Excerpt from Vegan Minded: Becoming a Steward for Animals, People, and the Planet.

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Lokāḥ Samastāḥ Sukhino Bhavantu

May all beings everywhere be happy and free, and may the thoughts, words, and actions of my own life contribute in some way to that happiness and to that freedom for all.

{Sanskrit mantra}

Sweat dripped from my forehead to the “sticky” mat, which didn’t feel very sticky to me. My hands slid on the mat as I struggled to “rest” in downward-facing dog pose. This cannot be a resting pose, I thought. I absolutely cannot believe anyone could rest in downward-facing dog. How much longer do I have to hold this pose? My arms are going to fall off. I cannot hold it any longer. Oh my god, how many more breaths until I can rest? Child’s pose? What’s that? Aww, now this feels like rest. These were the thoughts running through my mind in my first yoga class. It was 1996, and this was the most physically challenging exercise class I had ever taken. I was living in Chicago, and the gym down the street, where I worked out, offered one yoga class a week: power yoga. I wouldn’t recommend anyone take power yoga as their first class, but that class hooked me. Every Sunday afternoon you could find me walking to yoga class with my (slippery) yoga mat in hand until the teacher moved to India. Yoga called to me for ten years before I answered the call, and ever since that first class, I have had a love affair with the practice. It’s the only form of physical exercise I seek out besides walking, but yoga is more than exercise to me. It’s a way of life, just like being vegan. The word, yoga, means “to yolk” or to bring together, to unite. The practice of yoga offers the opportunity to become whole: uniting the mind, body, and spirit, so that we may be present in life; at least this is my interpretation. I connected with the rich philosophy at once. It just made sense to me. Yoga aligned with my heart. Practicing yoga changed me. After I practiced, I felt less stressed and more peaceful. Blissed-out, you might say. Over time, I became more comfortable in my own skin. I can’t help but think that the practice led me to becoming vegan.

Whenever I practice yoga āsana (the physical poses), I feel calmer. I am moving and breathing. I am connecting with my breath. This awareness shifts my focus to myself, my inner world, where I then notice what’s going on in my mind and body. The breath syncs the mind, body, and spirit in a way that makes me feel whole, and it gives me access to internal wisdom and guidance. When I feel whole, I’m more myself and can make better decisions, like becoming vegan. I made that decision because I had become more confident in who I am. With yoga, I began to know myself better and became willing to follow what was true for me, listening to my intuition. Yoga provided a foundation that I had been missing, and it inspired courage and confidence.

I had been going to yoga classes for a number of years and sometimes practicing at home. Wherever I practiced, I always felt at home on my yoga mat. (Thankfully, mat technology improved, and rubber mats became widely available. No more slippin’ and slidin’ in down dog.) But yoga āsana alone felt inadequate. I wanted to study the philosophy of yoga, the bigger picture. I needed to understand the other aspects of yoga beyond the physical practice of āsana, so I registered for a teacher training with no intention of ever teaching. Almost every Sunday for the next year, I studied yoga with about a dozen other students. I looked forward to spending five hours focused on yoga, where we studied different styles and lineages, practiced āsana and meditation, and discussed yoga philosophy. At the end of the training, each student was tasked with teaching a class and presenting a creative project.

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There are eight limbs of yoga in the Yoga Sūtra, an ancient scripture over one thousand years old, written by Patañjali. The first limb includes the yamas, or moral restraints. There are five yamas(1) for relating to the outer world:

• Ahiṃsā: nonviolence in actions, words, and thoughts
• Satya: truthfulness (not lying)
• Asteya: not stealing
• Brahmacharya: chastity or marital fidelity, sexual restraint, or devotion
• Aparigraha: nongrasping, nongreedy, nonattachment

The yamas refer to practices outside ourselves: how we treat others. The first yama is ahiṃsā, which means non-harming in actions, words, and thoughts. We consider all living things—from an ant to a cow to an eagle to a human to the biosphere—and “especially those who are innocent, in difficulty, or worse off than we are,” as stated in The Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice by T.K.V. Deskichar. By treating others with kindness, we might begin to see others as ourselves. Patañjali asked us to start with ahiṃsā, to practice being kind to others, and he didn’t distinguish “others” as only humans. Asteya, the third yama, means not to take something that is not yours, like milk from a cow because the milk is intended for the calves. From this, I discerned that eating a vegan diet was essential to my yoga practice.

The niyamas(2), the second limb of yoga, include principles that refer to personal behavior. They are:

• Śaucha: purity; clearness of mind, speech, and body
• Santoṣha: contentment, acceptance of others and of one's circumstances as they are, optimism for self
• Tapas: austerity, self-discipline, persistent meditation, perseverance
• Svādhyayā: study of self; self-reflection; introspection of self's thoughts, speeches, and actions
• Īśhvara Praṇidhānā: contemplation or devotion to god (higher power); surrender

While there are some vegan yoga teachers, most are not. A recent research study titled Yoga Teachers on Consuming Animals showed that,

In the first phase, an online questionnaire found that over two thirds of UK yoga teachers believed a plant-based diet was most aligned with their yoga practice due to the teaching of ahiṃsā, or non-harm. Nevertheless, over 70% were not following a plant-based diet. Interviews revealed this dissonance was related to views about the necessity of consuming animal products for health, especially when pregnant, breastfeeding, or nourishing growing children. The communal nature of eating also meant that family moderated dietary ideals. Interviews further revealed an alternative conception of ahiṃsā, permitting the consumption of animals in order to prioritize personal non-harm.(3)

I’m not surprised by the results of the study. This has been my experience in the US as well, that most yoga teachers point to self-care as to why they can’t be vegan. Many teachers will claim that ahiṃsā starts with how they treat themselves, but this is not my understanding of the yamas. Sharon Gannon writes in Yoga & Veganism that “If Patañjali had been recommending ahiṃsā as a way of treating oneself, he would have included it in his list of niyamas, the observances one should maintain in a regard to oneself...None of these niyamas conflicts with ethical veganism, while the yamas all support it. Not harming yourself is a result of ahiṃsā, but if you limit your practice of ahiṃsā to being kind to yourself, you will deny yourself the ultimate benefit of yoga practice, which is enlightenment.” While there is nothing wrong with good self-care (in fact, it’s important), it is not ahiṃsā, and eating meat, eggs, and dairy might actually be harmful to the body.

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I knew immediately I wanted to center my creative project for the teacher training around the concept of ahiṃsā, the act of being kind, and its relationship to the food on our plates. I had been vegan a few years by then, and I was the only vegan in this teacher training cohort. There was one vegetarian. As far as I knew, everyone else in the group ate animals. I decided I would gather some vegetarian starter kits(4) from a few animal protection organizations like PETA, Mercy for Animals, The Vegetarian Resource Group, Vegan Outreach, and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. I chose these organizations in hopes that some of the material would appeal to my fellow students. I wrote up my story of becoming vegan and a short argument for a vegan diet, describing how food is produced and the harm and violence (hiṃsā) involved. I bought bright-colored folders for holding the various pamphlets and magazines and included some fun stickers from PETA, like one with a cute chicken on it that said, “I am not a nugget!” I also threw in old issues of VegNews magazine. Of course, I included a few of my favorite vegan recipes too. Perhaps I will be able to influence others to consider a kinder diet, I hoped. As my day to present approached, I grew excited and a bit nervous. I wondered what everyone would think. Some of the photos in the vegetarian starter kits were brutal—much like the images stamped in my memory from the PETA newsletter I received in 1985. There were photos of downed cows and chickens crammed into small crates, among many other disturbing images. It was then 2008 and animals were still being treated the same. Not much had changed.

On the day I was to present, I boxed up the folders and some of my favorite vegan books for show and tell. I usually choose to go first when speaking publicly. I like to get it over with, but a fellow student raised her hand first and presented her project before me. This gave me time to doubt my intentions for this project. When it was my turn, I passed out the folders and could barely speak, holding back tears. I hadn’t ever been this scared to speak in public. With a shaky voice, I managed to explain my project and the material included in their folders. I read my story to them. Thinking back to that moment, I can still feel the fear of asking others to change, to expand their awareness of how farmed animals are treated, and to ultimately make different food choices—although I didn’t say any of that out loud. After class when we were gathering up all our things, rolling up our mats, stowing props, and putting on our coats and shoes, several students came up to me and thanked me for the information. They didn’t know that cows, chickens, pigs, fish, and other animals we call food were treated so horribly. By the time I got to my car, I felt relief that it was over and joy for speaking up, even if it was hard. My teacher loved the project. She said it was important. From there, I started teaching a sustainable living workshop at her yoga teacher trainings. I went on to teach this workshop several times a year until I moved to the West Coast. Those were some of my favorite yoga experiences, and most of the people were kind, curious, and grateful for the knowledge. And yet, one of my teachers sat in on the workshop one day as I spoke about vegan food, and she said, “Christine, you are radical.” Is it not more radical that billions of animals are raised for food in cruel conditions and suffer until their last breath? I do not consider myself radical, but I knew it was asking a lot of folks to change. I also know people change in their own time and their own way, and without the knowledge, they likely never will.

Years later, while studying the Yoga Sūtra, I recognized the stages of change model (from chapter 2). In “Sūtra I.2,” as translated by T.K.V. Desikachar in Reflections on Yoga Sūtra’s of Patañjali, Desikachar writes, “Yoga is the ability to direct the mind exclusively towards an object and sustain focus in that direction without any distraction.” He goes on to say that the object could be anything, including an area of interest like veganism. In “Sūtra I.46,” he talks about the need for “...preparation, gradual progression, and sustained interest. For, without this interest, there will be distraction. Without preparation, there can be no foundation. And without gradual progression, the human system may react and rebel.”(5) My journey to veganism feels similar—from contemplation to preparation to action to maintenance. Perhaps J.O. Prochaska and Carlo C. DiClemente, who developed the stages of change model, also studied the Yoga Sūtra.

In The Heart of Yoga, Desikachar writes about the concepts of sthira and sukha as they relate to āsana. These are Sanskrit words. Sthira means steadiness and alertness. Sukha is the ability to remain comfortable in a pose. He goes on to say that both need to be present in equal amounts when practicing a pose.(6) For example, my efforts in downward-facing dog during that first class were neither steady nor comfortable. In fact, I felt like I might crumble as we held the pose longer and longer. These concepts are also available to all of us beyond practicing āsana. If we think about them in terms of change and moving to a vegan lifestyle, we learn that moving forward in a way that is both steady and easeful would be best. Unlike the “cold tofu” approach, a more sustainable way might be step-by-step, like starting with Meatless Monday or eating vegan one day a week or even cutting out land animals first, which is exactly what I did. By practicing yoga, I learned over time what I needed, and eventually I transitioned to a vegan lifestyle. It will be different for everyone, and regardless of the method, what matters most is adopting a positive attitude toward the change you seek.

Desikachar translates "Sūtra II.31” as “When the adoption of the attitudes [yamas (ahiṃsā), for example] to our environment is beyond compromise, regardless of our social, cultural, intellectual, or individual station, it approaches irreversibility.” He further explains this sūtra, “We cannot begin with such attitudes. If we adopt them abruptly, we cannot sustain them. We can always find excuses for not maintaining them. But, if we seek to identify the reasons why we hold contrary views and isolate the obstacles that permit such views, our attitudes will gradually change. The obstacles will give way and our behavior towards others and our environment will change for the better [bold added].”(7)

Practicing yoga gave me the ability to examine my desire to be vegan and my determination to be like everyone else. I knew I couldn’t be both. Over nineteen years, I gradually changed, and my contrary desires dissolved. My confidence and courage grew enough so that I could be vegan in a culture created for meat eaters. Paired with the Yoga Sūtra, the stages of change model set a solid foundation for under-standing how and why we change—and even why we don’t. Just like yoga, veganism is a daily practice—day in, day out—until one day we find ourselves “beyond compromise.”

1 Adele, Deborah. The Yamas & Niyamas: Exploring Yoga’s Ethical Practice. Duluth, On-Word Bound Books, LLC, 2009.

2 Adele. The Yamas & Niyamas: Exploring Yoga’s Ethical Practice.

3 Mace, Jenny L, and McCulloch, Steven P. “Yoga, Ahiṃsā and Consuming Animals: UK Yoga Teachers’ Beliefs about Farmed Animals and Attitudes to Plant-Based Diets.” Animals: An Open Access Journal from MDPI, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 13 Mar. 2020, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7143618/.

4 Now most are referred to as vegan starter kits. Progress.

5 Desikachar, T K V. Reflections on Yoga Sūtra of Patañjali, 2006, pp. 18-19, 41.

6 Desikachar, T K V. “Chapter 3.” The Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice, Inner Traditions International, Rochester, VT, 1995, pp. 17–18.

7 Desikachar, T K V. Reflections on Yoga Sūtra of Patañjali, 2006, pp. 63.