This article is a synthesis of a comprehensive transdisciplinary perspective published in the Journal of Ecohumanism, 1st March 2024.
In the quiet moments of the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown, I saw the pandemic as a natural cause-and-effect phenomenon, which I expressed in a poem:
Her parasites
Don't you see
She’s healing Herself
She’s shedding us off
Her parasites
We set Her on fire
We cut into Her… just for some stupid sapphire
We tarnished Her seas
We wiped out Her trees
Don't you see
She’s freeing Herself
From us
Her parasites
We put a hole in Her ozone
We killed our sibs in our warzones
We fed Her babies with our plastic
Yet we think our tech is so fantastic
Don't you see
She’s ridding Herself
From us
Her parasites
We put Her babies in cages
Made Her bear the painful sounds of their heavy trudges
We forced Her babies to have babies
In factories…
Blind to their miseries
We justify, with stupid fripperies
We led them through slaughter lines
Complying with all our so-called guidelines
To feed our greed
We justify, it’s in our creed
Don't you see
We were not the only species She hosted
Yet we boasted
we coasted
we tested
… Her boundaries
… counting our salaries
Don’t you see
Now we get to be host
Like Her… almost
at our endmost
She's forced us to stop
…with teardrops
Don’t you see
It's not about finding a cure
It's Her becoming pure
It's not about discovery
It's simply Her recovery
It’s just futural
It’s just natural
It’s just nurtural
It’s just Her…being gestural
Her language…it’s transcultural
Don’t you see
She is the ultimate
She is compassionate
She’ll let us recover
We’ve got to remember
Her reason
This lesson
Our poison
Our prison
… The taste of our own medicine
We’ve got to remember
We don’t outnumber
We engage in mutiny
…against Her…our authority
But She controls our destiny
It’s not about our ingenuity
It’s about our susceptibility
…our inferiority
…Her superiority
She gave us our humanity
So, we might show humility
She’ll let us recover
But we’ve got to remember
Our status … Her parasites
Stamped on our mass gravesites
In this transdisciplinary perspective, I explain my poem’s scientific and philosophical contexts and present the possibility that one of the lessons Mother Earth might have wanted the Homo sapiens species to learn from the COVID-19 pandemic is its need to alter its diet.
In my poem, I refer to Her, Mother Earth, as an all-giving, selfless, and compassionate entity who has taken a position as our host for aeons. This unquestioning acceptance derives from Atharva Vēda, where Mother Earth is revered as a provider and protector. I refer to humans as Her parasites – reflecting the parasitic nature we have chosen – taking advantage of and gaining from Her without reciprocating. And, She’s shedding us off refers to the mass demise of humans due to COVID-19. According to Atharva Vēda, Mother Earth can be angered by Her children’s transgressions (Dwivedi, 1997).
She has put up with so much of our abuse. Homo sapiens remain the only species that has managed to pollute and disrupt every single of Earth’s ecosystems, it is the only species that takes more than it needs, and it is the only species that inflicts stress and death on other species, not just for food, but for sports and amusement. There is a long and painful history of cruelty in farming involving billions of non-humans. Animal welfare codes – so-called guidelines (in my poem) – make people feel less guilty while they dine on the flesh of farmed non-human beings – their eyes shut to practices that dodge these so-called guidelines (e.g., forcing sows into narrow farrowing crates, cramming chickens in high-density sheds, live animal export). Farming practices in poorly regulated jurisdictions remain horrifically inhumane. In China and Lao PDR, sun bears suffer a captive life in poor conditions with tubes permanently implanted in their gallbladders so their bile fluid can be drained out daily (Livingstone & Shepherd, 2016).
Zoo, lab, and circus non-human beings throughout the world endure similar suffering every day of their lives of forced confinement and servitude. The association of SARS-CoV-2 with the wet market in Huanan, China, spotlighted the cruelty of Homo sapiens. A survey of shops (including seven located in Huanan) selling live wildlife just before the pandemic found that almost all were stored in cages stacked one on top of the other and kept in poor sanitary conditions (Xiao et al., 2021). Culinary and dining practices that include boiling or eating non-human beings while they are still alive continue to be a norm in some societies (Tobias & Morrison, 2021).
So, if you accepted Mother Earth as really real, would you not say that She forced us to stop so we might contemplate our wrongdoings? Would you not say that this pandemic might be Her way of reducing the size of Her wayward, out-of-control, selfish child to re-establish balance in the household? Is it not just natural for a mother to want harmony between Her children?
In my poem, I say that this pandemic is not about finding a cure but rather about Mother Earth’s recovery. “Cure” refers to the historical creation of vaccines and other pharmaceutical products to treat zoonotic diseases that we bring on ourselves. But the SARS-CoV-2 seemed to intelligently mutate and remerge as new immune-evasive variants. Would this not be another one of Mother Earth’s lessons that the human species is yet to learn – i.e., that Her highly intelligent natural systems are superior to our technical fixes?
Her intelligent system becomes evident if we extrapolate from the process of a virus eliminating the dominating population observed in phage biology. As Brüssow (2012, p. 245) explains, viruses are “essential agents of life” if we consider how “host species use their viruses to defend their ecological position against intruders” and the phenomenon of “killing the winning population” where phage infections seek to re-balance bacterial species diversity. Homo sapiens, the most “winning” species in the biosphere, take over an ever-increasing number of niches and, by altering the ecological framework, gets itself into a viral crossfire resulting in epidemics and pandemics. While Brüssow’s hypothesis on viruses as built-in mechanisms to prevent ecosystem monopolisation by a single dominant species may remain a theory in the scientific world, from a Vedic view, such virus intelligence is illustrative of Mother Earth’s superior and judicious natural system to maintain the equilibrium between us and other beings whom we share Her space with.
What if it was just Her being gestural, and Her underlying message was this: “It’s not about creating yet another cure for yet another wound you inflicted on yourself, you silly child. Rather, I’m giving you a chance to self-reflect as a species and realise and admit that you are the root cause of your wounds”. Hence, Her lesson repeated, but this time on a scale that might have made us stop, take stock, and pay attention.
Through the pandemic, Mother Earth tried to tell us about our cruel treatment of other beings (whom She sees as our siblings). This unseen link between the pandemic and animal cruelty can only be explained through the Vedic laws of Karmā. In the Vēdas, ahimsā is an essential virtue for spiritual evolution and killing animals for food is regarded as a great sin that leads to a tremendous karmic burden. My reference to karmā is focused on collective karma, which is group causation (the collective action of a community and group culpability) causing group retribution, which may include natural disasters and catastrophes that cause mass suffering (Krishan, 1989). Perhaps the collective karmic load of our cruelty to other species reached a tipping point.
Alas, even at the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mother Earth’s lesson seems yet to be learned. The world seems to have returned to a business-as-usual approach to animal consumption. We might deny that Mother Earth is really real, and that She offered some important lessons through the COVID-19 pandemic. We might choose to continue with our self-centred, cruel ways. And Mother Earth will continue subjecting us to more advanced lessons until we learn. And the digging of mass graves to accommodate the COVID-19 deaths we witnessed might become a norm as pandemics become a norm.
But what if we took heed of Her instructions now and stopped consuming our non-human siblings? A plant-based diet (i.e. a vegan diet in this context) can prevent future zoonotic epidemics and pandemics. A plant-based diet offers a range of benefits, including strengthening the human immune system, mitigating obesity, reducing non-communicable disease risk, reducing antimicrobial resistance risk, and lowering greenhouse gas emissions and land footprint. Shifting to a plant-based diet is commonsensical from an ecological and social standpoint.
However, accepting a plant-based diet will not be easy as it needs to be preceded by changes to our thinking of other sentient beings and removing some psychosocial barriers. Meat eaters have developed strategies and defence mechanisms to overcome the psychological discomfort of cognitive dissonance experienced when one’s true values and feelings are incongruent with one’s actions. These strategies include denying mental capacity in animals typically regarded as food and denying they can experience suffering (Loughnan et al., 2014).
Still, there is hope for change – because failure to act in the interest of the animals we eat is not due to a lack of empathy but an inability to let our compassion guide our thoughts because of the unconscious psychological strategies we use to neutralise the ethical dissonance associated with meat consumption (Piazza, 2019).
The Vedic Oneness principle and call for sama-darśinah (equal vision) denotes a blurring and removal of the boundaries between the self and others. It points to a single Eternal Being, referred to as the Divine Universal Soul, Pāramātman or Brahmān (God). Hence, humans are not distinct from Mother Earth. If we could see all life forms with sama-darśinah, we might extend our empathy without needing proof of grief in non-humans. Perhaps we might have this unconditional, equal vision if we take time to look into their expressive eyes (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Photo by Pexels.
Click the image to enlarge.
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Accepting other Earthly beings as our siblings would require changes in how we think about existence; it requires considering the physical, biological, and ecological sciences alongside the metaphysical aspects of life. The phrase, She gave us our humanity, so we might show humility, in my poem stresses that this transformation requires humbleness in accepting that not everything is evident through our senses – that there are unseen connections between actions and consequences. It also requires deep awareness of our own humanity – that the suffering of others, including dissimilar others, is emotionally disturbing, and it is in our true nature NOT to want to contribute to that suffering. The very existence of cognitive dissonance associated with meat eating is evidence that humans are NOT innately cruel but rather innately humane. The realisation of this true nature requires a spiritual evolution of the Homo sapiens species.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused much suffering for humans. But, suffering holds within it the spiritual force that can awaken us to our true identity and humaneness – it heightens our “ability to be compassionate” and the desire “to ameliorate the sorrows and troubles of others” (Swami Chidananda, 1991, p. 4). She’ll let us recover, in my poem, refers to Mother Nature’s infinite compassion described in Vedic philosophy:
There is no kindness than the kindness of nature, which only moves one way to bring fulfillment of evolution and life to all these things in all their states of evolution, under all circumstances. When a man, because of some misdeeds, seems to be punished by nature and suffers for it, this also is the manifestation of the kindness and helpfulness of nature. (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 1995, pp. 93-94).
In other words, it is Her being nurtural. She will continue giving us opportunities to evolve because She loves and wants us to evolve. Lest we forget, Her compassionate lesson and our status as Her parasites, stamped on our mass pandemic gravesites.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Komathi Kolandai is a research fellow at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and a disciple of Sri Swami Chidananda Saraswati Maharaj of the Divine Life Society. The perspectives and beliefs stated in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the institutions or organisations with which she is affiliated.
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