A rainbow exists. It is intrinsically a sacred, spiritual thing that initiates a religious experience for many people. It has been used as a symbol in many religions including both Judaism and Christianity. Therefore, we may say that rainbows are a ‘Religion of Being.’ Rainbows do not have churches, ceremonies, bank accounts, systems of morality and a priest caste, therefore, we may not say that rainbows are a state sponsored religion. The difference is that a rainbow does not ask one to participate, does not profit from interactions in the market place and does not serve governmental requirements, but to view a rainbow is to enter into a divine temple of life.

When the Buddha walked the Earth, when Jesus was alive, when Hinduism and the Jain traditions began, they were not religions. They were Religions of Being. They started as a method of being but were not intended to initiate corporate status. Vegan realism is the same. One purifies from being vegan, one corrects one’s Karma by going vegan, one shifts one’s consciousness by practicing a vegan diet, one derives a vegan lifestyle by having years of vegan experience and so a true transformation through the Vegan Way of Being occurs. However, there is no ceremony, no system of morality other than tempering one’s consumerism, there are no churches and there is no priest craft to this process. Therefore, going vegan is a spiritual act of the Vegan Religion of Being but it is not a state sponsored Religion.

However, this too will change and evolve over time as did Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and the Jain traditions. One day there may be ceremonies of entrance, ceremonies for seven-year cycles of renewal, marriage ceremonies and funeral rites offered to those for simply being vegan. One day systems of morality extending into ecology, concepts of private property and public commons, sexuality and human behavior may develop in vegan culture along with cosmologies of the divine. One day there may be priests and nuns and monastics of diverse Vegan practices. Then ‘Vegan’ will share the status of a state sponsored religion.