Do Plants Suffer?

‘Do Plants Suffer?’, is a common worry and preoccupation of spiritual and kind hearted individuals who are also Vegan. Sadly it is also a reason for many cruel people to remain non vegan and unable to empathise with the animal who clearly values his or her life and thrashes about in pain. Humans believe the ‘humane slaughter’ lie as if the animals are euthanized under anesthesia in slaughterhouseas. (Kindly watch Dominion documentary online to know the truth).

I normally feel the physical pain of others when I am conducting a reading and healing session, and on most occasions I am able to heal the pain or disease through my body as a highly attuned reiki healer and medium. Recently a Vegan woman online was arguing with me that plants are also sentient. I know why.

There are a few articles on the internet on plant sensitivity. Appx. 9 to 10 years ago after relocation to UK l, I was reading up on Jagdish Chandra Bose’s research on how plants feel pain and ’emotions’ while writing my Wiccan book. I was afraid of even plucking out harmful Weeds such as deadly nightshades at times due to my extreme Wiccan ethics of Non Harming or Ahimsa much to the annoyance of my landlady who was showing me the garden and asked me to remove those poisonous Weeds out brutally.

I gathered up courage and started digging the soil, trimming bushes, weeding, planting new sapling, seeds and bulbs, and honestly as a strong Empath I did not feel great pain or suffering. Infact I enjoyed it.

I figured that the main reason why many people think Plants feel pain and life of plants is of similar value as life of animals is that they do not have gardens at home or allotments to grow food in. E.g. in India most of us overthink and philosophies on Jain, Hindu and western philosophical points of views or karma and worry about plant life a lot, but we live in small flats, we do not have large enough gardens and out of touch with earth.

If we were to grow potatoes ourselves, it becomes clear that they are meant to be eaten up once they are ready. Leaving them in the soil will make them useless and rot in wet soil. Spinach will bolt up and dry out to seeds unless you keep cutting and eating them, which is how they grow back better. Turnips will decompose and be eaten by slugs as they get ripe and ready popping upwards in soil. Ginger, Rhubard and many roots propagate even if cut and scattered to bits. Roots, shoots, fruits, beans, all need to be eaten by animals and we can grow more. You can save up some seeds to replant, and consume some, or even leave some plants for wildlife.

Jainism belief in not even eating a potato or turnip sounds pretty irrational to me because I can feel the potatoes and turnip wanting to be dug out when ripe.

The only other option if you are very sympathetic to plant pain and against animal agriculture is to live off the woods in forests and forage on plants like other wild animals do, like chimps or orangutans, who are your closest relatives.

Eating animals or breeding them forcibly for milk or eggs is simply not human behavior. And certainly not for empaths.