Compassion is the key to a successful relationship because by means of compassion we can access the innermost needs of the other. When we are aware of those needs, we can begin to communicate and not just profess what we think we know and demand that others change because we want them to.

Arctic-dwelling Eskimos have no choice but to eat large amounts of meat and animal fat. But let's get our facts straight: according to the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Eskimos also have the highest incidences of heart disease and osteoporosis in the world and, in general, short life spans. Perhaps that is something to consider when we are faced with the choice of what to eat for dinner and unlike Eskimos most of us do have choices.

Enlightenment is the realization of the oneness of being, where otherness disappears.

If yogis are to come to the realization of the interconnectedness of life, then we must free ourselves from the conditioning that has caused us to think it is all right to exclude all the other animals from our own goals of peace, freedom, and happiness.

We have been conditioned, taught, and coerced by the agents of our culture (parents, grandparents, advertisers, food critic, etc.) to eat the flesh and drink the milk of other animals. Because of this conditioning, which has occurred over a long period of time (thousands of years), we have developed addictive eating habits and blinded ourselves to the facts of our biological system and its true needs.

There are many activities that human beings have been doing "forever." We might argue from that perspective that eating meat should be allowed to continue. Men have been raping women for thousands of years; does that mean that it is normal and should be allowed to continue?

The raising of animals for food and all that it entails is the single most destructive force impacting our planet's fragile ecosystems. Our planet simply cannot sustain the greed of billions of human beings who are eating other animals.