View of Western Meateaters

[connyxoberst]

Pranam

vidya-vinaya-sampanne
brahmane gavi hastini
suni caiva sva-pake ca
panditah sama-darsinah


An enlightened person, sees with equal vision a learned and gentle brahmana, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a dog-eater [outcaste].
(5.18)



Hindu scripture does not support your view.



rebirth is not of the species but the soul, according to its desires.





Living force within all being is the same, only difference is the level of consciousness

We see all living being"equally" because the paramatma is situated in all of their hearts, .
Seeing the oneness of all living entities is to see the paramatma and the atma, who is the true living entity in the body.



Ideally no living life should be killed (ahimsa), but the shastra says all life lives at the expense of another's life. Even if you are vegetarian, you must take the life of so many plants to sustain your body.

According to the development of consciousness, pain is experienced by different forms of life differently. It is more sinful to harm those life forms that have developed higher conscious awareness, as their suffering will be greater. According to the scriptures, plants have the lowest conscious awareness, and therefore it is much less sinful to take the life of a plant over a human (or cow, dog, chicken, etc.). Still sin will be involved, but the harm caused is much less than the harm caused to a fully conscious living entity.
Jai Shree Krishna

i have not yet read scriptures, just stories and quotes from scriptures, so i hope you can forgive my ignorance at the moment.

"rebirth is not of the species but the soul, according to its desires"
i agree to the point that i believe the next life is determined by its desires, the karmic balance of the lives preceding, i just think instead of it determining what you come back as, it determines WHO and WHERE and how hard you will struggle.

so basically you are saying that a plant is below us in consciousness, but an animal is equal?
so does that mean if in your next life you come back as a lion you will still have enough consciousness in your heart to eat grass instead of hunt?
or is it that the herbivore animals have a higher consciousness than the carnivore or omnivores?

[Eastern Mind]

Namaste:

Here is my take. Others may differ.

Patterns of reincarnation do have to do with past karmas. Often people also remain within a family, or with a close friend. For example, you might give birth to your grandmother if the two of you were close. This is because the disembodied soul 'hangs around' in familiar places. A strong desire may also determine a birth.

Normally we do not reincarnate as animals, although it does happen. One example is alcoholics. They die so confused and addicted, they are often reborn as dogs to live out that karma. Another time is in a sudden tragic accident. The soul body has no time to prepare in this case, and enters the other side very confused, and may latch onto (into) the first creature it sees. But these situations are unusual.

Animals have lesser evolved souls than us, and are of a slightly different nature. Animals who are in groups (ants, bees, birds, etc) have what are termed 'group souls'.

Aum Namasivaya

[Hiwaunis]

Thanks for the replies.


I like learning about religions and cultures, and trying to understand how various people come to view our world. I've read some holy texts such as the Qur'an, Bhagavad Gita, and the Bible, and have taken classes on religious studies, but nothing substitutes for getting out there and talking to people. Most people I know don't know a thing about eastern religions, but I'm interested in learning about as many viewpoints as possible.


I agree. It's very inconsistent. People would be horrified if their pet was killed but think nothing of their dinner.


I don't think that's the case for most Christians. Maybe some fundamentalists think like that, but none that I have personally met thought that snakes are evil. My dad's a Christian and he bought me a pet snake when I was little.

I think your second point about developing an emotional attachment is the real reason.

-Lyn

Pranam,
People here in Texas eat rattle snakes and the balls of a goat (they call them mountain oysters). I have come to learn that people will eat anything that doesn't eat them first.

As for me I am a vegatarian. I was taught to eat meat by my parents. There is a passage in the Bible, Genesis ch1, vs 29 in which God tells man what he should eat. The next verse states what animals should eat. Then, later in that same Bible God changed his mind and decided to let people eat meat. I am not sure of the chapter or verse. If anyone wants the facts I can provide them.

Anyway I questioned family and friends about meat eating. I could not get any sensible answers so I decided to go with the original command. I was later introduced to one of the Hindu faiths which my teacher informed me that being a vegatarian would benefit my meditation practice.

FYI, I have not eaten meat for over 20 years and my health has not been affected at all.

Namaste,

[Ganeshprasad]

Pranam

i have not yet read scriptures, just stories and quotes from scriptures, so i hope you can forgive my ignorance at the moment.
so basically you are saying that a plant is below us in consciousness, but an animal is equal?

It is not for me to judge, we are all ignorant that’s why we suffer in this material world, the fact you are asking questions it is a great start, the danger is if you speculate you may not always arrive at correct knowledge.

Eating sleeping mating and defending is common to all the animals, pain and suffering is felt amongst all sentient being this is un denying fact, that is why there is a lot of emphasis on ahimsa in Hindu Dharma
what sets the human apart is their ability to discriminate between right and wrong, good and bad, human life is to enquire in to, the reason for life, the secret of creation if we just dwell in eating, sleeping, defending and mating then there is no difference between them and us.

Infect we come second best compared to animal kingdom in those four departments. We work very very hard all our life to amass a lot of wealth for what? So that we can do what they do! An elephant can eat more, monkeys are better at sex, bear can sleep better (we need pills) and they can also defend. Look at the lunacy of our defence, we have enough power to destroy the world.

Point here is if we don’t use our intelligence to know the absolute truth then we are wasting our valuable human life, and if our propensity is to enjoy the material life, then animal or a plant kingdom offers a better facility, like if one is overly attached to sleeping then the bear life or a hedgehog life is more suitable. This is a simple example to illustrate how the system works, of course there are complex reasons as to why and how this Karma works. Lord Krishna Says ‘Ghana Karmno Gati’ The intricacies of action are very hard to understand

And he further explains

yam yam vapi smaran bhavam
tyajaty ante kalevaram
tam tam evaiti kaunteya
sada tad-bhava-bhavitah

Whatever state of being one remembers when he quits his body, that state he will attain without fail.
B.G 8.6

so does that mean if in your next life you come back as a lion you will still have enough consciousness in your heart to eat grass instead of hunt?

If some one comes back as a lion then it will follow its natural instinct.

Jai Shree Krishna

[Spiritualseeker]

Namaste,

When I feel ready and my practice is matured enough I will perhaps become a vegetarian. Until then I think I shouldnt rush into it and then perhaps a year or two for now I find out that I dont want to follow Sanatana Dharma. So let me take it slow until I feel God guiding me towards the vegan way.

-juan

[Eastern Mind]

People here in Texas eat rattle snakes and the balls of a goat (they call them mountain oysters).


FYI, I have not eaten meat for over 20 years and my health has not been affected at all.

Namaste,

Here in Alberta, the Texas of Canada, they call them 'prairie oysters' and its calves, not goats. That culture is ridiculous, but I love them all the same. I've been veggie now for 35 years. It is flesh after all, corpses of animals. I also had many issues with it in childhood. one was the animal screaming.

Aum Namasivaya

[connyxoberst]

fish and poultry: same as animals? or a step down between animals and plants?

i have cut pork and cow from my diet. not sure about the lighter meats though, wanted some opinions

thank you!

[Hiwaunis]

Here in Alberta, the Texas of Canada, they call them 'prairie oysters' and its calves, not goats. That culture is ridiculous, but I love them all the same. I've been veggie now for 35 years. It is flesh after all, corpses of animals. I also had many issues with it in childhood. one was the animal screaming.

Aum Namasivaya

Pranam,
I am curious, why are the names changed. For example, why is cow meat called beef and pig meat called pork? Why is goat and calves balls (testicals) called oysters? In mexico they eat menudo and barbacoa which is cow brains and linning of the stomach. In the south they eat chitterlings which is the pig intestines. Why the fancy names and not what it really is, cow brains, cow stomach and pig gutts, etc?

Namaste,

[bhaktajan]

Q. fish and poultry: same as animals?

"anima" means Soul in Latin [it is obvious that this word "anima" also, implies 'animation' for that is the priniciple constitution of the presence of the Soul's life-force].

Eyes, Limbs method of reproduction [male + female] and the acts of eating/sleeping/mating/defending are all common traits of a life-forms [humans require free-will descrimination to accomplish these things].

Manu-samhita states, 'poultry has least karma' [can some one corroborate this please?].

But now adays the meat industry implicates patrons in a very messy matrix of blame [funky/tangled/impersonal brand of Karma] because of the vast overlapping source of multi-contributing accessories-to-the-crime.

Factory-farming & Pharmacutical engineering and Water & Land management factors accure a tangled web of karmic-obligatiopns that only subside when a soul takes birth to experience the same "quality-of-life" that the beasts were put through in service to others passing pleasures once upon a prairie frontier in some distant time and backwood butcher's caress.

[sunyata07]

Namaste,

I view meat eating in the West as a mix between ignorance and to some extent, the lifestyle of individuals within a society. The ignorance of course comes from not understanding the karmic benefits of abstaining from eating the flesh of living beings, but the lifestyle could play an even bigger part than that I think. The attitudes of the society towards meat eating is a big factor on whether or not people are going to be more prone to vegetarianism. A lot of Westerners are of some Christian background, and a lot of them will quote from the Bible (or as best as they can) about how animals were created for man's domination, and many will interpret this as being the greenlight for eating meat. The Bible even states that it's ok to "eat every moving thing that liveth" (Gen 9:3) except for consuming the blood, sometime after the Great Flood. Even if a Westerner isn't the religious type, some of them are often indifferent about the issue and continue to eat meat anyway.

I think if you are considering or are becoming vegetarian, it is a good idea to go slowly. I don't see the benefit in suddenly giving your diet a 180, mostly because you'll need to start changing your lifestyle and knowing what kind of vegetables and cereals you'll have to include in your diet to give yourself the right kind of nutrition. Take your time. Study your options. When I became vegetarian a few years ago it was more of a realisation that I hadn't eaten meat in over 2 weeks and that I was really ok with it. I thought to myself I could keep this up. And while I'm still only a pescatarian vegetarian, I have been keeping fish in my diet for health reasons. I think I may eventually move onto full vegetarianism in the future, and thereafter maybe even veganism? It's hard to say until I get there first. Good luck to everyone who is going green!