Re: ### eating in india
Namaste Sant,
Yes, it's sad to see how the norms of the West can, once again, dismantle a culture and change people's perceptions of should and shouldn't be. Not even that, it can promote a society to take up a habit that eventually can amalgamate itself into the culture, such as eating beef. I have always believed very strongly that the rise of the West could mean the fall of a culture. Maybe not so drastically as it might have happened a hundred odd years ago, but it happens still, and because it is so much more insidious in today's modern world, it is in a sense all the more dangerous.
Allow me to fill in the Christian's understanding of beef-eating. The God in the Bible has never explicitly forbidden man to consume flesh, much less that of any one animal. While man was still in paradise, all animals were vegetarians. Following man's fall from grace, all the animals supposedly began to prey on each other. The Christian God later allowed man to eat animal flesh after the Great Flood: "Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you will fall upon all of the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands. Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, now I give you everything." (Gen. 9:1-3)
Man essentially is given mastery over all animals and is told he can eat anything. There are parts of the Bible that go into details about "clean" (animals that would have been suitable for sacrifice) and "unclean" meats. Clean meats would have included beef, lamb, goat, deer - any animal that chewed the cud and had a divided hoof. Yes, some of these animals are actually listed in the Bible as being "fit" to eat. "Unclean" animals included rabbits, hares, pigs and shellfish. You see then, Sant, that this is not the same God as Krishna or Shiva who made people understand that some animals, such as the cow, are particularly dear to God. Cows are not seen as sacred, by any means by Christians and Jews (I cannot speak for Islamic beliefs), and they never were. I think such ideals in Jewish times would have been condemned as idolatry. The closest I can remember anybody venerating the cow in the Bible was the episode after Moses comes back from Mt. Sinai with the Ten Commandments and he finds the people dancing and celebrating and worshipping a golden calf (this god they were worshipping was very likely a derivative the bull-god, Apis, they had brought back with them from their exodus from Egypt). Needless to say, thousands were slaughtered and the people repented for their "evil" sins. I've always wondered if maybe this could be a reason why modern day Christians might find the Hindu custom of venerating the cow so repulsive.
"Watch your thoughts, they become words.
Watch your words, they become actions.
Watch your actions, they become habits.
Watch your habits, they become your character.
Watch your character, it becomes your destiny."
ॐ गं गणपतये नमः
Om Gam Ganapataye namah
लोकाः समस्ताः सुखिनो भवन्तु ।
Lokaah SamastaaH Sukhino Bhavantu
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