Eknath Easwaran and animals
I’ve written a little bit about the limitations of my spiritual teacher, Eknath Easwaran, when it comes to animal rights. For instance, he’s very fond of telling romanticized stories of domesticated elephants in his native India. But I don’t think I’ve talked enough about how much he has to offer on the subject, which is one of the things that attracted me to him.
Easwaran’s meditation center publishes a periodical called The Blue Mountain Journal, which mostly consists of excerpts from his writing. I particularly like the fall 2019 edition, which is on the topic of ‘Seeing the Lord in All.’ It includes a number of passages from Easwaran’s work on animals.
I want to highlight one about him walking on a pier, where men, women and children were fishing. “It was a very depressing spectacle,” Easwaran says. “There were little children six and seven years old, beautiful boys and girls being taught to kill fish. Parents were giving instructions to their children and friends to their friends.”
He continues, noting the worst part was seeing the fish pulled from the water. “Still alive, they were dashed against the wooden plank, and the hooks torn away,” he says. “It is perhaps not fair to condemn or censure these people… They were not really cruel, but insensitive. This can happen to all of us when we become preoccupied with our own pleasure and forget the unity underlying all life.”
Arguably the most telling lines about his view of animals come next. Easwaran implicitly criticizes spiritual leaders who don’t value nonhuman life and suffering. To really understand how important this is to him, you have to know that — perhaps, other than meditation — the central emphasis of his work is perennialism.
For those who aren’t familiar with the term, perennialism is the belief all spiritual traditions, maybe all secular ethics, are describing an ultimate truth, simply using different language. One of his main projects is finding common ground among these traditions and ethical systems. So when he’s critical of certain aspects of these, it’s because he thinks he’s making a crucial point.
“This is what spiritual awareness means,” he says. “It was not just the fish out there on the pier who were suffering, as separate beings — I was suffering in them. Until we become aware of this unity underlying all life, all talk of spiritual awareness is just playing games.”
Think about that. I’ll repeat the last line: “Until we become aware of this unity underlying all life, all talk of spiritual awareness is just playing games.” Think about all the spiritual leaders Easwaran is indirectly saying are just playing games. Those are strong words, especially for someone dedicated to perennialism.
Are his views of animal issues imperfect? Sure. But I think he has a lot to offer activists feeling a religious pull. As I’ve said before, one of the benefits of viewing your spiritual teacher as fallible is you don’t have to agree with everything they say and do.