Vegetarianism

[JivanaKrishnaDasa]

Im a vegetarian, going on 11 years now. My reasons for this are solely based on my religious beliefs. As I understand it, most Hindus are vegetarian too? I have met some Hindus and Sikhs that are veggie and some that are not veggie. Why is there this inconsistency? Am I missing something?

 

[Ardhanariswar]

people do what they want. i mean, being hindu does not mean being vegetarian in the modern days now. Some people observe rituals and strict orthodox beliefs. like i believe in ahimsa, but i still like to eat meat. because in reality, not eating meat will not save those animals who are already dead. *^-^*. btw ahimsa is nonviolence.

i mean, to the point where brahmins are not allowed to eat garlic or onions, thats just insane. i think God wants us to enjoy life. theres a big difference between enjoying the occasional caviar rather than slaughtering mass animals for no apparent reason. its kinda like dharma, the circle of life or whatever.

ya i have hindu friends that dont eat meat, i have hindu friends that do. its not a big deal. hell, my veena teacher (whos a brahmin) eats meat. its not uncommon.

 

[JivanaKrishnaDasa]

Do you believe in Karma? Vaisnavas are not technically "animal rights activists" we are "spiritual life activists" however in Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells us what is offerable to him. And we do not eat anything that is not offerable to Krishna. As far as Garlic and Onions, these are also not eaten or offered. Everything has a vibration to it, and Garlic and Onions are a very low vibration and are in the modes of Ignorance and Passion. Eating foodstuffs like that will in a sense bring you into those modes. We try to stay in the mode of Goodness. I think people misunderstand what Dharma really means. Dharma is basically like a pre-set of your life, and what will happen to you and what you are destined to do. You can not change your Dharma for this life, however that does not mean you have no choice in certain things you do with your life. Whether or not we are here to try to enjoy this life or the next is actually what entangles us in this material world. This is the essential reason that Vaisnavas see as the reason we are here. Because we(Jiva souls) wanted to enjoy ourselves separately from the Lord. Ironically this is impossible because whatever enjoyment we have will ultimately be temporary in this material world. For people who want everlasting enjoyment that will not end, well thats where spiritual life comes in. I do believe that vegetarian lifestyle will help in spiritual life. Its not uncommon in any faith for a serious spiritualist to try to cause the least amount of harm to other living things as possible. Do you believe the soul in a dog, cat or cow is the same as you? I do.... We are all spirit souls, but inside of different bodies due to Karma. Does that make sense?

 

[Paraprakrti]

The difficulty I see with explaining vegetarianism in a spiritual sense is when I am trying to ratonalize it to someone who follows another Scripture, i.e.: the Bible or Quran.
It's easy to bring up verses from the Bhagavad-Gita or other affiliated literatures, but to those who do not accept them, how can you rationalize?

 

[JivanaKrishnaDasa]

Thats easy, check out these versus from the Bible.....
Genesis 1:29 "And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb-bearing seed and every tree, in which is the fruit of the tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

Exodus 20:13 "Thou shalt not kill"

Genesis 9:4-5 "But flesh with the life therof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And surely your blood of your lives will require; at the hand of every beast will I require it.

Isaiah 1:11, 15 "To what is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? Said the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of goats. When ye spread forth your hands, I will hide Mine eyes from you: Yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear, for your hands are full of blood.

Isaiah 66:3 "He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man"

Leviticus 3:17 "It shall be a perpetual statue for your generations throuout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat nor blood."

Leviticus 17:10 "And whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of strangers who sojourn among you, that eateth any manner of blood; I will even set My face against that soul that eateth blood."

I am not familiar with the Koran though. I will search.

 

[JivanaKrishnaDasa]

"Therewith He causes crops to grow for you, and the olive and the date-palm and grapes and all kinds of fruit. Lo! Herein is indeed a portent for people who reflect."
Koran, surah 16, verse 11

"A token unto them is the dead earth. We revive it, and we bring forth from it grain so that they will eat thereof. And we have placed therein gardens of the date-palm and grapes, and We have placed therein. That they may eat of the fruit thereof, and their hands created it not. Will they not, then, give thanks?"
Koran, surah 36, verses 33-35

"Maim not the brute beasts...Whoever is kind to the lesser creatures is kind to himself...He who takes pity (even) on a sparrow and spares its life. Allah will be merciful on him on the day of judgement."
Prophet Mohammed

 

[Paraprakrti]

Thats easy, check out these versus from the Bible.....
Genesis 1:29 "And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb-bearing seed and every tree, in which is the fruit of the tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

This is what I use often.

Exodus 20:13 "Thou shalt not kill"

This is the biggest debate right here. Most Christians interpret this to mean only humans. Secondly, when they accept that it means all living entities, for arguments sake, they always bring up killing plants. So the natural response for a Vaisnava is to explain what Krsna accepts in offering. But then we are going outside of their Christian teachings. All they have to do is say they do not follow the authoroty of Krsna.

Genesis 9:4-5 "But flesh with the life therof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And surely your blood of your lives will require; at the hand of every beast will I require it.

I'll look into this one.

Isaiah 1:11, 15 "To what is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? Said the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of goats. When ye spread forth your hands, I will hide Mine eyes from you: Yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear, for your hands are full of blood.

Same with this one, thanks.

Leviticus 3:17 "It shall be a perpetual statue for your generations throuout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat nor blood."

Leviticus 17:10 "And whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of strangers who sojourn among you, that eateth any manner of blood; I will even set My face against that soul that eateth blood."

But does it not speak about which animals should be and which should not be eaten in Leviticus 11?

 

[JivanaKrishnaDasa]

I understand what you are saying. Many people ask me why I would eat plants. For one, its condoned in the scriptures and by Krishna. For another, this IS the material world, which basically means, its impossible for one living thing to survive without harming another living thing. The difference is that plucking a potatoe out of the ground and cutting a pigs throat while its hanging upside down is a huge difference in the amount of violence and suffering inflicted. Another thing is that we offer all of our food to the Lord first and then Krishna takes the Karmic reaction from that food and makes it Prasadam. To be honest its not really that hard to debate this subject. What is basically comes down to, is in this day and age, its not necessary or needed to eat meat anymore, the scriptures confirm this, and so the real reason people eat meat, is simply to satisfy thier tongue and thier stomach. Once this conclusion is reached, then sincere seekers of spiritual life will come to the realization that to make advancement in spiritual life, the killing must stop, or come to a minimum.

 

[Paraprakrti]

Yeah, this is pretty much where I stand. Still, rascals will just deny that slaughtering a pig has any more violence than plucking a potato. Then they will try to reason that because it may speak somewhere in the Bible about animal sacrifice, that that means we can offer meat to God.
Not to get too far off subject, but I was explaining "desire trees" to someone on another forum and they came bacl with, "chicken parmagiana (sp?) trees". Lol...
Then I thought about that. I suppose if one is in Vaikuntha they don't have any such desires. But then, what if they did? Would it be like chicken, but not actually be the meat of a dead animal? I am thinking that this is going to all end up being speculation.

 

[JivanaKrishnaDasa]

I guess that is certainly possible. The way I understood it though, was that the "Desire Trees" are there for us to obtain paraphernalia to be used for service of Krishna, not for our own enjoyment. Although, I believe that in Vaikuntha, the service of Krishna IS in fact our only enjoyment, because on that planet, there is nothing higher than Seva.. I just realized that I havent really introduced myself to you. My name is Jimi and my initiated name that my Gurudeva gave me is Jivana Krsna Das. I use to be a member of ISKCON but made the move to my Gurudevas Math which is the Sri Caitanya Saraswat Math. My Guru is Srila Govinda Maharaj. How about you?

 

[(Q)]

As far as Garlic and Onions, these are also not eaten or offered. Everything has a vibration to it, and Garlic and Onions are a very low vibration and are in the modes of Ignorance and Passion. Eating foodstuffs like that will in a sense bring you into those modes.

Foods vibrate? Uh, yeah, sure. Although your choice of what you eat based on your beliefs is highly questionable, it should be pointed out that garlic can be beneficial. Perhaps some of your beliefs are based on passionate ignorance.

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=23591

http://unitproj.library.ucla.edu/biomed/spice/index.cfm?displayID=14

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/ETO/content/ETO_5_3X_Garlic.asp?sitearea=ETO

 

[JivanaKrishnaDasa]

I am not disputing the medicinal value of Garlic. I was simply quoting scripture. Every thing in the Universe has a vibration coming from it. Its not a vibrating like a massaging machine, its on the subtle level. These vibrations can be positive and negative. Its not that Garlic has a negative vibration, but that it is soo strong and potent, that it is classified in the Vedas as in the mode of passion. Garlic is by nature a aprhodisiac(sorry if i spelled that wrong), therefore is passionate. If you eat Garlic and Onions, its not necessarily a "bad" thing, it just puts your mind in whatever mode the foodstuff falls under. Vibrations are powerful in some things, and weak in other things. In food particularly, the vibration is strong. But back to the point, in the scriptures it is described what the "ideal" diet would be, and based on that, our diet is provided. Also what is highly questionable about my beliefs and diet?

 

[Druidus]

Excuse me, but I couldn't help but react to the concentrated ignorance (not a bad thing, as you can't know without learning) coming from a certain poster. I mean no offense to you Q, however, I must say that if they do not eat garlic or onions because of religious reasons, then that is their choice. You cannot say that another religion is ignorant, mainly because they do something different then you. By the way, to everyone else in this thread, I am a vegan, both for religious and personal reasons.

 

[(Q)]

Every thing in the Universe has a vibration coming from it. Its not a vibrating like a massaging machine, its on the subtle level. These vibrations can be positive and negative.

Sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about. Are you referring to foods vibrating at the molecular level, atomic level, quantum... what exactly?

 

[Druidus]

I'm not sure exactly but I suspect that it would be on a spiritual level and not of a physical nature.

 

[JivanaKrishnaDasa]

Again, this is not a Vibration that you can feel. It is a spiritual thing, some call it energy, others call it Chi, and so on and so on.

 

[(Q)]

I must say that if they do not eat garlic or onions because of religious reasons, then that is their choice. You cannot say that another religion is ignorant, mainly because they do something different then you.

The choice is most certainly ignorant if the belief is based on ignorance, especially when the reasons given for the belief are not based in reality but instead are mumbo-jumbo.

 

[Paraprakrti]

I guess that is certainly possible. The way I understood it though, was that the "Desire Trees" are there for us to obtain paraphernalia to be used for service of Krishna, not for our own enjoyment. Although, I believe that in Vaikuntha, the service of Krishna IS in fact our only enjoyment, because on that planet, there is nothing higher than Seva.. I just realized that I havent really introduced myself to you. My name is Jimi and my initiated name that my Gurudeva gave me is Jivana Krsna Das. I use to be a member of ISKCON but made the move to my Gurudevas Math which is the Sri Caitanya Saraswat Math. My Guru is Srila Govinda Maharaj. How about you?

You hit the nail on the head with the desire trees. In Vaikuntha everyone seeks to serve Krsna, therefore all things desired are done for Him. I think I considered this before but I had forgotten. Of course, because I didn't want to get into a debate about what one can and cannot offer to God, I didn't reply to his comment on chicken parmigiana.

My name is Austen. I am not initiated. I am aware there is controversy on certain issues since Prabhupada left. I am sure you know what I am talking about. The word "ritvik" comes to mind. Also, I have certain obligations that are keeping me from devoting myself completely at this time. That is, I am in the Navy. I don't eat meat, but I don't often eat prasadam. And sometimes I have to deal with eating foods that contain eggs mixed in the ingredients or garlic and/or onions. When I am underway on my ship I really have no choice. I am not married and have not engaged in sex for nearly a year. I was never a big gambler. Nor do I do drugs. Still, I don't chant at least 16 rounds. I have been reading some of Prabhupada's books for nearly 2 years.

 

[(Q)]

It is a spiritual thing, some call it energy, others call it Chi, and so on and so on.

I'm well aware of the various forms of energy in the universe. "Spiritual" things have never been shown to exist, so to lump energy with spiritual is inappropriate.

So, if you can tell me what form of energy you refer, I'd understand what it is your talking about?

 

[JivanaKrishnaDasa]

(Q) while I do feel discussing these things are healthy and good, it is obvious to me that you are not trying to be sincere whatsoever, but rather here to pick a fight. I dont claim to have all the answers to your questions, nor do I have the intellect or knowledge to fully understand everything spiritual. Spiritual Knowlede is infinite. The mind is Finite. We are essentially trying to take something infinite and put it into a finite brain. We may understand certain things, but others, will be beyond our grasp.