2008 Philosophy Slam: (1st prize in 3rd grade)

Is Global Warming the Greatest Challenge Facing Humankind?

Global warming is a symptom of disconnect from our divine nature. Since we are not connected to our divine nature, we think that everything in this world is for our enjoyment. Like Mahatma Gandhi once said, “There is enough for every man’s need, but not enough for one man’s greed.” When we are not satisfied with what we have, we think by getting more, we will be happy but instead of being happy, we want more.

Every year I go to a rural village in India. It’s so simple there, with hardly any material opulence, but still I love it because of its spiritual atmosphere. The freshness of the air, the sound of the birds chirping mixed with sacred chants, the taste of fresh water and the brilliance of the sky fills me up with wonder and happiness. I feel as if I don’t need TV, computer games, etc, but when I am home, I feel as if I can’t live without them. Just like if you take a fish out of water and give it an opulent bed, nice food and drinks it will not be happy, but when you put it back into the water, it will perfectly satisfied.

In the same way, since we are spiritual beings, all these material objects can never make us happy, instead they make us hanker for more. As Saint Francis of Assisi showed in his life, he gave up all his wealth and lived as a hermit, serving the creation of god. He was always happy and peaceful.

We have this great spiritual hankering but we try to fill it up with material objects. We are never satisfied, so we keep on consuming and exploiting nature. Before cars were invented people either walked on foot or used horse drawn carriages. Then people thought that horse stool caused too much pollution and that it took too much time to get from one place to another. In due course of time people invented cars. We thought that our problems have ended, but cars only caused more pollution than horse carriages. When we try to solve material problems with material solutions, it causes more problems than before.

A polluted environment is a symptom of our polluted consciousness. We try to find happiness in material objects, but material happiness does not make us happy. It is like a mirage. We keep on chasing after it but we never reach it. In the process we exploit and use nature. That causes pollution, and pollution causes problems like global warming etc. So global warming is just a symptom of disconnect from our divine nature.

WHY I'M A VEGETARIAN

(This essay won first prize in the 9-14 age group with Vegetarian Resource Group – vrg.org)

To save animals from being ruthlessly killed, to make earth a more natural place, to create peace and harmony in the world, this is what vegetarianism is about.

Vegetarianism is good for animals and humans alike. When we save animals from being mercilessly killed, nature flourishes and when nature flourishes, humans live happily in peace. Here are some of the incidents that deepened my faith in vegetarianism.

I went to school when I was 5 years old. It was lunch break. We got our lunch bags which were hanging on silver, metal pegs .We knew which table was ours because our tables were assigned .I walked to my table with my lunch box. My table was dark red with brown chairs that had black spots. I sat on my chair and opened my Spider-man lunch box.

I was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Right in front of me, there was a boy eating chicken, sitting on same table as me. He was the tallest kid in my class. He put the piece of chicken in his mouth and then bit into it, while his mouth was open. It looked repulsive to me. "Close your mouth and eat", I said to him. This was the first time I saw some one eating meat so up close. I went home and discussed this with my parents. It really impacted me. I thought "if animals killed humans for food how would I feel."

One hot afternoon my mom, dad and I had gone to DC to see the Smithsonian museum. I was just walking around when I saw this video made by PETA at a booth they had set up. It showed how they kill animals in slaughter houses. It caught my eye. The movie was very bloody and sad. I saw bleeding cows being tortured to death and beaks of chickens being cut off with burning iron. Seeing the movie made me think what pain the animals must be going through. That's why I am happy that I am a vegetarian.

Another problem with meat eating is that so much grain is wasted to feed one animal which will then be slaughtered. People are burning down huge forests and lot of land to get more space to grow grains, that will be fed to animals and then they will kill animals in slaughter houses. One may fatten an animal a lot, but still one won't get a lot of food. One pound of meat requires 16 pounds of grains, which could feed many hungry people.

My whole family for generations has been vegetarians, and I was brought up on a meatless diet. We believe that eating meat gives one bad karma. So, many families in India do not eat meat. Karma is the reaction of every action that we perform in our lives. So, if we perform good acts, we get good results, and if we do harm to others, you get harmed yourself in this life or the next.

I like the taste of vegetarian food because it tastes so pure to me. Sometimes I help my mom make flatbreads. Some people think that if you are a vegetarian then you can't eat too much but, actually there are a lot of vegetarian preparations.

One Sunday there was a festival in our temple and there were exactly 108different preparations which were all vegetarian. So, that means that vegetarians have a lot of different preparations. I enjoyed the preparations that day and yet I was unable to taste everything.

My favorite foods are pizza, pasta, Indian flatbreads, Mexican cuisine, bread, and tomato juice. I also like fruits such as apple, mango, lychee, berries and watermelon.

I am happy being a vegetarian, I feel like I am saving so many animals, forest and mother earth. I may not be able to go into the world and save animals, but this is my little contribution in trying to preserve the natural world in which I live.