Who were the gurus who helped to inspire the animal rights movement?

Indian Guru Sayatha Sai Baba and exercise guru Richard Simmons. (Beth Clifton collage)

Indian guru Sathya Sai Baba and “exercise guru” Richard Simmons, who more-or-less copied his schtick. (Beth Clifton collage)

Spiritual mentors sold vegetarianism before most animal advocates dared mention it

PUTTAPARTHI, Andhra Pradesh, India; QUEENS, New York––Who were the unofficial gurus of the early animal rights movement, who helped to sell vegetarianism, in particular, even before any major animal advocacy groups added a vegan or vegetarian component to their message?

“Guru,” in the Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain religions, means a spiritual leader held in high esteem. Many popular gurus might have claimed a piece of the action as animal advocacy grew from obscurity into a global cause.

None of the best-known gurus of the time, however, appear to have actually claimed alignment with secular animal advocacy, or to have actively taken part in the animal cause beyond teaching vegetarianism and the practice of ahimsa, meaning respect for all living things and avoiding of violence toward others.

A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
(Beth Clifton collage)

Trancendental meditation & the Hare Krishnas

The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1916-2008), for example, who reputedly introduced transcendental meditation to the U.S. and was personal guru to the Beatles rock-and-roll ensemble, taught vegetarianism.

Maharishi Mahesh did not profess animal advocacy as a central part of his message, however, though former Beatle composer Paul McCartney long has.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Similar might be said of A.C. Bhaktivedanta (1896-1977), who introduced the Hare Krishna sect to the U.S. in 1965.

The Hare Krishna sect used free vegetarian meals to attract young people to proselytizing sessions in university and “hippie haven” neighborhoods.

Some Hare Krishna devotees individually became involved in animal advocacy, but the Hare Krishna movement as a whole did not.

Dinshah P. Ghadiali. (Beth Clifton collage)

Dinshah P. Ghadali

The very first of the vegetarian gurus whose teachings contributed to the eventual growth of the animal rights movement, though quite indirectly, appears to have been Dinshah P. Ghadali (1873-1966), an Indian-born Parsi mystic of Persian ancestry, physician, lawyer, aviator, and inventor.

Encountering the teachings of Theosophy founder Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891) at age 18, who encouraged vegetarianism but did not practice it herself, Ghadali gave up hunting and meat-eating, emigrated to the U.S. in 1911, and went on to practice and advocate vegetarianism until his death at 92.

Ghadali was ahead of his time in criticism of tobacco, invention of a stun-gun, and several automotive inventions, but his credibility as a vegetarian advocate was severely impaired by the alleged death from starvation of his prematurely born first child; the death of his second son from tuberculosis, contracted in England while Ghadali was crusading against vaccination in Aden, Arabia; hunger, neglect, and a fatal accident suffered by other children after Ghadali settled in the U.S.; 18 months in prison for allegedly transporting a minor across state lines for immoral purposes; and five years on probation for fraud in connection with his operation of the Spectro-Chrome Institute, which purported to heal the sick with colored lights.

H. Jay Dinshah (1933-2000), Freya Dinshah, and daughter Anne Dinshah.

H. Jay Dinshah

Home-schooled by his parents, Dinshah P. Ghadali and Irene Grace Hoger Dinshah, son

H. Jay Dinshah (1934-2000) “was raised as lacto-vegetarian from birth,” recalled S. Joseph Hagenmayer of the Philadelphia Inquirer after his death, “but became a strict vegan after visiting a Philadelphia slaughterhouse at age 23. His ethic of reverence for life was expounded through writings and essays and crusades that took him around the world,” Hagenmayer continued.

H. Jay Dinshah founded the American Vegan Society in 1960 and headed it for the rest of his life, assisted by his wife Freya and other family members. The Dinshahs helped to organize conventions, including the 1975 World Vegetarian Congress at the University of Maine in Orono, that played significant roles in the expansion of the vegetarian and vegan movements, and were also participants in many animal rights events, contributing to the eventual semi-fusion of the causes.

Congenital heart disease was reportedly common on both sides of the Dinshah family, and did not spare H. Jay Dinshah, who died on June 8 , 2000 from a heart attack at the American Vegan Society office in Malaga, New Jersey. Freya Dinshah, 80, has headed the American Vegan Society ever since, through several years of unprecedented growth.

Sathya Sai Baba.
(Beth Clifton collage)

Sathya Sai Baba

The guru most closely associated with animal advocacy internationally, however, was probably Sathya Sai Baba (1926-2011).

Sathya Sai Baba died on April 23, 2011 after three weeks in critical condition due to cardio-respiratory failure. This, ironically, was among the conditions that vegetarianism helps to prevent; but at age 84, the rather chubby guru had long beaten the odds.

More than a decade later, many of the charitable projects that Sathya Sai Baba inspired live on around the world––especially those begun on behalf of animals.

Chinmoy Kumar Ghose, better known as Sri Chinmoy. (Beth Clifton collage)

Sri Chinmoy

Distantly rivaling Sathya Sai Baba was Chinmoy Kumar Ghose, (1901-2007), a vegetarian spiritual leader who emphasized physical fitness, known to more than 7,000 disciples as Sri Chinmoy.

Sri Chinmoy died on October 11, 2007, from a sudden heart attack at his home in
Queens, New York City. Physical fitness and vegetarian living were also supposed to prevent heart attacks, but at age 76, Sri Chinmoy had long outlived his life expectancy at birth in Bangladesh.

Sri Chinmoy’s legacy on behalf of animals is much less clear than that of Sathya Sai Baba, but some of his projects undertaken to promote vegetarianism continue, including the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team, which sponsors about 90 running events per year in cities around the world, plus an annual 3,100-mile race across the length of the U.S.

Cher and her traveling show.

“Born in the wagon of a traveling show”?

Sathya Sai Baba, called by the London Daily Telegraph “India’s most famous and most controversial holy man, and one of the most enigmatic and remarkable religious figures of the last century,” was “thought to have been born,” the Telegraph said, “as Sathya Narayana Raju, on November 23, 1926, into a poor farming family” in Puttaparthi, Andhra Pradesh state, India, his lifelong home and headquarters.

Other accounts, however, indicate that Sathya Sai Baba was born and raised among what Wikipedia calls “a community of religious musicians and balladeers,” which might also be described as a traveling medicine show, from which he learned, used, and refined all the tricks of the trade.

“According to legend,” the London Daily Telegraph obituary said, “as a child he would avoid places where animals were slaughtered and bring beggars home to be fed.”

Guru Sai Baba of Shirdi
(1838-1918).
(Beth Clifton collage)

Bitten by scorpion, became “Veg Man”

Sathya Sai Baba himself recalled in 2003 that he was “totally averse to non-vegetarian food,” and “would not even visit the houses where non-vegetarian food was cooked.”

“After suffering an apparent scorpion bite at age 14,” in 1937, Sathya Sai Baba “began to display signs of delirium and hallucinations,” the Telegraph recounted. “Shortly afterward, he declared himself to be a reincarnation of Shirdi Sai Baba, one of southern India’s most revered saints,” who lived from 1838 to 1918.

Except that both called themselves Sai Baba, there appears to have been no actual connection between Sathya Sai Baba Narayana Raju and Shirdi Sai Baba. Shirdi Sai Baba came from either Maharashtra or Tamil Nadu, relatively far from Andhra Pradesh.

Shirdi Sai Baba emphasized messages focused on religious tolerance, trying to defuse tension between Hindus and Muslims, but does not appear to have been a vegetarian or even especially concerned about animals.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Fakir or faker?

Leaving his family after the scorpion bite, Sathya Sai Baba traveled throughout southern India, gathering followers around him. In 1950 he returned to Puttaparthi to inaugurate his first ashram.

Though Sathya Sai Baba rarely traveled abroad, at his death he claimed a following of more than three million devotees, who operated ashrams in 126 nations.

Many of the purported miracles he performed had been debunked as variants of basic parlor magic. His financial affairs were “mysterious,” as the Telegraph put it, with more than $3.4 million in cash and valuables found in his home after his death.

Sathya Sai Baba had also been accused of sexually molesting devotees.

None of the allegations, however, appeared to lastingly impair his popularity.

(Beth Clifton collage)

“Fish we kill & eat are reborn as humans”

Vegetarianism was central to Sathya Sai Baba’s teachings, presented as a moral choice that each individual must make voluntarily in order to spiritually advance. In dialogs posted at his web site, Sai Baba would typically concede a reason to eat meat, for example to preserve domestic harmony if one marries a meat-eater, and would then rebut it.

“Let secular people eat meat,” he recommended in the example of marrying a meat-eater. “But if you walk the spiritual path,” he continued, “then the ethical aspect of nutrition has to be observed impeccably!”

Sathya Sai Baba argued that all beings capable of suffering are divine messengers, and made a point of including fish in his prescription against eating meat.

“All the fish whom we kill and eat are reborn as human beings,” Sathya Sai Baba contended.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Going to the dogs & donkeys

Recalled Citizens for Animal Rights founder Rishi Dev, of New Delhi, “Sathya Sai Baba used to collect dogs from his neighborhood and let them eat from his plate, while he himself ate from the same plate. When someone asked him why he allowed the dogs to eat from his plate, he said that he himself was residing in that dog, as an incarnation of divinity, so it did not make a difference, and he could not let those dogs go hungry and himself eat.”

Many other Sathya Sai Baba devotees developed animal rescue projects. Among them are Clementien Pauws, founder of the Karuna Society in Enumulapalli, a Puttaparthi suburb; Poornima Harish, a longtime volunteer for the Animal Rights Fund in Bangalore, before founding the Humane Awareness School near the Sai Baba Temple in Vasanthapura; and the founders of the Sathya Sai Sanctuary Trust for Nature in Sligo, Ireland, opened in 1991, which currently houses 91 donkeys and 25 other equines.

Also well remembered among Sathya Sai Baba followers is Viji, who used only one name, who operated the Parasparam orphanage and animal shelter in Chennai until her death in 2007.

(Beth Clifton collage)

“Nature is the best teacher”

Especially influenced by Sathya Sai Baba were Anil and Pamela Gale Malhotra, who founded the SAI (Save Animals Initiative) Sanctuary Trust in Theralu, South Kodagu, Karnataka, in 1991.

(See Save Animals Initiative cofounder Anil Malhotra, 80.)

Wrote Pamela Gale Malhotra after Sathya Sai Baba’s death, “Over the last few decades, I have read much of what was written by Sai Baba as well as listened to a number of Sai Baba’s discourses. One of the most important lines I remember from one discourse were Baba’s words that ‘Nature is the best teacher’–something with which I also wholeheartedly concur–a saying that Baba often repeated and was even painted on various boards and put up in the ashram grounds as well.”

The line “Nature is the best teacher” actually appears to have originated with William Shakespeare in his 1599 play As You Like It.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Other quotations

Continued Pamela Gale Malhotra, “Baba also mentioned on a number of occasions that it is only the human species that diverts from its true nature––that all other species follow nature’s lead and keep true to the role they play in creation and nature’s balance.”

Other quotations attributed to Satya Sai Baba by people prominent in animal advocacy include “God = dog. Both are the same but we are too blind to see it,” cited by longtime Blue Cross of India chief executive Chinny Krishna; “Dogs may bark and jackals howl, but truth moves majestically forward,” cited by Ed Boks, former executive director of five U.S. animal control agencies and humane societies; and “The truth is, every time you feed a hungry being, you are feeding me. This is the eternal truth,” cited by Help Animals India founder Eileen Weintraub.

Statements similar to the latter have often been ascribed to Jesus, though the scriptural basis for the attribution to Jesus is hazy.

English-born 1948 Vegetarian Party presidential candidate John Maxwell, who was actually ineligible to run, was among the first celebrity vegan raw foodists, but did not proclaim himself to be a guru. (Beth Clifton collage)

From consulate clerk to global cult leader

Sri Chinmoy, born in Bangladesh when it was still part of greater India under British rule, claimed to have lived in ashrams from age 12 on. His boyhood hero, he recalled, was 1936 Olympic medalist Jesse Owens, whom he emulated as a track-and-field athlete.

Emigrating to New York in 1964, as a clerk for the Indian consulate, Chinmoy opened a meditation center in Queens, which grew into a global string of ashrams, exercise centers, and vegetarian restaurants.

Early followers included guitarist John McLaughlin, bandleader Carlos Santana, singer Roberta Flack, and saxaphonist Clarence Clemons.

Chinmoy promoted vegetarianism, celibacy, and meditation through exercise with demonstrations of strength and endurance. A knee injury ended Chinmoy’s own running when he was more than 60 years old, but he continued to perform weight lifting feats, using pulley devices, until his death.

Sri Chinmoi in November 1986 lifted a 605-pound pumpkin with the aid of pulleys.
(Beth Clifton collage)

Stunts

Because pulleys have the same effect in weight lifting as gearing on a bicycle, Chinmoy’s feats are mostly not recognized by serious keepers of athletic records, but Chinmoy and followers came to dominate the Guinness Book of World Records with stunts also including prolific production of short poems of dubious literary value.

Though animals were not among Chinmoy’s usual lecture topics, he spoke fondly of animals, especially dogs. But his attitude toward animals was paradoxical.

According to former follower Jayanti Tamm in her 2009 book Cartwheels in a Sari: A memoir of growing up in a cult, Chinmoy “enforced a no-pet rule for his disciples,” despite keeping a basement “private zoo” including jungle cats, monkeys, and exotic birds,” some of them allegedly smuggled into the country, amid infestations of rats, mice, and cockroaches.

Chinmoy was also accused by former followers of sexual misconduct. He denied their claims.

Shamar Rinpoche Mipham Chokyi Lodro.

Tibetan Buddhists

Other gurus contributing, mostly indirectly, to the growth of animal advocacy include the Tibetan Buddhist teachers Shamar Rinpoche (1952-2014), who in January 2009 founded the Infinite Compassion Foundation “to promote the humane treatment of animals raised for consumption of their meat and other products,” and Chatral Rinpoche (1913-2015), not a direct relative, who rescued animals by purchasing them from slaughterhouses.

In 2000 Chatral Rinpoche, then 87, encouraged Lama Kunzang Dorjee to found the Jangsa Animal Saving Trust, a sanctuary for rescued farm animals and headquarters for a major regional dog vaccination and sterilization program, located in in Thimphu, Bhutan.