Ahimsa lights the way

Founder H. Jay Dinshah

Helen and Scott Nearing (holding Anne) and Brian Graff in 1974. Photo by Jay.

Jay using the typewriter. Circa 1972. Photo by Rhoda Elovitz.

“In my humble view, life is far too short and the call to service too loud and clear to waste time and energy in the pursuit of a fat wallet and a fatter paunch.”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“Whatever we are to do, we must always use the powers of love and compassion never
the negative forces of hatred and selfishness
.”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“Vegans see animals as free entities in nature, not slaves or vassals, nor as chattel, pieces of goods to be bought and sold.”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“While animal exploitation continues, we cannot hope to see real peace on Earth.”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“In the United States—an influential and affluent country—we have a moral
responsibility to do as much as we can because we have access to a great bounty of plant-food choices.”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“Ahimsa is the compassionate way of life.”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“If we permit ourselves to be bogged down in the pursuit of material things, there will probably be very little time and energy left for doing the truly important things in life.”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“Every sincere and earnest seeker
comes upon many moments of truth in a lifetime.”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“We refrain from creating the demand for the products of animal exploitation that keep the whole engine of destruction going.”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“Ahimsa is the Sanskrit word for nonkilling, noninjuring, and nonharming. Far from mere passiveness, it is a positive method for meeting the dilemmas and decisions of daily life.”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“There is nothing humane
about any creature’s untimely slaughter.”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“To understand the feelings and thoughts of another we need compassion. To adequately assess another’s circumstances and be motivated to render meaningful assistance, we should attempt to walk in the shoes, hooves, paws, or fins of another to see things from another angle and viewpoint.”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“Wisdom is the ability to put the
knowledge we have understood into practice in our daily lives.”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“Life can be a worthwhile experience of development for all who partake of it; there is no such thing as worthless life.”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“The Golden Rule does not set up a system of favors granted for goods delivered or works performed. It lights the path for us; it guides us to a superior way of acting.”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“Good that is done for the sake of self-gain defeats its own purpose insofar as the doer is concerned: good done for its own sake should be the rule, rather than the exception in life.”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“It is not by drifting downstream with the current of popular thought that we attain what is really worthwhile in life. It is by swimming upstream against the rush of current opinion, when such current leads in the wrong direction such as over the falls of selfishness, greed, or injustice.”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“Whatever others may wish to do,
we must resolve in our own hearts that we will persevere in doing the right thing even if we stand alone in doing it.”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“Dynamic harmlessness means to go
through life doing the least amount of harm, hurting, killing, as possible; and it means to do the most amount of helping, assisting, and benefiting of others as possible.”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“How is it that we humans declare ourselves the sole authority and arbiter of what is due all other creatures and what we may expect of them? These creatures are considered lower in nature’s scale of life, but it is a scale created by humans.”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“Veganism is a way of living guided by ahimsa and reverence for life.”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“Vegans recognize the value of life in all living creatures and extend to them the compassion, kindness, and justice in The Golden Rule.”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“An animal has feelings, an animal has sensitivity, an animal has a place in life, and the vegan respects this life that is manifest in the animal.”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“It is easily seen that humanity has imposed a wrongful domination and system of exploitation upon the animals who are used by us for food, clothing, and more.”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“Animal exploitation fosters in us a moral taint, a spiritual bondage, an unconscious guilt complex, and repressed sensitivities, all of which retard and inhibit our higher development.”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“We dare not hope for peace if we are at war with ourselves, if we have no harmony, no tranquility, and no order in our lives.”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“Let us attain an inner calmness, a sense of duty and purpose, and a certainty of where we are—and where we wish to go—before we look for peace in the world .”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“If we all established these attributes–calmness, sense of purpose, and certainty of path–in ourselves, we would not have much else to do to attain peace on a global scale.”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“Those of us who can do more—such as
go vegan—should do more.”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“The foundation for veganism is the inner alteration from selfishness to altruism, from ‘What’s in it for me?’ to ‘What can I do for you?”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“With a change of thinking to “What can I do for you?” what we eat or wear is not burdensome but integral to a compassionate lifestyle”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

“Ahimsa is ‘dynamic harmlessness’, which encourages nonviolent action to create positive changes.”

—Jay Dinshah, AVS founder

H. Jay Dinshah

Founder

Jay Dinshah’s posthumous book Powerful Vegan Messages is coauthored by his daughter Anne Dinshah. Jay eloquently explains the ethical reasons to be vegan. Over forty vegan luminaries share their stories of how they were influenced by Jay. Anne encourages readers to explore ways to promote positive action in the world towards veganism.

H. Jay Dinshah was a motivational speaker, lifelong vegetarian, vegan since 1957, founder of American Vegan Society in 1960, editor of Ahimsa magazine, and president of AVS for forty years. More important than the positions held or organizations founded, Jay was excellent at planning vegetarian and vegan conferences and encouraging people to get involved.

After touring a slaughterhouse in 1957, he vowed to work every day until all the slaughterhouses are closed! Jay lived every day in tireless service to the cause of helping animals by educating people. His tools of choice were veganism and ahimsa. He believed in the powers of cooperation, nonviolent action, and communication. He married his penpal Freya who worked alongside him for forty years and continues as AVS president today. Their two children are Daniel and Anne.

Organizational Leadership: In addition to leading American Vegan Society, Jay also was a cofounder of North American Vegetarian Society (NAVS) in 1974, the first NAVS president, and editor of Vegetarian Voice magazine. Various times he worked for American Natural Hygiene Society (now National Health Association) including as Acting Executive Director in 1983. He was also the first president of the Vegetarian Union of North America (VUNA) 1987-1989. Jay was on the International Vegetarian Union (IVU) Executive Committee as international council member 1967-1984 and executive vice-president 1971-1984.

Jay's Speaking, books, and awards

Speaking: Jay lectured throughout his adult life encouraging others with his powerful vegan message. He spoke in person in two dozen countries on five continents. Videos can be seen on YouTube at Powerful Vegan Messages.

Books: Some of Jay’s early lectures from the 1950s and 1960s are compiled in Health Can Be Harmless while Song of India chronicles four months of his lecture tour in 1967-1968. He edited Here’s Harmlessness: An Anthology of Ahimsa. His best-known book was Out of the Jungle: The Way of Dynamic Harmlessness, which provided much of the framework for Powerful Vegan Messages. Jay’s books and archived issues of Ahimsa magazine are available from AVS.

Awards: Jay was honored as a vice president of The Vegan Society (U.K.), inducted into the Vegetarian Hall of Fame in 1993, and awarded Vegetarian of the Year 1996 (International) from The Vegetarian Society (India). Jay received posthumously the IVU Mankar Memorial Award in 2000. Ahimsa Volume 41 Number 4 commemorates his life and work.

Purchase Jay's Books

American Vegan Society is about living compassionately without exploiting animals. We’re strong on health. I like working for positive change and a greener world.

Freya Dinshah

President, American Vegan Society

My father founded American Vegan Society to make a better world for the animals. It’s exciting to work in a time when veganism is popular!

Anne Dinshah

Vice President, American Vegan Society

American Vegan Society

Veganism

AVS is a registered 501(c)(3) organization, EIN 226058533. All donations made to the American Vegan Society are tax deductible in accordance with applicable law..