In Conversation: Vedanta Teacher Acharya Prashant and PETA India Director Poorva Joshipura Discuss Speciesism, Compassion, and Being Vegan

Posted on by Shreya Manocha

Vedanta teacher, founder of the PrashantAdvait Foundation, and winner of PETA India’s 2022 Most Influential Vegan award, Acharya Prashant, advocates for protection of the natural world, compassion for animals, female empowerment, and living a life of compassion and honesty. Through his presence in person and on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, he’s shown how being vegan is an essential part of humanity. Poorva Joshipura is a member of the board of directors for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India and its former CEO, and she’s a senior vice president of PETA Foundation in the UK. She is also the author of For a Moment of Taste: How What You Eat Impacts Animals, the Planet and Your Health, a book about how India’s animals suffer for food.

In this breezy 90-minute video, Acharya Prashant and Poorva get personal as they discuss the moments that brought them to a more enlightened view of our relationship to animals. These two philosophical activists talk about speciesism, the misguided assumption that humans are “superior” to other sentient beings, and how this idea leads to cruelty – not only to animals but also other humans. They examine what it means to “see the individual”: looking into the eyes of a living, feeling being on their way to slaughter reveals so much about that animal and so much about ourselves.

The fascinating discussion also details the importance of going vegan – for our health and the planet, as an industry that raises and kills animals for food is unsustainable. After watching the video, you’re sure to have a new perspective on living right.

Eat better. Feel better. Don’t support cruelty to animals. Go vegan.

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