Does a vegetarian diet have real value for our consciousness?

Beloved Osho, when you were testing your enlightenment by smoking, drinking alcohol, and having sex, did you try eating fish and meat? Does a vegetarian diet have a real value for our consciousness, or is it optional, like smoking?

Of course, there is some existential difference which I cannot destroy. But this is not the existential difference -- that you smoke and I don't smoke, that you drink and I don't drink. This is not existential. The existential difference is very small, and that is: I am awake and you are asleep. It is not much, because I am just sitting on the same bed where you are asleep. Just a little effort will make you awake. Your sleep gives a guarantee: anybody who is capable of sleeping is capable of awakening, they come together. So what is the fuss about? Take your time. Whenever you want to wake up, wake. There is no hurry, you have the whole eternity available to you. Yes, I may not be there to wake you up, that is the only unfortunate thing about it. But somebody else.... One day you are going…

Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHY ARE ALL YOUR DISCIPLES VEGETARIAN? But if you live vegetarianism as a religion or a philosophy, you will be continually hankering for meat, continually thinking, dreaming of meat, and your vegetarianism will be just a decoration for your ego. With me, meditation is the only essential religion. And everything that follows it is virtue, because it comes of its own accord. You don't have to drag it, you don't have to discipline yourself for it. I have nothing to do with vegetarianism, but I know that if you meditate you are going to grow new perceptivity, new sensitivity, and you cannot kill animals. Have you observed one fact? -- that the vegetarian societies have the most delicious kinds of foods. The Buddhists, the Jainas -- they have the best dishes in the world, for the simple reason that through their meditations they had to drop meat-eating.

Let no sleep e'er close thy tired eyes, without thou ask thyself: what have I omitted, and what done?

ABSTAIN THOU IF 'TIS EVIL; PERSEVERE IF GOOD. MEDITATE UPON MY COUNSELS; LOVE THEM, FOLLOW THEM: TO THE DIVINE VIRTUES WILL THEY KNOW HOW TO LEAD THEE. I SWEAR IT BY THE ONE WHO IN OUR HEARTS ENGRAVED THE SACRED TETRAD, SYMBOL IMMENSE AND PURE, SOURCE OF NATURE AND MODEL OF THE GODS. BUT BEFORE ALL, THY SOUL TO ITS FAITHFUL DUTY, INVOKE THESE GODS WITH FERVOUR; THEY WHOSE AID, THY WORK BEGUN, ALONE CAN TERMINATE. INSTRUCTED BY THEM, NAUGHT SHALL THEN DECEIVE THEE; OF DIVERSE BEINGS THOU SHALT SOUND THE ESSENCE; AND THOU SHALT KNOW THE PRINCIPLE AND END OF ALL. IF HEAVEN WILLS IT, THOU SHALT KNOW THAT NATURE, ALIKE IN EVERYTHING, IS THE SAME IN EVERY PLACE. SO THAT, AS TO THY TRUE RIGHTS ENLIGHTENED, THINE HEART SHALL NO MORE FEED ON VAIN DESIRES. THOU SHALT SEE THAT THE EVILS WHICH DEVOUR MEN ARE OF THEIR CHOICE…

Beloved Osho, in existence only the animal kingdom is capable of eating itself for food. A cabbage cannot eat a carrot for lunch, but man has even been known to eat his fellow man for dinner. The man of zen has dissolved into the vast existence and chooses not to eat meat. Please explain.

First, you are not aware that even animals don't eat from their own species. A lion will not eat another lion, nor will a snake bite another snake. Yes, animals eat animals from other species. Vegetables cannot ordinarily eat, but there are trees, rare trees in Africa, still existent, which eat animals, birds or even man. They use their big leaves and a beautiful perfume to attract the birds. Because of the perfume, the bird comes to the tree, thinking that this is an ordinary tree, and as he sits on the tree the leaves close and suck the blood of the bird. A few trees are capable of catching animals through their branches and eating them, and a few trees have movement also. They move from one place to another place. They need a very soft earth in which they can manage to use their roots as legs. And…

Please comment on these statements: "survival of the fittest," and "you are what you eat."

But you don't think the same way when somebody kills a lion or a deer, because you don't think that the deer has as much life as you have. The deer may have a beloved; the deer may have children. You don't think of the lion, when you kill him, that he may have a family. His small cubs will be orphans. He is as alive as you are -- in fact more alive than you are. Destroying him only for a few taste buds on your tongue, for the taste... It seems to me that killing animals for eating is not very far away from killing human beings. They differ only in their body, in their shape, but it is the same life that you are destroying. With new technology the earth is perfectly capable of giving you food. You can make it as tasteful as you want, and…