Max Haerri
World Director of the Essentialism School based on Sundary philosophy
Though vegetarianism is not the single key to human evolution, it nevertheless plays an important part. It purifies the blood, mellows people's ways, and assists the improvement of our mentalities, our evolution. So it is that relations between individuals and nations are made easier. Vegetarianism helps us replace brutal violence with the persuasive force of fraternal love. This love reaches out without imposing, in a spirit of helping and sharing. People and nations in this way will recognize and understand each other more easily. When we humans understand that we do not need to kill to eat, we will find healthy, energy-giving food in nature. Only nature can give us this. Encouraged by the positive results, we will concentrate our efforts on agriculture. Very soon this will replace the rearing and slaughter of animals, whose carcasses are cooked and seasoned to conceal their appearance, tastelessness and bad smell. Red or white meat, poultry or fish are in fact carcasses. Together with alcoholic drinks, meat ruins the health of people whilst increasing their animal instincts and aggressivity. A human being eating only meat cannot live for long. We humans will have made considerable progress down the road towards our true destiny when we realise the difference between the lamb eating plants and the wolf living on the flesh of other animals, dead or alive. We will then no longer behave like wolves towards our fellow human beings.
If people refuse to eat appropriately, circumstances will force them to do so and teach them wisdom - for example when meat is reserved for export only for economic reasons and by government order, leaving the citizens with variety they had forgotten. We saw this a few years ago in Argentina when the women, complaining they could no longer give their husbands steak every day, returned to fresh vegetables, salads, cereals and soya. When well prepared, this food can satisfy the heartiest of appetites as well as the the most refined of palates, whilst ensuring perfect health by gradually cleansing the body. Let us not forget that all the evil in human beings is to be found in the blood, and it is made up of not only what we eat and drink, but also what we think. Many sick people whose blood was clogged with animal toxins, along with their organic, physical and psychological waste, have been detoxified and healed by a vegetarian diet that has rejuvenated them considerably. Natural therapy practitioners have recorded numerous cases of such cures. Today we can say that cancer, the scourge of the modern world, will soon be in decline if people are honestly determined to purify themselves, if they adopt a healthy, well balanced vegetarian diet, if they change their mentality. This is real evolution, freely accepted. If cancer is treated correctly right from the start, the damaged cells will be rejuvenated and the others preserved, by eating raw vegetables together with soaked grains of wheat (not sprouted, because if the germ is alive the grain is dead and therefore rotten). Also, to continue the cleansing of the blood, people are advised to drink 1½ litres of still mineral water between meals with a few drops of lemon juice. This water has to be "chewed", like solid food, in order to mix it well with the saliva to predigest it in the mouth, so that it will not stay too long in the stomach. These little tricks might even stop the spread of AIDS, since the body develops a certain immunity against viruses and other external agents when it has built up its natural defences thanks to a healthy meatless diet - it's a good preventive method. 35 years ago, when Sundari told her friends in Argentina that one day, due to force of circumstance, there would be vegetarian restaurants in Buenos Aires, they laughed and said, "That's impossible! Argentinians are ardent carnivores, and our meat is the best in the world." These days actually there are many vegetarian restaurants in the city centre, serving delicious vegetarian food.
Vegetarianism is the future of mankind. It guarantees our health and reduces illness. Illness is a consequence of wrong diet, and nervous and mental tensions caused by selfishness, pride and ever-spreading materialism; whereas vegetarianism is the solution to the world's serious hunger problems. When Latin American countries - like Argentina - realise this, they will grow wheat, barley, millet and other cereals and soya in their vast territories not yet under cultivation. Soya provides exellent, nourishing vegetable "meat". These countries will then become benefactors of mankind, above all by feeding the world's undernourished. Their example will be followed out of fraternal emulation based on love for our neighbour, love that cannot bear the sight of people dying of hunger in a so-called civilized world. The earth is generous and helpful to us when we cultivate it for altruistic purposes, when we stop devastating it and forcing production just for personal material profit. Isn't it essential for us to be happy and in perfect health? We cannot be happy and healthy when we are sick because we are mistreating our bodies, when we cultivate faults that cause suffering to ourselves and our environment. This is why it's necessary to reform character at the same time as eating and drinking habits. Only in this way will people feel free and happy, and evolve in a current of love and life which will allow us to preserve the youthfulness and joyousness of life which old age has nothing to do with.
- translations by Hugh Rees, Milan - commissioned by Associazione Vegetariana Italiana (AVI)