Do You Have to Be Vegan to Be a Yogi? Ahimsa Explained with Byron and Michael

0:00 We're recording. Right. Absolutely. Okay. So, you know, we just listen to the podcast and of yoga is dead. Just a little bit and they basically go into the vegan topic and a hamsa. They, you need to know if you don't already remember that. It's one of them, the yamas and the yama's are kind of ethical way of living.

0:23 Let's call it that just to keep it simple and ahimsa translates to non-violence. The non-harming and what they're, what we're talking about for the, since we started off with that conversation, is that, is this about animals and is about eating meat, eating animals, specifically our products, welcome to the going pro yoga podcast.

0:48 Namaste. My name is Paul chiodo joined here with Michael Henry. Most yoga teacher, trainings are becoming watered-down and mediocre. So we've created this podcast to help supplement those of you who graduated from a teacher training and don't feel confident going out into the real world.

1:07 Michael, and I are lucky to have been trained by some amazing people. We've gone out into the world ourselves and had success and we want you to feel confident to Protect your students and to build your career with integrity and authenticity, Welcome to our podcast.

1:24 The title I think is vegan and yoga but this is really helpful because I the thing that comes up for me is I also fell into and not from teaching because I did the teacher training with you and Paulie. You guys never talked about that. I mean, you mentioned veganism but are actually not even know if it was mentioned because it was just like it wasn't a thing. It wasn't like you have to be vegan or, you know, wasn't really a conversation, right?

1:50 It was only after the fact that, you know, part of a training right now where the they're only serving vegan food. Right. In part in its it was and I was there for the opening Circle and it was very much like You know, this is a detox thing for you. So and maybe that's the another way of looking at it is that was a useful detox to not eat meat for a month while you're doing your training so that maybe you're more receptive and whatever whatever it's doing to

2:18 help your physical body. But part of me started to think, like, oh, is it related to a himsa legs? Is, are they doing that? Because they believe that yoga or yo, people who practice, yoga need to be vegan, I need to eat vegan in order to, you know, Reach somebody or whatever, you know what I mean to be able to cleanse their body of their of their sores or whatever. If we go with the word is that you'll get weird some Scara samskara.

2:42 That's right. So yeah, that's that, that was my perspective. I kind of like heard that and I was just like, because I didn't know any different. I didn't hadn't listened or talked about veganism and yoga. Before I started to think and deduct like, okay, that maybe, you know, there is that perspective that yoga supposed to be vegan. And then I started to feel bad when I started eating meat again, Mmm.

3:03 Right? Because I was vegan for like six or seven years. Right started off just having like one vegetarian meal. Then like all of a sudden, two, two vegetarian meals, turned into like two years of vegetarianism. Then all of a sudden I just enjoy being vegan for a long time but then more recently in the last like few months I just like I really like it when I have a nice piece of meat like it because it happened through I forget whatever example and I felt so good afterwards.

3:27 I didn't want a lot more of it, but if I felt like I was like this is something that needs to be in my life, at least. Little bit. Yeah, at least a little bit. So once every week is probably a lot, maybe two weeks. Definitely once a month, like if I'm past the month and I haven't had any meat then, I'm like, my body needs it.

3:43 Mmm. So it makes me feel better to, you know, talk about and listen to the little bit of the script that we just heard about the comparison of veganism and ahimsa. Yes, to feel like, okay cool, like it's okay if I eat meat, it doesn't mean I'm being a bad joke. You know what I mean?

4:00 I mean, we're recording, right? Absolutely. Italy. Okay, so, you know, we just listen to the podcast and of yoga is dead. Just a little bit and they basically go into the vegan topic and ahimsa. They you need to know if you don't already remember that. It's one of the the yamas and the yama's are kind of ethical way of living.

4:24 Let's call it that just to keep it simple and ahimsa translates to non-violence non-harming. And what they're what we're talking about for the, since we started off with that conversation, is that, is this about animals and is about eating meat, eating animals, specifically our products and so they're pointing out that. That's not the historical perspective. Their historical perspective has to do with non-harming in all aspects of life and not looking

4:57 at it from dietary or body image standards, right? I'll say it again, not looking at it from body image standards. So It's really, really an interesting topic for me, and I love the that we're in there. And so, Let's just go into it a little bit more thinking about just thinking about how non-harming can be. Let's just, let's just apply it to the diet for a second. Okay, so forget about how it makes you feel utility great story and like your consumption

5:32 of meat is making you feel a little bit better recently in the right amount and moderation. And I think that's probably true for many people and they can relate to that. Whereas there's a lot of people that won't relate to that.

5:45 That are like, no, I feel great on the vegan diet. I've been doing it for 12 years and I'm amazing at check, my blood levels. So, I mean, it all comes down to like we're all different. But what were mainly different on that? I want to speak about is our Our perception of reality, our perception of reality, and what animals are, and our purpose here, their purpose, and their relationship to human beings purpose.

6:12 So if you believe on a different level, now I'll talk about myself at him after I say this but just so you know where I come from. But yes, if you look at it from a recycling level of, Chain food chain and you, you subscribe to that belief system in life, meaning just karma in a way and you're going to be, you know, come back again.

6:40 And these animals are to then if it's done out of, no – intention, then it's part of life. So you would be doing non-violence and that way, you know, if you have that fundamental belief, right, but if you're, if I'm late, but fundamental belief is not that.

6:58 A and that they are sentient beings that have feelings and this is more important to you in this lifetime. Then you'll definitely subscribe to veganism. Write a little bit about myself, so I'm from Oklahoma. Oklahoma is a very cattle, heavy type of farming culture, agricultural place. You guys don't know about it.

7:20 How many? How many cows and animal? It was Kyle's, right? That I lived with. Yeah, so I was on a cattle, ranch had a weight. So we called the Thomas Ranch, this was a very house. That's what I want to go to hundreds of hundreds and hundreds of cows. I felt like it was thousands of cows but I was young right? A seven to eighteen.

7:36 Seven years old to 18 on this Ranch 3,000 Acres of cattle ranch. Well yeah and we had some other animals for fun, you know, we had our pigs occasionally, we even had Buffalo at one point when I was really young, but we specialize in Angus, beef, and Texas, Longhorns like the long-horned bulls. And we Fatten them up, sold them off. I was born into this.

8:02 Okay, a lot of people don't know this about me because unless they really know me because I'm a yoga teacher and I've been teaching for a long time and I've opened my mind to many different ways of living and perspectives.

8:13 And I've been a vegan and I've been a lot of carnivores but somebody who eats meat three times a day and has unlimited beef in the freezer by involve. No choice at all. Just, this is the way it was and then I, I also had this this part of myself that never wanted to harm an animal, like I had issues with it as a child and and I didn't want to go hunting and our land was great for hunting deer.

8:41 People would come under our land and like, pay it pay money to go hunt on our land. And I just literally till this day and never hunted. Once in my life, I would shoot guns. I'd like targets but I would never shoot it at animal for some reason, right?

8:54 So that part of me really came up in my early 20s, And when I started teaching yoga and like really, what is My Philosophy here? What's my belief? And yeah, I went through the vegan period. Not too long more vegetarian and vegan, but conscious of that aspect and I do like the things that does to my body, think I'd done too much, over the years of eating meat and whatever animal products. So now I definitely moderately choose to eat those things and I'm like, you like you that it I

9:26 think that's the way for me. And what do I subscribe to? I don't really want to necessarily say anything to like put my but that's a constant study, it's a constant study and I do think that we're all made up of the same stuff, whether it's broccoli and some ways, right?

9:45 I mean it may not have the sentient feelings or does it, I think? I don't know. I don't know. You are the broccoli, right? I am a my, the broccoli is that my cousin You see where I'm getting? Kind of spinning it in that way.

10:00 Absolutely, yeah. And I do find that my perspective is unique. My experience is unique in the world that I'm in. There's very few people that can relate to me. So, I like to try to honestly candidly enter those conversations, not just kind of pointing out like, hey, guess what?

10:21 I was raised on a cattle, ranch right in the middle of a vegan argument, right? And just to see, like before I even introduced any content, Have a strong opinion or like I'm not attached to my opinion at all right. But these conversations happen in the 200 our trainings in the the yamas and niyamas is just that's why they did a podcast over it, right. It happens every training and in our training we make it clear that this is your choice.

10:49 And just because you eat animals does not mean that you're not practicing. I'll have some around violence. And if you are a vegan great, you're practicing ahem. So for sure. But are you doing that in your own personal life too? Mmm.

11:04 And if not, you're not practicing it. So, right. Mic drop, you know? Yeah, it's given me a lot to think about when you're talking about. Non-harming an animal, you know, living on a cattle ranch I started with my brain, started to go to you know vegetarianism where you and the animals are working together type of thing and you know the cows and the chickens and stuff like that provide you with something that can nourish your body and you're not necessarily doing any harm

11:37 to those other living beings. Obviously, we can go to the Deep level of like, you know, plants and stuff are living beings that were hurting, you know but not to go to that. But thinking of like the argument of carnivores versus vegans like what were we like, however long ago we existed millions of years, I don't even know how old human like whatever we are almost rectus developed. Was it plants first or was it animals? The point is, is like there was

12:05 probably a mixture of both and we are The Offspring of whatever the hell that is. So to have a mixture to have a variety of people who are going to eat and want different things because of that All lineage of God knows how many years ago if your ancestors really ate a lot of vegan type foods or just a lot of plants and survived off that as a civilization, then your body probably genetically in like deep at its core can live off of that or if you came into the world and you you know

12:33 at the right at the time where or not you came in the world but basically your ancestral passes as something to do with meat or there was some sort of mixture there. Some eventually someone was starving, they needed to survive and then in order to certify they needed to kill that animal.

12:45 They killed that animal. They started to eat meat and then all of a sudden that became a bit of a culture that developed over time and then now you have a mixture of these quote-unquote. You know, million-year-old Homo erectus carnivores and million-year-old come Homo erectus vegans, or people who plants and eventually they got together and they are, you know, they created Offspring.

13:03 And now all of a sudden we have this like mixture of people who just prefer different foods for different reasons and no one really understands why and it does better things to their body than others. This is why some people like veganism is great for me and I feel awesome.

13:15 Need anything else. Mmm you know and then some people are like I can't even go, you know. Yeah. It's very long for sometimes or chemistry reasons like you know your body can't process the the the iron from the vegan foods as much for the vegetables plant-based. So it's like, if you don't eat meat, you pretty much eventually die.

13:35 Hey, and how did that develop from an organic perspective over? I mean, I know this is like super biological, but I'd like if you think of it in context, simply it's like to communities that 8, completely different Lee and eventually they got together and we are the ancestors of all of these people. It's like, yeah, there's no reason what. There's that's the reason why everyone needs differently and prefers different things.

13:54 Could be, could be, I mean, you know, a lot of the the philosophy on why we are meant to eat plants. Only is our, are they talk about our teeth and our in our B, in the this shape of our teeth. So I don't have any debunking evidence. I mean, I will say I've got a couple of sharp teeth, right? They're your by custom.

14:16 Your what are these? Ones are the vampire teeth. The sizers sizers. No sizes. The from the front one side anyway. We're not dentists. Yeah. Point is I think our teeth or the I remember this argument being like our teeth can kind of do both.

14:29 Like we have the molars in the back to be able to like mashed vegetables. And then we have the entire season the front to be able to like bite off and then we have the bicuspids. I think they're called the like vampire ones to be able to like rip and tear or two like, you know, open things with your team or open to you.

14:44 Yeah, yeah. Like to do. But I've done that many times, right? So it makes me think about that. And then, so two things come up. One is like, have we developed in our bones and our teeth have evolved over time to be able to have this B.

14:58 And this B is being defined by, okay? Yeah, we can eat both of them. So, therefore we should be able to eat both of them. Or you could argue like, know I my teeth are all flat and there are. And so now there's no incisors, there's none of this like meat-eating teeth. So it's like I'm, you know, it's not for me type of things. Right?

15:16 Well, I mean here, we have blenders to some, you can just blend up the plants, don't need teeth at all. So what are these teeth for? I mean, even that conversation goes into rights objection, right? I want to bring it back to something to me.

15:28 Be clear about kind of an ethical part of this shirt, which is the overproduction of cattle, or any type of animal rights stock. And in that case, the over production of wheat, or anything else to write. So I'm not going to leave that out, but I think it's more At least in the fabric of the conversation, about the cows right now. And I was, I was witnessed that, and I will say, like, as much as I turn my wheels and contemplate, that it doesn't seem right, doesn't feel right?

16:01 You know, it's doesn't doesn't nothing checks out for me. When I look at, let's go not into massive abundance of overabundance of, Let's Just Produce them to give them a miserable life, right? And fatten them up with whatever. Hormones and antibiotics.

16:17 We can so that they weigh more. This is why we do this, by the way. It's we, you know, before they die or we're giving them things like the steroids and I can't say we did that because I don't know if we did that. I was too young but I would only guess that we did because I think it was common practice, right?

16:33 This is my assumption, but the there, the heavier they are, the more they way the more they cost to buy so you can sell them for more. And that's a pretty typical hey when you're teaching your kids, God Bless America or wherever you're you know Western culture you're from and then money is the way and that production and you know your neighbor like you need to do you know, outdo them then this is a natural byproduct product of that, right? It's not just some evil person

17:06 that decided to do that. This is a long Brewing thing that just started to happen from as a result of it, right? So Going to be a long Brewing thing to reverse it hopefully conversations like this will help to do that. And I don't know the ultimate end game here at all, I just know. Which way are we going momentum wise and do we need to reverse that moment?

17:32 The society has a great race of, it's like a balancing act choices. There's no set point. It's always fluctuating, right? So, I can we bring in and then right now it feels like we need to tone it down right. You know, maybe We need to do that for another 20 years, I don't know, right? Before we fuck up the planet to the point where he can't even control anything anymore.

17:52 Yeah, yeah. I feel I feel for the next Generations. I do. I know it's like I'm sure there's going to be some people to figure it out, like I see a lot of inventions and cool things now it's a help improve the world. Even saw like this super creepy video of the first ever like not first ever, but it was like the most life.

18:14 Like robot that I've seen video of what you're talking about. Yeah. And I saw that that was just like, holy crap. This is like iRobot or like one of those movies but like obviously not as advanced, like, the robot wasn't moving to that extreme but like, its intelligence is be able to process data and machine.

18:31 Learn it kind of freaked me out, but anyway, that's a little off-topic. But that's, that's, I mean, that's, it's yeah, it is off topic. Interesting. One to go right to nerd out on, right? I could do that. And I mean, I will do that when I think about these robots, like, you're talking about, like, it's kind of beautiful in a way. I think it could end up being something pretty cool. Yeah, it's scary, I think so mostly because we think about how it's going to affect what we

19:00 know as a kind of economy and taking jobs away from people and machines. But I think what's scary the most is that they're starting to look like us. Yeah it's like if you just would make Look different like, we'd be all right with it. Make it like a little like Star Wars like, you know, whatever. That little robot is be 220.

19:22 I do remembers that. Well, why can't I, why can't it be like the, the Jarvis of Marvel or the Nighthawk of the, the car where it's like, it's not an actual thing. It's just the processor. So you could literally extend, like, Alexa or like what's the other Siri Siri, it's like, it's just a voice. It's just like a presence that can machine learn audio and like why do you got to make it look?

19:43 Yeah. Why do you? Got to make it look like a human that can like 10 or meant our dreams from all the movies. And yeah, just made it, make it a box, exactly. But yeah, I think it could be a good thing to be to be continued as long as you don't as long as we don't. You know fuck with the natural process. I think too much and IT Tech is Technologies natural. It's a natural byproduct of intelligence. We have intelligence is human species. So we're gonna figure things

20:14 out. It's what we do. Yeah, we'll figure it out and so we're figuring stuff out. Now when we, if we start to, if there starts to be able to way to crack the code more genetically and start to play engineer that stuff and I know it's already seemingly happening. In the world.

20:29 I'm just this is not out there that much for unless you're like going down the black hole's, right? Really. Yeah it comes into ethical non-harming again. Quite a conversation. How we went back to the non-violence? Yeah, I wasn't sure how it was going to circle back, but when you wrap that up there, I was like, oh shit, that's okay.

20:52 Just for a minute, I was like, Hey we're talking about veganism yoga. Then we went to robot. It's an interesting episode but you know what I'd listen to it. Hey yeah. I mean these are my favorite wrath. I mean sometimes you need a surprise we call those. What do you call those and shows and movies. Twist turn, turn, twist in the plot twist. Out to us.

21:13 Yeah so he gave you a plot twist and I thought you were going to say intermission, right? And then stop the knowing the intermission is going to basically be now because we're finished with this episode and thanks so much for listening.

21:24 The intermission is seeing you next week, bye. It's been fun.