Sharon Gannon quotes:

The way you treat others determines the way others treat you; the way others treat you determines the way you see yourself; the way you see yourself determines who you are.

Through the deeply theraputic practice of asana, we begin to purify our karmas, thereby healing our past relationships with others and reestablishing a steady and joyful connection with the Earth, which means all beings.

Be a communicator, not a self-righteous proselytizer or preacher. Many people are only concerned with expressing themselves, which isn't necessarily communication.

Choosing to be kind rather than to be cruel benefits everyone.

Each asana is like a sound or letter in an alphabet. Every letter in an alphabet produces a unique sound vibration. Each asana vibrates at a specific frequency. When asanas are performed in sequence, beautiful phrases or sutras result, producing a mystical language.

You cannot do yoga. Yoga is your natural state. What you can do are yoga exercises, which may reveal to you where you are resisting your natural state.

Being a joyful vegan is the best way I know to contribute to the happiness of others, ultimately ensuring our own happiness.

By choosing to be kind instead of cruel, we can break the karmic chain of reacting to violence with more violence, contributing to a more peaceful future for everyone.

Inspiration pushes me out of my tight intellectual comfort zone and into humility, the wonderous state of not knowing. From this place of zero, limitless possibilities seem to arise.

Actually, fish are very sensitive creatures with highly developed nervous systems. They feel pain acutely. If they weren't able to feel pain, they, like us, could not have survived as a species. Their nervous systems, like ours, secrete opiate-like, pain-dampening biochemicals in response to pain.

All breathing beings are spiritual; this includes everyone who breathes, whether they are animals or humans, carnivores or vegetarians.

All living beings are spiritual beings because all of life breathes. Breath is an indication that spirit is present.

Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment or for any exploitative purpose.

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.

As a yoga practitioner with some understanding of how karma works, you have to ask the question, "If I am seeking liberation, will it serve my purpose to rob other beings of their freedom?"

As humans, we do get to choose what we eat, and when we choose to eat a plant, we are eating (i.e., harming) just that plant, plus indirectly whatever nutrients that plant consumed over its lifetime (and we are also harming whatever beings may have been living on that plant or who were injured or killed in the harvesting process). But when we eat an animal, we are eating not just that animal, but also indirectly all of the plants and other beings that that animal ate over its lifetime - those plants became the flesh that we eat.

Be clear in your mind what you want the outcome of your communication to achieve. If your aim is more than just to vent your anger towards a meat eater and you sincerely want that person to be a kinder more compassionate being, then you must start by seeing them as a kind and compassionate person. If you are unable to see them as kind and compassionate, then how dare you demand them to see themselves that way.

Be confident in yourself, in your abilities, and in your goals. Then go for it.

Because of our unenlightenment, we do not know that what we do to others we ultimately do to ourselves.

Because we lack sharp claws, aren't very fast on our feet, and aren't exactly endowed with lightning reflexes, it would be very difficult if not impossible for us to run down an animal, catch it with our bare hands, and tear through its fur and skin in order to eat it. Biologically, we are designed to be frugivorous herbivores eating mainly fruits, seeds, roots, and leaves.

By working to alleviate the suffering of animals you are working at the cause level of human suffering.

Communication implies communing, having a shared experience with another, not "talking at" or "talking down to" someone.

Compassion is essential for any type of relationship between anybody - human to human, human to dog, human to cat, human to bird.

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.

Cows that are fed organic food are still kept as slaves on farms, regardless of whether it is a large corporate factory farm or a small family farm. Besides, every dairy cow, no matter what she has been fed, has her babies stolen from her shortly after birth and she will inevitably end up in the slaughterhouse.

Create the kind of world you want to live in by how you treat others now.

Don't expect others to change. Instead, take on the project and see if you can become the change you want to see in the world. Try your best to let go of anger, blame and seeing yourself as a victim.

Don't try to do this by yourself: to become a good yogi you need a teacher. Find a teacher you can bow to, who can teach you how to be kind - how to serve others - because the key to enlightenment lies in that. Be humble, work hard, study and practice. Chant the Name of God, do japa and meditate, every day.

Don't wait for a better world. Start now to create a world of harmony and peace. It is up to you, and it always has been. You may even find the solution at the end of your fork.

Each of us, through the actions we take, plant the seeds which will eventually but inevitably grow and create the reality we will find ourselves living in.

Eating a vegetarian diet can contribute more to saving ourselves and the planet than any other single effort.

Eating vegetables, fruits and grains rarely causes total destruction of the plant or tree on which the food grew; after harvesting, seeds remain to be replanted the next season. But this certainly does not happen when an animal is slaughtered - death is final; that animal will not reproduce again!

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

Everyone is caught in the web of his or her own actions and is bound by past karmas (actions). Good and bad are relative terms. Every action takes one to the next place.

Everything we do should contribute to happiness.

Farm animals, like dairy cows - who by nature are vegans - are routinely force-fed fish to increase their weight and milk production.

Farms, whether small or large, are places where slaves are kept. The animals are fattened up to be eaten, or exploited for their ability to make honey or milk, or for their fur, wool or body parts; they are kept as breeders to produce more animals who can in turn be exploited and ultimately sold, slaughtered, and eaten.

Fish are complex beings who choose mates, use words to communicate, build nests, cooperate with one another to find food, have long-term memories, and use tools.

Fishing is not a benign activity; it is hunting in the water.

Fishing is taking a huge toll on the planet's ecosystem.

Fishing is taking a huge toll on the planet's ecosystem. We are emptying the oceans, seas, lakes, and rivers as we fish them dry.

Flesh isn't the only source of protein. You can get all the protein you need from a varied plant-based diet. Protein is found in greens, veggies, beans, grains, nuts & seeds, avocados and so on. And there is no need to consume these foods in any special combination.

Have you seen how fish are able to swim in a school so precisely relating to their fish-fellows and never clumsily bump into one another? That's because they have a highly developed sense of feeling in their bodies, which enables them to feel not only the movement of the water against their skin but the presence of other beings who are close. They certainly are not cold-blooded in the sense that they are dull, insensitive, and have no feelings.

How we treat others will determine how others treat us, and how others treat us will determine who we are.

Human beings are Earthlings and as Earthlings are connected to every other living being on this planet.

Human beings have been waging war and destroying the environment for long time. Just because it has been going on for a long time and become an unquestioned habit, does that mean it should be allowed to continue.

Human overconsumption is a greater problem than human population growth, and meat eating is a big part of that problem.

Human population growth is a problem in that most humans consume more than they need. The Earth's resources are now strained to sustain the needs and wants of the human population, which continues to escalate.

I am a fast cook. I have to be, as I am a busy person with many responsibilities and don't have a lot of time for cooking.

I don't miss another opportunity to try to do my best to finish the things I have left undone. I could say: It's my unresolved karma that wakes me up in the morning.

I passionately feel that as long as we view ourselves as superior and other animals as exploitable our consciousness will remain stuck in a level of ignorance that will disallow a full realization of the truth underlying reality.

If it were possible to live without causing harm to any living being at all, then indeed we might well choose not to eat carrots or other vegetables. But that is not possible - merely by being alive, we necessarily cause harm to many, many beings: we step on them inadvertently, we breathe them in without noticing, we kill them when we brush our teeth or wash our bodies, etc.

If we ourselves want to be free and happy then by enslaving and harming animals we will not be able to achieve our goal.

If we want to consider the sanctity of life in deciding what to eat, the choice is clear. Eating a plant based diet causes less harm, to ourselves, to the other animals, to the planet.

If we weren't so dirt-conscious, we would obtain adequate vitamin B12 from soil, air, water, and bacteria, but we meticulously wash and peel our vegetables now - and with good reason, as we can't be sure our soil is not contaminated with pesticides and herbicides.

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.

If you practice Yoga for small, selfish reasons, you will remain the same, bound by your beliefs about what you can and cannot do. Let go and offer your effort to limitless potential. Dedicate yourself to the happiness of all beings.

If you want people to listen to you, then be willing to listen to them.

If you want to know if someone is a "spiritual being" ask yourself, "Is he or she breathing?" If the answer is yes, then you know that you are in the presence of a spiritual being.

If you were a fish, and you were to touch a doorknob, you would be able to feel the presence of every person who had touched that doorknob during the course of a day.

I'm totally into veganism and animal rights, but I'm not into being an angry and judgmental activist.

In fact, drinking milk and eating dairy products can rob your body of calcium and contribute to osteoporosis. If you eat dark green leafy vegetables like kale, collards, and mustard greens, you can get enough calcium from a vegan diet.

In fact, numerous scientific laboratory tests and field observations have led to the conclusion that animals are conscious, intelligent, emotional beings. They are not machines and truly feel physical pain when it is inflicted upon them. They are capable of experiencing a wide range of emotions, including loneliness, embarrassment, sadness, longing, depression, anxiety, panic, and fear, as well as joy, relief, surprise, happiness, contentment, and peace.

In fact, studies show that vegans tend to get more iron than meat eaters. Vitamin C from fruits and vegetables increases iron absorption. Meanwhile, dairy products reduce iron absorption significantly.

In fact, we are designed anatomically to be vegetarians.

In fact, we would know ourselves that we are not meant to be meat eaters, and we would not have allowed ourselves to become conditioned to meat eating in the first place, if the effects of meat eating were felt right away. But since heart disease, cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis, etc. usually take many years to develop, we are able to separate them from their cause (or contributing factors) and go on happily eating an animal-based diet.

In the United States, the average is two children per family, while in Africa it is five children per family. On the surface, the statistic seems to indicate that Africans are having way too many kids and are taxing the Earth's resources, while American kids are born into families who are able to take care of them. However, the average American child consumes roughly the same resources as fifteen African children. So when an American family says they only have two children, they are actually consuming the resources of an African family of thirty children!

Is it really that much better to make friends with animals before you kill them than to treat them as nameless, faceless objects before you kill them? From a yogic point of view, one must weigh the karmic consequences of perceiving others as mere objects to be used and the consequences of profiting from the suffering of others.

It has been an obsession of human beings to create a hierarchy that places the human species on top and lumps all the "other animals" together beneath us. The resulting "speciesism" allows us to look upon animals as less deserving of all manner of rights and considerations than humans. To support this lower status, humans have argued that animals act instinctually; don't have souls; don't feel physical pain like we do; and lack self-consciousness, cognitive intelligence, emotional feelings, morality, and ethics.

It is a fact that the ecological devastation of the planet can be traced to the consumption of meat and dairy, which contributes to water, soil, and air pollution as well as global warming and the mass extinction of many species of plant and animal forms.

It is a testament to the effectiveness of advertising campaigns funded by the animal-user industries that a diet that is bad for us and harmful to the planet is thought of as "normal" and a diet that promotes health, happiness, and well-being is thought of as alternative, abnormal, or faddish. In fact, these days it is relatively easy to find vegetarian options in many restaurants and supermarkets, though you may have to ask.

It is true that every being is enjoying life or suffering as a direct result of his or her own past actions. The animals in the factory farms may have been meat-eating human beings in a previous birth; we don't know, and it is not our place to judge.

It is true that veganism is a serious issue, but there should be fun involved. Why do anything if it doesn't bring some joy at the end of the day?

It may take sixteen pounds of grain to make one pound of beef, but it also takes one hundred pounds of fish to make that one-pound of beef!

It's a common myth that athletes and other highly active people need the protein from meat and dairy to fuel their activities and build and repair muscles and other bodily tissues. In fact, there is growing evidence that consumption of too much protein can lead to very serious health issues, including kidney disease, osteoporosis, and cancer. The active body can get all the protein it needs from a diverse, 100% plant-based diet.

It's important to understand that calcium isn't just about what you eat; it's also about what you keep. Acidic animal products mine minerals like potassium, magnesium and calcium from our bodies. In fact, the countries that consume the most dairy have the highest rates of hip fracture and osteoporosis.

I've gotten it down to one hour. If dinner takes me longer than an hour to prepare, then it is too complicated. So it has to be simple.

Knowing the truth about the hell-realms that animals have to endure, it would be wise of us to do our best now not to plant the karmic seeds that would cause us to be reborn as an animal in one of those hell realms.

Large factory trawlers indiscriminately scrape and haul up everything from the ocean floor, along with everyone unfortunate enough to get caught in the nets. Roughly one-third of what is dragged in is not profitable fish, but other sea animals, including turtles, whales, dolphins, seals, and seabirds. These beings are referred to by the fishing industry as "by-catch." Severely traumatized and wounded, these animals are subsequently thrown back into the ocean, dead or dying.

Life begins with an inhale and ends with an exhale. ln between that inhale and that exhale is our life.

Lions and other carnivorous animals do a lot of things besides eat meat. They live outdoors, not in houses; they don't wear clothes or drive around in cars; they usually sleep for many hours after eating a meal. Why cite just one of the many things that they do and argue that we should imitate them? This doesn't make much sense.

Lions and other carnivorous animals do eat meat, but that doesn't mean we should. They would die if they didn't eat meat. Human beings, in contrast, choose to eat meat; it isn't a physiological necessity.

Live with the anticipation that something incredible might happen at any time.

Many genetically "altered" fish escape from the confines of the crowded floating concentration camps to mingle and mate with their wild fish cousins, causing horrible and irreversible damage to wild species.

Milk is for babies. Human beings are the only species that drinks milk into adulthood and besides that we prefer to drink the milk of another species (enslaved cows and goats), and we have come to consider it normal when, it is actually a pretty perverse form of sexual abuse!

Most of the food crops raised in the world today are fed to livestock destined for slaughter for us to eat, and most of the water used is used to raise the food crops that are fed to those animals. It has been estimated that, because of the extraordinary amount of grain it takes to raise food animals, if we reduced the amount of meat we eat by only ten percent, that would free up enough grain to feed all the starving humans in the world. So when we choose to eat meat instead of vegetables, we are choosing to take food away from others who are hungry.

Most of the plants grown to be fed to farm animals are heavily saturated with pesticides and herbicides and have been genetically modified, all of which contributes to the pollution and destruction of our environment, which harms us all.

On average, most people consume between 100 - 120 grams of protein per day. Not only is that unhealthy, it's extremely dangerous, as the majority of the protein consumed is animal based.

One of the definitions for "mad" is "wild"; I'm certainly all for wild as opposed to domesticated.

One's knowledge of karma should not be used to judge others. You should ask yourself: Do I like where I am going, or do I want to change my direction?

Our breath is connected to the air that every being breathes. By breathing consciously, we acknowledge our communion with all of life.

Patanjali tells us that if we practice aparigraha, (greedlessness) we will begin to understand not only where we have come from but where we are going and how our karmas have contributed to where we are now.

Raising crops to feed animals for human consumption requires a lot of land. It takes eight or nine cows a year to feed one average meat eater; each cow eats one acre of green plants, soybeans and corn per year; so it takes eight or nine acres of plants a year to feed one meat eater, compared with only half an acre to feed one vegetarian.

Remember that everyone you see and every situation you find yourself in has come from inside of you; you have created your reality by how you have treated others in your past.

See the other person's potential for kindness and bolster your own expression of kindness. If you see them in a negative way, the power of your perception will only help to keep them that way as you polarize yourself from them, assuming a superior role, seeing yourself as the good guy and them as the bad guy.

Some meat eaters defend meat eating by pointing out that it is natural: in the wild, animals eat one another. The animals that end up on our breakfast, lunch, and dinner plates, however, aren't those who normally eat other animals. The animals we exploit for food are not the lions and tigers and bears of the world. For the most part, we eat the gentle vegan animals. However, on today's farms, we actually force them to become meat eaters by making them eat feed containing the rendered remains of other animals, which they would never eat in the wild.

Some people may argue that if the animals are treated humanely prior to being slaughtered, this justifies their confinement and slaughter. Is it ethical to rob beings of their freedom but give them a comfortable prison and provide them with food until they become fat enough to be slaughtered? Any way you look at it, farms are places where animals are kept in preparation to be slaughtered and ultimately eaten as food.

Some well-to-do parents may say, "I have a right to have as many children as I want because I can take care of them." That may be so, but can the Earth take care of them?

Sunlight is essential to the body's ability to absorb calcium from the food you are eating. Make sure you receive adequate vitamin D every day through sunlight. About fifteen to twenty minutes of sun on the face and hands is usually enough for most of us.

The best way to uplift our own lives is to do all we can to uplift the lives of others.

The best we can do is strive to minimize the amount of harm we cause by living. We need to eat in order to live, and there is no moral or ethical code that dictates that we should refrain from eating and allow ourselves to die for some higher purpose.

The enemy of the spirit is the selfish ego, which thinks that happiness can be gained through causing unhappiness and disharmony to others. In many ancient languages, the word for enemy means "one who falls out of rhythm; one who is not working in harmony with the larger group."

The fact is that eating meat and dairy is bad for your health, the health of the animals eaten, as well as the health of the planet.

The most important thing to remember in life is to be kind.

The number of human deaths due to hardening of the arteries and other similar diseases suggests that human beings were not meant to eat animals; our bodies are unable to digest the animal fat effectively and it ends up stored in our blood vessels, not to mention our waist lines, buttocks and thighs!

The practice of yoga allows us to become more conscious of our own physical existence and how significant we really are.

The practices of Yoga will help you maintain equanimity in all situations by teaching you to become transparent, able to allow both joy and sorrow to flow through you without destroying your peace of mind.

The present moment is where eternity exists.

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.

The ridicule you may endure from others when you speak up for animals can help you to hone your skills, enabling you to become better at articulating your message in an informed, compassionate, and communicative way.

The SAD diet - (the Standard American Diet) - can only make you sad. Eating meat and dairy products is the SAD diet. It causes heart disease, cancer, diabetes and makes you fat. Raising animals for food destroys the environment. And those animals are not happy - they are enslaved and live humiliating, fearful lives of abuse and tremendous suffering. Billons are murdered every year. That's a lot of suffering - all for no good reason. Veganism turns sadness into joy - Simple Recipes for Joy!

The way we treat animals is the root cause of all the human suffering in the world, from poverty, starvation, disease, and war to lack of clean air and water, not to mention all the varied forms of human emotional and spiritual suffering.

The yogi in love needs only to whisper the beloved name, and all desire is fulfilled. To hear Shyamdas speak of The Lover's Life is to be transported into the eternal magical realm of love, where infinite possibilities become possible.

There are atoms of air in your lungs that were once in the lungs of everyone who has ever lived. In essence, we are breathing (inspiring) one another.

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?

Three things to never leave home without: your keys, birdseed for the birds, and your mala beads to chant through difficulties.

Through the practice of yoga, you come to feel confident and develop a feeling of wholeness and completeness; you are not likely to feel deprived or 'less than.' People steal because they feel deprived. They try to make up for their deficits by depriving others.

Through the practices of yoga, we discover that concern for the happiness and well being of others, including animals, must be an essential part of our own quest for happiness and well being. The fork can be a powerful weapon of mass destruction or a tool to create peace on Earth.

Through yoga practice you can change the course of your life by purifying your karma. But to do that you must have an idea of where you've been and where you want to go.