Meat or Plants – both have lives – now what?

After one of my old student forwarded my yesterday’s post on NOT EATING ANIMALS, that i had shared on another platform, he got some angry responses. So, he wrote to me today, “Sir, I had an argument with one of my colleagues. He said animals are living beings and so are plants. Whether you are vegetarian or non-vegetarian, you are harming living beings anyway. How do I explain with that?”

i replied with the below. It is not at all about debates for this can go endlessly, for all that we need to consult is our own conscience and that will answer everything.

Plucking leaves and fruits is not killing. The crops are cut only when they die after loosing the sign of the life, which is the Green Chlorophyll. This is how beautifully nature is designed. In plants life exists but mind and intelligence do not exist. Plants are designed by nature to be consumed for the survival of other beings and they consistently offer without dying. That is why vegans don’t eat root plants because it is killing the plant by uprooting it. They always go for what goes above ground and not below ground. This is all not just topics of debates, but of higher and higher awareness. A non-vegetarian will debate that plants have life, but that is not a debate, that is just an excuse they have for justifying their act of being in the crime of killing and eating another animal, when they have an alternative. They will not say it is their weakness as their tongues down drool to the taste of eating animals, but they will raise up distractions like plants have life too, just because somewhere deep down their conscience knows it is not right.

At this point i would like to add the words from Shri Datta Swami, whom i had read giving very beautiful insights into this game of debates of those who were seeking to justify the confusion between eating for pleasure versus eating for survival. Meat is certainly not required for survival, it is purely for pleasure.

Parvati was called as Aparna because she did not even pluck the green leaves for her food during her penance. The sin is not in the non-vegetarian food, which is as good as vegetarian food, if you analyse the constituents like the common carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins, minerals etc. The sin lies only in the pain experienced by the animal or the bird in its death. Think a while that you are in its position and then discuss the subject. There is no sin in eating a naturally dead animal and a sect of Hindus called as Kapalikas do this and are not found fault for this. The word ‘Maamsa’ or mutton is derived like this “As this fellow (sa) kills me (Maam) now, I will kill him in the next birth”. Based on this, you become the innocent goat and the innocent goat becomes the butcher in the next birth so that the pain is practically experienced by you.

Life is called as Pranamaya Kosa. Mind is Manomaya Kosa. Intelligence is Vijnanamaya Kosa. The life is only inert mechanism of exchange process of Oxygen and Carbondioxide and release of energy by oxidation. This mechanism has no awareness of the pain. The mind is represented by the nervous system, which is not present in the plants. The mind may be in very very primitive stage in plants as per the research of Mr. Bose. The ancient Indian sages avoided even plucking the leaves and fruits.

They ate leaves and fruits when they have fallen from the plants (Swayam Viseerna Dhruva Patra Vruttita). They avoided this trace of sin also. In plucking the leaf and killing an animal, the sin is qualitatively equal, but there is a lot of quantitative difference. One percent sin and hundred percent sin cannot be equated. Your argument concludes that if one does one percent sin, why not hundred percent sin be done? This equates to your statement that if one plucks a leaf why not we kill an animal.

i would like to add more.

  Plants are designed for the purpose of providing for existence and they will generously give. Taking from plants is like a stealing 100 rupees from a millionaire. Would he be bothered? Not even a fraction because he has a consistent supply of it. But an animal has one life that it is trying to live in all rights, it has it’s kids and when you snatch that life, it struggles and withers in pain, fear, anguish, despair and helplessness because it cannot afford to lose it’s life. This is equivalent to stealing 10 rupees from a beggar. He will wither in pain for that must be the only earning he has made. So would you justify that? Spiritually also, the karma incurred by stealing from a millionaire who does not react in any painful way is far very less than the karma incurred from the wrath and suffering from a beggar. Same way, when a tribal native in the Amazon forests killing for food almost is a very low level of karmic influence than a man eating it in the comfort of a city or a man hunting for pleasure. The tribal native is purely eating for survival, while the man in the city hunting or eating purely for pleasure.

Moreover, the man in the city is clearly elevated in his understanding and conscience that what he is doing may not be the real right thing than the man in the forest is totally not aware for his senses and conscience are still that of a primitive human, in total ignorance and an unawakened state. Implications are hugely different for both.

Lastly, on a very deeper spiritual level, man doesn’t really need plants also. This is how the great divine beings of very high level of consciousness have lived. They live on light. But that can only happen when they have purified to that heightened stages that no gross substance is needed to keep them alive. When Jesus was fasting in the desert for weeks, the Devil appeared to him and picked stones and brought to him challenging him, “If you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread and satisfy your hunger.” Jesus replied, “Man doesn’t live by bread alone.” Bingo! That was a clear revelation that he was living on light and also conveying to the world that all humans can. But that is only possible with inner evolution. That is why there are no hard and fast rules as to whether to eat or not. It is all on the level of conscience of the human and the inner evolution of heightened awareness that has developed within, for an awakened man knows that “Higher the rise, greater the fall!”

When consciousness rises, no debates are needed, no convincing is needed, no reminders are needed, and no such posts are needed, for man will do it all by himself from within. i just added triggers or you may call that reminders, as a part of my light work on Earth.