing it. So, with all due respect on behalf of my co-producer of this film, Richard Schwartz, who is the president of Jewish Vegetarians of North America, I would like to use this platform today and issue a challenge to the religious community worldwide, through the platform of Supreme Master Television, to come together and to start thinking about these issues and to become a little more vociferous about them, a little more vocal. Bring it into the mainstream of religious thinking.
Because if we’re going to curb global warming and stop some of the horrors that are going on and making ourselves sick, we really need to bring it to the place where a lot of people go and that is the pulpit. And so, with all due respect, I issue that challenge today. And I’d like to end with a question then to Supreme Master and that is: Is there any way that we can break through this apathy that is preventing people from taking up this issue and converting to a vegetarian (vegan) diet? When the facts are clear as a bell? We all have access to it now.
Master: Yes, hallo, Mr. Friedberg, thanks for the honor. I thank you first of all for being so concerned, and you are right. I think the religious people and leaders should speak up about this subject, should be taking more of the leading position to help the public understand the great problem that we’re facing and the solution to curb the global warming. But it’s not going to be that easy overnight. But I think right now, maybe we can just offer them, the public, the vegan diet.
Even if the religious leaders don’t help us to give a hand in this, we can go all out and spread the news, through the internet, through flyers, through media, through television, and through word of mouth. We can offer them all the information that is very up to date now about the climate change and the solution. And right now, the only solution – the best, the fastest and the most effective – is the vegan diet. That is the major solution to global warming, as per scientific evidence even. I’m not even talking about the moral obligations and the karmic retribution from an animal-people meat diet. But if we give enough information to the public at large, and if they care enough to forgo animal-people meat to save the world, then their hearts will have been enlarged enough to be more compassionate toward other species. And then they will understand gradually, naturally also, due to their kind living standard, that to love others is to love themselves. It will be more automatic mental attitude after the majority, or the whole planet’s population turns to vegan diet. Now, once we have saved the world, we will have more time to help them to understand at a deeper level about compassion toward animal-people. Thank you, sir. (Thank You.) (Thank You, Supreme Master Ching Hai and Mr. Friedberg, for sharing with us.)
Photo Caption: “Forever Friendship with the DIVINE Brings Safety, Happiness, and TRUE LIFE.”
