- Reading the below scriptural content " with patience " helps you get more juice from these topics. -
In The Picture:
As per the Karma performed by each individual, Lord as a witness, records each karma of the jiva for deciding the consequences of his after life.
Every living being has a specific purpose for its existence.
The purpose, definitely, is other than being killed and eaten by others.
In the Bhagavad Gita Lord Krishna says सर्वयोनिषु कौन्तेय ( Bhagavad Gita – 14.4 ): Means – “In every living being there is a spirit soul.” That means even in the animals there is a soul, so we do not have the right to kill or eat flesh.
Just as there are government laws, so there are laws of nature, or God Laws.
If we kill then that binds us to Karma, and we will get the reaction.
The analogy of Karma means ‘To every action there is an equal opposite reaction’.
So either we do good or bad karma, we are still binding ourselves more to this material world.
Also just by seeing a meat dish on a plate does not mean everything is ok, there has been so much violence gone into it before you see the finishing product.
Lord Krishna says that he is the original father of all living entities महद्योनिरहं बीजप्रद: पिता ॥ ४ ॥ – Bhagavad Gita – 14.4, so we do not have the right to kill anyone.
If we do not have the right to give life to a living creature ( just like God does ) we also do not have the right to kill them.
who all will be responsible for the meat eating ?
The person who eats meat, is in a way, supporting and encouraging the killing of innocent creatures.
For example if few dacoits goes to rob a house, and one stands outside the house to look out and other few dacoits steal from the house, if they get caught everyone will be punished by the laws, because the person who was outside was also supporting the crime.
Similarly, one who eats meat is also involved and is liable for punishment.
Even plants and vegetables have souls and killing them unnecessarily and for personal satisfaction of our senses causes sin, that’s why it is recommended in the ancient scriptures to offer the vegetarian food to Lord Krishna / Lord Vishnu first then later eat that food as Prashadam or mercy.
The Bhagavad Gita states that food such as milk products, grains, fruits and vegetables increase the duration of life, and give strength, health, happiness and satisfaction.
Conversely, foods such as meat, fish are putrid, decomposed and unclean. They cause numerous hazards to physical health.
Srimad Bhagavatam says that Meat Eating is one of the 4 pillars of sinful life.
Apart from bringing severe sinful reactions, it also dulls the human intellect making it incapable to understand the higher dimensions of life.
- “He, who orders to kill animals,
- He who cuts the flesh,
- He who kills the animals,
- Seller and buyer of animals for killing,
- He who cooks meat,
- He who serves meat and
- He who eats meat these are all killers and sinner.
People do not know how nature is working. If you kill, you must be killed.
If you kill the cow, who is your mother, then in some future lifetime your mother will kill you. ( Examples are abortions ) The mother becomes the child, and the child becomes the mother.
Killing any animal for the satsifaction of the senses is a dangerous sin and one has to suffer its sinful reaction in this life or the next.
That individual would also not be excused from the entrance into the multiple hells.
Human is not made for a non-vegetarian diet. One cannot escape this – “Life for life.” That is the law everywhere. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
presence of a soul inside the animals
The law of karma does not excuses that individual who kills / eats the flesh of the animals ( just for a few minutes tastes of their tongues ) that are innocent and that never disturb us.
If there is no electricity, how can the instruments function? If there is no soul, none of the living beings has the ability to function and think.
Because of the presence of the soul, the animals could show their knowledge and emotions such as gratitude to their masters who feed them.
Without the presence of a soul,
- They could not move.
- They could not eat.
- They could not survive.
- When the soul leaves from the body, they become just a material after something from inside the body leaves. ( a spirit soul )
That operating element in the animal / human beings is called the soul or aatma.
What to speak of the humans and animals even the plants and trees have the presence of the soul inside of them.
Have you seen the plant Mimosa pudica (also called sensitive plant, sleepy plant, action plant, touch-me-not, shameplant) that shrinksin size when we touch the leaf?
Do you know that Tulasi plant that is ‘used in worship’ dies when we touch her with unclean body or when some animals eat some of the leaves?
Even the plants have the level of consciousness required for their life management.
That is the difference between a living body and a dead body. When the soul is out of the body, the body is called dead.
What does other religions say about meat eating ?
In Christianity, The Old Testament instructs,
“Thou shall not kill.” (Exodus 20:13) This is traditionally misinterpreted as referring only to murder.
But the original Hebrew is lo tirtzach, which clearly translates “Thou shalt not kill.”
Dr. Reuben Alcalay’s Complete Hebrew/English Dictionary says that the word tirtzach, especially in classical Hebrew usage, refers to “any kind of killing,” and not necessarily the murder of a human being.
In Thus Spake Mohammed(the translation of the Hadith by Dr. M. Hafiz Syed), the disciples of the prophet Mohammed ask him, “Verily are there rewards for our doing good to quadrupeds, and giving them water to drink?”
Mohammed answers, “There are rewards for benefiting every animal.”
Lord Buddha is known particularly for His preaching against animal killing.
He established ahimsa (nonviolence) and vegetarianism as fundamental steps on the path to self-awareness and spoke the following two maxims,
- “Do not butcher the ox that plows thy fields,” and
- “Do not indulge a voracity that involves the slaughter of animals.”
The Annushasen Parva, Mahabharat says “Undoubtedly all those human beings who prefer meat to several forms of food are like vultures.”
The Manusmrti says “All supporters of meat eating are sinners.” It further states, “One whose meat I eat will eat my flesh in the next life.”
Guru Nanak, Founder of the Sikh Faith, said “My disciples do not take meat and wine.”
The Acharang Sutra of the Jain Faith said, “All creatures desire self-preservation, hence no creature should be slaughtered.”
Islam, Prophet Muhammad “whoever is kind to the creatures of God, is kind to himself.”
– The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), narrated by Abdallah bin Amru in Bukhari and Muslim collections.
The Vedic scriptures of India, also stress nonviolence as the ethical foundation of vegetarianism.
- “Meat can never be obtained without injury to living creatures,” states the Manu-samhita.
- “Let one therefore shun the use of meat.” In another section, the Manu-samhita warns, “Having well considered the disgusting origin of flesh and the cruelty of fettering and slaying of corporeal beings, let one entirely abstain from eating flesh.”
In the Mahabharata ( which contains 100,000 verses and is said to be the longest shlokas scripture in the world ), there are many injunctions against killing animals. Some verses:
- “He who desires to increase the flesh of his own body by eating the flesh of other creatures lives in misery in whatever species he may take his birth.”
- ”Who can be more cruel and selfish than he who augments his flesh by eating the flesh of innocent animals?”
- “Those who desire to possess good memory, beauty, long life with perfect health, and physical, moral and spiritual strength, should abstain from animal food.”
All living entities possess a soul.
In the Bhagavad-Gita, Lord Krishna describes the soul as the source of consciousness and the active principle that activates the body of every living being.
In the Srimad-Bhagavatam purports, Srila Prabhupada says,
- “All living entities ( souls ) have to fulfil a certain duration for being encaged in a particular type of material body.
- They have to finish the duration allotted in a particular body before being promoted or evolved to another body.
- Killing an animal or any other living simply places an impediment in the way of his completing his term of imprisonment in a certain body.
- One should therefore not kill bodies for one’s sense gratification ( owns senses satisfaction ), for this will implicate one in sinful activity.”
In short, killing an animal disturbs its progressive evolution through the species, and the killer will invariably suffer the reaction for this sinful behavior.
natural calamities due to killing of the animals
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. No theory, no law, and no prayer say to attack and destroy others.
If the activities are not in the interest of nature or society, the bad effects occur to the society.
Human greediness is responsible for mischievous activities such as ENROACHING the animal kingdom AND killing them for consumption OR for the animal products.
Being the less powerful, they may not be revolting directly to us when they are butchered, BUT the pain in their souls and that hurting nature in the group of animals will haunt the attackers OR humans directly or indirectly if not in this present birth, maybe in the next births as per the LAWS OF KARMA.
If the problems are aggravated, the revolt reactions may directly hit humans with epidemic infections like H1N1, Swine flu, and Coronavirus, etc.
Sometimes the reverse effects will be visible as natural calamities like earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunamis, etc.
COVID19 - corona virus - Observations
The scientists suspect the Coronavirus is passed from animals to humans as some of the earlier infections were caused due to the transmission of the virus from animals to humans in Wuhan city.
The historians say that the 1918 flu which infected over a quarter of the world population and killed 50 million people is caused by the H1N1 virus originated from Kansas chicken form.
ED Winter, British animal activists known as Earthling Ed says Covid19 was caused by eating animals.
The viruses and diseases such as
- Avian flu,
- Ebola,
- HIV,
- SwineFlu,
- SARS, etc.
are caused by infections from animals. He further says the diseases are caused due to the exploitation of animals and start encroaching, farming wildlands for one’s own business.
He also claims that the human’s risk factor can be minimized if one goes for a vegetarian. Homayoon Farzadegan a professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University says,
“The animal to human diseases rises if one stays nearer to the animals and consuming animal products.”
Imbalance of Nature
Any corrupt deed caused to nature may chase until it gets revenged or retaliated.
Once bad deeds are dominant in society, nature becomes imbalance and may explode one day as natural calamities and epidemic diseases like the Coronavirus, which spreads globally without any boundaries, any religion, and race.
These are the consequences of the unethical behavior of humans such as ,
- Encroachment of wildland,
- Deforestation,
- Killing and eating of animals or insects,
- Corruptive nature to cheat others, etc.
Killing / eating of animals
Killing animals and eating of animals meat is also considered to be bad deeds or unethical activity, which leads to a curse. It leads to bad karma.
Not only killing BUT participating or witnessing people are also cursed. But the degree of punishment is different and depends on the type of involvement.
Thus we say karma is different for different people.
The animals are also living species, they are part and parcel ( अंश ) of the Supreme Lord.
Once in Delhi, a monkey was killed accidentally by a truck driver.
Suddenly nearly hundreds of monkeys joined and wounded all people and then took away the dead monkey in a procession. The traffic was interrupted and the incident continued for nearly two hours on the main road.
The purpose of illustrating this particular incident is to convey that the animals and insects have unity.
If once animals or insects are killed, they continue to chase and take revenge on attackers either in this life period or next.
The impact of karma may be in any form to the actual doer or maybe to the whole community living in the same country or whole world.
It may be either a direct attack or in the form of infection through epidemics. – As A Revenge From The Natrure For The Ones Who Cannot Defend Themselves.
egg - is it vegetarian or non vegetarian ?
Eggs are liquid flesh, the yellow part of the eggs which is the yolk is the liquid flesh which is able to develop into a bird and the white part is the food for the developing bird.
Eggs contain a single unfertilized cell – the yolk which when fertilized has the ability to grow into a new and unique organism – i.e. LIFE.
The most obvious answer is that an egg comes out of a chicken. It is not from an aubergine or the child of a mango.
It is from the sexual organs of an animal. Therefore it cannot be vegetarian.
Why does the chicken have eggs ? In order to reproduce. The eggs are menstrual blood. If fertilized they turn into chicks.
So they cannot be vegetarian by any definition of that term. The one eating the eggs should not excuse himself / herself by confusing the definition of the term.
Egg is 100% NON Vegetarian as it comes out of the flesh and turns into a fully grown chicken.
Eating them would create the same sinful reactions as that of eating the flesh of the other animals.
punishment in one of the 28 main hells, for killing / eating the animal flesh
“ यस्त्विह वा उग्र: पशून् पक्षिणो वा प्राणत उपरन्धयति तमपकरुणं पुरुषादैरपि विगर्हितममुत्र यमानुचरा: कुम्भीपाके तप्ततैले उपरन्धयन्ति ॥ १३ ॥
Kumbhīpāka (कुम्भीपाक).— One of the twenty eight narakas (hells). It is intended for the cruel folk, who kill for food, harmless animals and birds ( also who eats them ).
Since such cruel folk are roasted in Kumbhī fire the hell came to be known by this name.
Big vessels full of boiling oil are kept there and the servants of Yama push the sinners into them.
One who had killed an animal ( / ate their flesh ) will be kept in the boiling oil for as many years as the number of hair,the animal killed by him, had on its body.
( Srimad Bhagavatam – 5.26.13 , Devī Bhāgavata, 8th Skandha )
Conclusion
We, the living species are under the control of the law of nature and law Karma.
We run on the basic action and reaction theory.
Nature and ecology are imbalanced by our unethical activities for self goals.
The mischievous activities (encroachment of wildlands and killing animals) chase and torture us and may take lives through any mode as natural calamities and epidemic infections.
These global ill effects are visible from the year 1918 scenario as well as the recent scenario of pandemic Coronavirus (COVID19).
Thus one should coordinate with nature and living species, without harming anyone as they (animals, etc.) are part the part of the Supreme Being. Even they have equal rights to survive.
Thus to be in a healthy environment we have to be in a mode of goodness ( सत्वगुण ) as a vegetarian.
Which are the best foodstuffs to be consumed ?
There is no need for men to eat animals and occur a sinful actions, there is an ample supply of grains, vegetables, fruits and milk.
Such simple foodstuff is considered to be in the mode of goodness according to the Bhagavad Gītā.
Those who indulge in animal food, drinking or smoking will suffer sinful reactions because of eating only polluted things.
The Hari-bhakti-vilasa lists some of the foods that can be offered to Sri Krishna first and then can be consumed:
- Items made from grains, ghee, and sugar. Grains, especially rice, should always be offered with ghee.
- The Lord is pleased when offered items made with ghee, sugar, yogurt, guda (jaggery), and honey; chickpea preparations, dals, soups (wet sabjis), varieties of cakes, and other items that can be licked, chewed, sucked, or drunk are all pleasing as well ( those in the mode of goodness )
- One may also offer drinks such as sugarcane juice, yogurt drinks, sweetened lemon water, water flavored with cinnamon, camphor, or cardamom, and fruit drinks of various scents and colors.
- Bilva
- Amalaki
- Dates
- Coconut
- Jackfruit
- Grapes
- Tala fruit
- Lotus root
- Leafy vegetables
- Cowmilk products ( there are many varieties )
In a letter Srila Prabhupada described foods in the mode of goodness and how to present them to the Lord, “Foodstuffs in the modes of goodness are wheat, rice, pulse (beans, peas), sugar, honey, butter, and all milk preparations, vegetables, flowers, fruits, grains.
So these foods can be offered in any shape, but prepared in various ways by the intelligence of the devotees.”