the cruelty free festival

Will this be the start of regular blogging? Am I able to dedicate half an hour every week to share a few thoughts from my mind to the blog-o-sphere? I think so. Will I continue to do so? Only time will tell. Well here goes!

Today, I wanted to do something that I would not normally spend my time doing. Earlier in the week, whilst perusing the pages of the mX on a train home from Wynyard, I noticed a "Cruelty Free Festival" which intrigued me. things such as meditation, yoga, and being free of animal cruelty caught my attention. So, I rocked up today, pap malone, and meandered the aisles of vegan sweets, petitions against live exportation, natural self care products..and eventually made my way to a Yoga Class.

I learnt one way of meditation, where you inhale and say "Let" in your mind, then exhale and say "Go" in your mind, over and over, and over and over to replace the internal dialogue of you thinking about stressful things in your life.

I then met an interesting lady who is a Healer (http://www.embracehealing.com.au/), she went through a rough patch in her time back when she was 26, then decided to search for healing. Her mother and herself then became healers, and she has been running her own business in Coogee. For me, being an optometrist, it's easy for me to forget about all the other ways of living, so it was refreshing to meet somebody who's dedicated her life to healing others, in a very different and spiritual way, compared to how I help individuals with their eyes.

The walk through Belmore Park then led me to the "Bhagavad Gita", which is a book that the Monk I met began to speak about. The four principles of living in order to gain complete control over your mind are:

1. no eating meat, fish, or eggs
2. no gambling
3. no use of intoxicants (alcohol, drugs, tobacco, caffeine)
4. no illicit sex (sex outside of the purpose for procreation)

This provides you with higher taste, therefore elevating yourself to a superior platform. I was then asked to make a donation for this book. It was only $4, but I felt a bit scammed.

Interesting things, that I would never otherwise really contemplate. It's worthwhile taking a walk through the park :). Would you eat chicken? Knowing that they squash 20 chickens into one square metre? Would you eat caged eggs knowing that these chickens live in an area smaller than one A4 piece of paper? Did you know that producing meat contributes to more greenhouse gases compared to the gases produced by all households?

What are your thoughts?