Vegetarianism: Ethics in Practice.
Posted on March 20th, 2012 | Filed under Academic, Challenges, Community, Featured, Interfaith, Leadership, Learning, Philosophy, Popular Culture, Social Issues, Theology
Tagged with Atheism, Belief, community, God, Humanism, identity, Interfaith, love, morality, Peace, pluralism, questioning, Religion, Scripture, tolerance, transformation, Violence
To the Divine and Respected,
It was fourth grade and I’d just started my journey in the New World. Brought up in a traditional, orthodox Hindu family, it was not until I started attending elementary school I’ve started to question the importance of being a vegetarian. My fellow classmates used to ridicule me, “Hey Sai, look, I’m eating your cow.”
I used to simply smile and eat my Paratha with potato spices. Then they would watch me in shock as I would quietly close my eyes, turning inward. I would pray meditatively, “Brahmarpanam Brahma Havir, Brahmagnau Brahmana Hutam, Brahmaiva Tena Ghantavyam, Brahmakarma Samadhinaha: The act of offering is God (Atma-the Self), the oblation is God (Atma-the Self), By God (Atma-the Self) it is offered into the Fire of God (Atma-the Self), God (Atma-the Self) is That which is to be attained by him, Who sees God (Atma-the Self) in all.”
I still remember the days when my classmates questioned why I was a vegetarian. I really didn’t have an answer. Like the rest of the world, I was brought up around a community and a family that conditioned my mind to follow a certain life style. After all, the mind is nothing but an agglomeration of thoughts. Our mind is constantly influenced by other people’s actions and thoughts.
From the day we enter this world, our parents teach us what to live like. Then our friends tell us what to be like while our teachers teach us what we should or shouldn’t learn. From all of this, our mind learns to build an ego that defines our identity and our physical form. Thus, we continue to concern our lives with building up the greatest ego, stand out from the crowd, and define ourselves as someone or something. All identification that is created is for the physical body and thus we get caught up in this action of creating an identity.
But is this really the goal of life? I mean, we only live a maximum of a hundred years and through it all are we just trying to create an identity? After all, “Sai” was just a name given to me by my parents but who am I…really?
Well, that is quite a deep question I’ll leave for another article, but what I am trying to say is that while we build our ego, there is one way we can dismantle our ego or control it. That is in living a life with a selfless attitude. One of the first steps that we can all take as conscious, intelligent, and civilized human beings is seeing other forms of life as part of the Divine.
You don't have to be religious for this, by the way. This notion seems to be missing from today’s world. Somehow humans are all of a sudden “superior” than animals. This idea baffles me. Just because we are “intelligent” human beings does not mean we have right to take other lives, not just human life but animal life and every other form of life for that matter. There are so many religious people who define themselves as “God-conscious,” they preach through a text, live by the text, and use the text to promote their own interpretation… further conditioning their mind and conditioning other people’s mind. But not once do they question the text nor do they practically apply the text.
When I turned eighteen and I started to question the concept of vegetarianism, my parents gave me the option of eating meat. They said, “Look you live in America. Everyone here eats meat and if you feel like it is the right thing to do then do it, but as a civilized human being, understand the importance of life, the life we gave to you and the life you give to others.”
I’ve realized that as an adult now, I don’t have to be conditioned anymore and that it is up to me to question the world and seek answers to "truths" that are heavily put in practice. I’ve obviously never touched meat but I questioned the Vedas, the earliest of Hindu Scriptures that speak of "Ahimsa."
They say, “himsAm na kuryAt- do not cause injury.” Then I looked at history of Hinduism and the various Saints and Sages who echoed this message. Divine spiritual masters, one after the other, made it a mandatory prerequisite that in order to achieve Liberation from the cycle of Life and Death, the first step in the path is to give up all meat and cause no harm to anyone or any living thing.
Then there was a very lean man in the 20th century who decided to take the saying "Ahimsa Paramoh Dharmaha- Non-Violence is a Supreme Virtue,” talked about in the Bhagavad Gita, and put it in practice. “Maha” – the Great, “Atma” –the Self (a title bestowed upon him), Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi proved to the world that having moral strength is more important than physical strength to fight wars. For the first time, we saw a man who fought a battle with his morals and ethics and bought a nation, robbed of its wealth, culture, and principles by many rulers, to independence.
Unfortunately, many of us living today are stuck in a dualistic illusion. “I” am different and separate from you, therefore, I am better than you. All religions preach that there is One Truth and One God but not all emphasize the concept of non-violence strictly as an ethical practice.
In my opinion, ANYONE who claims to have any religious authority must first give up all harm they are inflicting on any living form and follow the principle of non-violence. Every religion claims that the entire universe is the creation of the Creator. But the followers of those very religions barbarically kill and eat the creation of the Creator. Tell me, people of the worlds’ religions, why would the Creator create such a creation? So it could be consumed, slaughtered, and ravaged? Animals are pre-programmed to fulfill their stomach and find shelter, but don’t humans, who claim they are so superior to other life forms, know any better? The more barbaric we are, the closer we become to the animal kingdom and the farther we are from living a human [e] life. When humans acknowledge that other living beings have the same right to life as humans do, the human consciousness rises. When this occurs, we just might stop fighting with each other.
Furthermore, somehow killing an animal for giving food to the hungry is justified? This is very mind boggling and pure nonsense. Uncivilized thinking in religions comes when one justifies that man must kill animals to survive. In the Hindu tradition, we consider a cow to be sacred of all living animals. We drink her milk; therefore, she is our mother. What is sinful is to kill the mother that gives us milk. To believe that lower species of life do not have a Atman (self) like the human beings is absolute foolishness.
Swami Srila Prabhupada of the Krishna Consciousness Movement once said in a conversation with Cardinal Danielou, “the animal eats to maintain his body, and you also eat in order to maintain your body. The cow eats grass in the field, and the human being eats meat from a huge slaughterhouse full of modern machines. But just because you have big machines and a ghastly scene, while the animal simply eats grass, this does not mean that you are so advanced that only within your body is there a soul and that there is not a soul within the body of the animal. That is illogical. We can see that he basic characteristics are the same in the animal and the human being.”
If we wanted to eat animals, God can provide us with claws and fangs. God will give us that ability. But there is a reason for being human, to embrace and love other living things that do not have the same ability to question the metaphysical search for the meaning of life. This is why God has created us so that in our own quest to understand God, we can also understand the creation of God.
In conclusion, regardless of the religion you follow, kindness is a universal ethic. The greatest devotion of "God" or the Cosmic Manifestation, is to not just preach religion and the word of God through an external manifestation (forced religious conversion, proselytizing, acquiring material benefits, waging "Holy War") but by introspective invocation of the Divine potential that resides in all of us. Through this we can all grow towards compassion, love, harmony, and peace with one another. Live and let live.
I will leave you, the reader, to explore the benefits of pursuing a vegetarian diet, the ethics behind it and the spiritual progress that it supplements. If one’s physical body cannot allow for a vegetarian diet (for deficiency reasons), then one must at least resort to performing a prayer before they eat inciting that they are eating as a necessity to live among other living beings. Such a prayer will bring humility to oneself and respect the food that is provided to him/her through whatever means. By being vegetarian we can reduce the amount of violence we cause to other living beings and thus, work towards our own progress of understanding each other.
For any comments or questions: saisantoshkolluru [at] gmail [dot] com. Anyone interested in joining a Hindu-Dharma Faith Based Think-Tank, please contact Sai Kolluru.
12 Responses to “Vegetarianism: Ethics in Practice.”
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Sai Kolluru
Senior, majoring in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Case Western Reserve University. Founder of a Hindu organization on campus that works to practice and preserve Sanatana Dharmic principles and values with the final goal of Seva, Selfless Service, through interfaith collaboration.
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Contributing Scholars
Margaret Ellsworth
Syd Shook
Mark McCormack
Sai: I met you at the first DC ILI in October 2010. I wish that we had talked about this further. Great piece – I’ll certainly reference it in future conversations about this subject!
Tim: Great to hear from you. We should definitely continue the conversation on this topic. It is an essential one. Please feel free to email me, I can give you my phone number and we can chat up as our time permits.
Sincerely,
Sai Kolluru
Namaste Sai ,
Lovely article . Thankyou so much .
Sai,
You should sent your words into this contest at the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/magazine/tell-us-why-its-ethical-to-eat-meat-a-contest.html?_r=4&src=tp
Sai,
You should send your words into this contest at the New York Times:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/magazine/tell-us-why-its-ethical-to-eat-meat-a-contest.html?_r=4&src=tp
Very well written article. Our ancients had such an amazingly deep understanding of the effect various foods had on our body. Allopathic medicine is starting to explore the effects of food on our physical bodies, but we have a long way to go in understanding psychological and spiritual effects..
While informative, I think this article crosses a line and the author does not seem interested in sparking an actual dialogue. Rather, by identifying the eating of meat as “absolute foolishness” and “barbaric,” this article carries an evangelistic tone of religious superiority that I think alienates other religious person from engaging in conversation with this viewpoint. For instance, how should the person whose meat eating is a form of religious practice (e.g. halal) respond to this? I encourage the author to think how his stance may be interpreted by others who do not share the same commitments.
Furthermore, I’ve always been confused by the inconsistencies related to arguments in support of vegetarianism. This mostly stems from the argument, which is reflected in this article, that all life is equal and “other living beings have the same right to life as humans do.” But what of plant life? Why can’t we make a distinction between human and animal, but we can between plant and animal? Where does this boundary exist, and can’t it be applied to human and animal?
Those are cheap barbs that you’re attempting to employ, Omnivore.
To correct you: Halal meat is not a religiously-prescribed habit of food consumption. The hadith don’t say, “Thou shalt eat two servings of lean beef per day, provided it is slaughtered in the appropriate manner.” Meat is optional, but it is protected (in the Islamic sense (pork excluded)) by having rules applied to it.
As far as the “inconsistency” that you point out, it’s part of the most simplistic and boiled-down ethical/moral argument that these days is only advanced as a sine qua non of the pro-veggie lifestyle as a last resort. Sai’s article didn’t say anything close to that.
Find me five vegetarians who say that a carrot has the same right to avoid consumption as a cow, and I’ll pay out. It’s not about equating human life with plant life, it’s about equating human life with proper animal life. Cows eat plants, humans eat plants. Plants don’t eat cows, humans shouldn’t eat cows. If you want a simplistic argument that vegetarians can make and feel good about, there you go.
Furthermore, and here I’m just being evangelistic, perhaps more evangelism is needed. Factory production of animal products is a measurable danger to the overall environment of the planet, and at least in America, it’s a big part of what’s put us in a fat, sick, and medicated existence.
/soapbox
Just because one offers simplistic responses to a simplistic argument does not mean those responses are “cheap barbs.” I think you’re confusing the two based on your comments.
1) Obviously Islamic law does not require the eating of meat. However, you seem to be working with a narrowly defined understanding of what “religiously-prescribed” means. If Muslim men and women justify their eating meat by recognizing Allah’s assent to it so long as certain ritualistic practices are observed, how is this not a religiously-prescribed activity? The point of my original comment, which I think was fairly clear, wasn’t to point to examples where meat eating is mandatory, but to point out instances where it is perfectly justifiable within the context of particular belief systems. I think Sai effaces and ignores this reality when he states such reasons are “pure nonsense,” or when he begins pointing to “uncivilized thinking” in other religions. It is reminiscent of many 19th and early 20th century scholars’ views of different religiously inspired rationale.
2) Again, Sai states that religious authorities must “give up all harm they are inflicting on any living form” and that “other living beings have the same right to life as humans do.” Can one really say that with a straight face while eating a carrot? Perhaps we have different definitions of what inconsistent means. Obviously not all life has the same dignity and right to life as humans do, you say so yourself, Tim, when you acknowledge “proper animal life.” So then, I restate my question using your terminology: where does “proper animal life” begin? As a vegetarian, can I eat a goeduck, or a clam, or a barnacle? These don’t seem like “proper animals” to me, yet they’re still off limits to most vegetarians. I don’t really think Sai believes all life forms deserve equal treatment, but I want to know WHAT qualifies as animal, and WHY its animal characteristics cause animal consumption to be a contemptible practice. Is it the act of suffering, intelligence, emotions, etc? If someone is telling me I ought to be a vegetarian, I want to know what intrinsic qualities of the animal deserve my respect. There is great potential for posing the argument, but neither Sai, or you Tim, do that.
3) “Cows eat plants, humans eat plants. Plants don’t eat cows, humans shouldn’t eat cows.” I don’t know what this proves. You give me three facts and then a prescription. Could you have meant “Cows eat plants, humans eat plants. Plants don’t eat cows, but humans eat both”? If plants had mouths, and legs, maybe they would eat cows (and people!).
4) Finally, Hoggish Greedly from Captain Planet is not my personal hero. I think the overproduction of livestock and the mass commoditization of animals that is endemic to modern industrialized society is terrible. Moreover, I think there are very noble and ethically sound reasons for being a vegetarian. All my comments were intended to do were 1) point out what I perceived to be a logical inconsistency in Sai’s argument that 2) resulted in the unjust admonishment of other beliefs that justify eating meat. I was not advocating for the virtues of carnivorism, but requesting an engagement with alternative perspectives.
/lectern
Namaste Omnivore , My reply to you started off a whole lot different than the reply is now , while searching for an answer for you I came across this older article from Yoga magazine :
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/1977/knov77/ahimsa.shtml#
There are several other good articles there also but I am still kind of baffled as to why such an apparent meat eater would even bother himself with reading a vegetarian article ?
As for the religious statements , I think he is just proud of his religion and is just asking heart felt questions . You answer it with heart felt answers is how one would respond to this article . This was a passionate article that he obviously believes deeply in . Hence his strong wording at times . You would do the same . Besides whats wrong with thinking your religion is the best ? That is why you are practicing that religion , if you didn’t think it was the best ( aka superior ) you would be practicing another religion .
According to allot of medical research eating meat is foolish . It cause heart disease and a host of other ailments . As for barbarism , well it is 2012 . There is a new way of life and it doesn’t include killing animals to eat .
Om nama Shivaya
Thanks for the article, James, but I think it actually contradicts Sai’s article. Sai says eating animal meat is NEVER justifiable, even if we are hungry, yet Swami Saraswati says that it is justifiable to eat meats and plants. He says we can use both in service to more highly evolved consciousnesses. The principle of ahimsa, he states, condemns revengeful killing, but not killing altogether. So why can’t I, a modern meat eater, be practicing ahimsa through conscious avoidance of any meats that come from feed lots or large inhumane factories? I can think of countless examples where one exercises compassion through one’s meat eating.
Also, just because I’m not vegetarian does not mean I shouldn’t take interest in articles about vegetarianism. I’m not Muslim, Jewish, or Christian, either, but I still take interest in practices and beliefs related to those traditions. Likewise, I’m interested in how Hindus resolve the monistic concept of Atman, which leads to their honoring and reverence for all forms of life, while also recognizing an intrinsic hierarchy of all life forms that justifies killing and consumption. This is at the heart of the tension I point to in Sai’s article. I’m sure this is a common question that can be answered fairly easily, but Sai ignores it completely as if reverence for all life naturally leads to vegetarianism.
Finally, the State of Formation is “a forum for emerging religious and ethical leaders.” Thinking one possesses a superior belief does give one the right to castigate others. This is a basic concept in any kind of comparative religious work or attempts to engage in inter-religious dialogue. I would hope a forum such as this would be able to hold such inflammatory articles accountable.
Dear Omnivore,
My replies to you are in parentheses.
“Sai says eating animal meat is NEVER justifiable”
(((…justifiable only under the absence of access to plant products. Common sense governs the fact that there is little use in killing an animal when you can clearly find a less hurtful substitute. )))
yet Swami Saraswati says that it is justifiable to eat meats and plants.
((( Only upon the fulfillment of the aforementioned condition, viz. the lack of access to vegetarian food )))
” The principle of ahimsa, he states, condemns revengeful killing, but not killing altogether. ”
((( The principle of ahinsA is the principle of least harm. )))
“So why can’t I, a modern meat eater, be practicing ahimsa through conscious avoidance of any meats that come from feed lots or large inhumane factories?”
((( You can, avoiding eating meat produced in large meat producing factories is certainly a step toward ahinsA, however if you want to make ahinsA even more meaningful, abstaining from eating meat would be a nicer option )))
I can think of countless examples where one exercises compassion through one’s meat eating.
((( and I can think of countless more, where avoiding meat altogether is a better option. )))
Also, just because I’m not vegetarian does not mean I shouldn’t take interest in articles about vegetarianism.
((( Correct, but you must also understand the reasoning behind a vegetarian to assert why his diet is better in terms of ethics, ecology, so on and so forth )))
I’m not Muslim, Jewish, or Christian, either, but I still take interest in practices and beliefs related to those traditions. Likewise, I’m interested in how Hindus resolve the monistic concept of Atman, which leads to their honoring and reverence for all forms of life, while also recognizing an intrinsic hierarchy of all life forms that justifies killing and consumption.
((( This is an excellent question, and I would be glad to address it. When we say sarvam khalvidam brahman- all that there is, is brahman, we are not denying duality.
It is necessary to understand that advaita does not reject duality, it accomodates it. Which means that yes, food will go in from the front and it will come out from the behind, the laws of nature, principles of ethics etc are not compromised just by terming everything as AtmA/brahman. There is an essential hierarchy in the way we conduct our lives, there is no denying it.
The absolute order of reality is called satyam, that is pure consciousness- brahman/AtmA.
The transactional order of reality is this jagat/universe/multiverse, where subject-object duality is apparent.
Having said that, the principle of ahinsA is necessary for what we call chitta shuddhi- mental purity. A mind that is supple is most receptive to AtmA jnAnam- self knowledge, and self knowledge is the equivalent of moksha- freedom from limitations.
While this isn’t an appeal to authority, I can assure you that having studied vedAnta in a gurukulam format, the principle of ahinsA states that it is better to cause least injury where can be avoided. I can certainly avoid eating meat and substitute it with other vegetarian options. All of this goes a long way in chitta shuddhi.
Good discussion.
))