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

“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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

(See Tibetan Buddhist animal advocate Shamar Rinpoche, 62.)

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