Category:Animal-eating
Theme Analysis
In the natural world, it is a biological law that one living entity is food for another (jīvo jīvasya jīvanam). Śrīla Prabhupāda acknowledges that for tigers, jackals, and even primitive, uncivilized humans living in jungles or deserts, animal-eating is permissible because they have no other means of survival. However, human beings endowed with higher intelligence and agricultural abilities have no excuse. When civilized men use their advanced intelligence to artificially maintain massive slaughterhouses simply to satisfy the tongue, they degrade themselves to a state worse than animals. Śrīla Prabhupāda warns that those who maintain the gross habit of animal-eating cannot understand fine philosophical matters, and their sinful actions lead directly to the hellish planet known as Mahāraurava.
A crucial theme in this category is Śrīla Prabhupāda's clarification of Vedic animal sacrifice. Many meat-eaters falsely claim that the Vedas sanction their diet. Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that the Vedas occasionally allow a person heavily addicted to meat to sacrifice a lesser animal (like a goat, never a cow) before the Goddess Kālī under very strict, restrictive conditions (e.g., only on a dark moon night). The actual purpose of this allowance is restriction, designed to slowly wean the animal-eater off flesh, not to encourage the opening of commercial slaughterhouses. Furthermore, Śrīla Prabhupāda clarifies the ISKCON position: the movement does not advocate mundane vegetarianism, because killing vegetables also involves violence and incurs karma. The only pure, sinless diet for a civilized human being is kṛṣṇa-prasādam—vegetarian food that has been offered with love to the Supreme Lord, neutralizing all karmic reactions and purifying the consciousness.
- The Uncivilized Diet: Animal-eating is natural for beasts and primitive humans who cannot grow crops. For civilized humans with agriculture, it is unnecessary and deeply sinful.
- The Purpose of Vedic Sacrifice: The rare Vedic injunctions allowing animal sacrifice are concessions for those addicted to meat. Their true purpose is strict restriction, not a license for mass slaughter.
- The Cow Must Be Protected: Even if a person is absolutely determined to eat meat, the Vedic standard demands that they eat lesser animals (like goats or pigs) and strictly spare the cow, who is considered the mother of society.
- The Superiority of Prasādam: Mundane vegetarians are also implicated in violence because vegetables have life. The only way to be free from all karmic reactions is to eat kṛṣṇa-prasādam.
- Explore the synthesized essence of this category in this Vanipedia article: Animal-eating - Why Civilized Humans Must Take to Prasādam.
Pages in category "Animal-eating"
The following 69 pages are in this category, out of 69 total.
1
2
- Animal food is not meant for the human being
- Animal-eaters
- For the animal-eaters, the scriptures have sanctioned restricted animal sacrifices only, and such sanctions are there just to restrict the opening of slaughterhouses and not to encourage animal-killing
- If you are staunch meat-eaters, then you cannot touch cow. You can eat some other animal
- In Calcutta there are many butcher shops which keep a deity of the goddess Kali, and animal-eaters think it proper to purchase animal flesh from such shops in hope that they are eating the remnants of food offered to goddess Kali
- Just like in the desert, Arabian Desert, there is no food, no grain, for them animal-eating may be permissible. Because after all, we have to live. That is a different thing
- Those who desire to eat meat may satisfy the demands of their tongues by eating lower animals, but they should never kill cows
- Unless you kill the animal, you cannot eat. So where is freshness? You have to kill him. You have to make it dead, so why not make it natural dead?
A
- A Krsna conscious person will not distinguish like that. For eating animal, they will philosophize that animal has no soul; therefore it can be killed. No. This is nonsense
- According to Vedic civilization, the animal-eaters are recommended to sacrifice a goat in the temple of Kali under certain restrictive rules and regulations and eat the flesh
- According to Vedic scripture, those animal-eaters should kill them personally, so that they can see how much suffering is there, so he will stop. But now the things are being done in the slaughterhouse. They do not see. They purchase very nicely packed
- According to Vedic scripture, those animal-eaters, they should kill the animals personally so that they can see how much suffering is there, so he will stop
- Animal food is never recommended for human beings; instead, a human being is recommended to take prasada, remnants of food left by Krsna. Yajna-sistasinah santo mucyante sarva-kilbisaih (BG 3.13)
- Animal killer means not exactly those who are butchers, or ordinary man who kills animal and eat. But even a person who does not take care of his self-realization, he is also animal-killer
- Animals, they have no hands. So the primitive life, so they become food for the primitive natives or uncivilized man. They kill some animals and eat. And why civilized man do so? He can produce his food. God has given him land. He has intelligence
- As I am eating an animal, that animal will have the opportunity to eat me
- At the present moment in this age of Kali both the bull and the cow are now being slaughtered and eaten up as foodstuff by a class of men who do not know the brahminical culture
B
H
- He who gives permission, he who kills the animal, he who sells the slaughtered animal, he who cooks the animal, he who administers distribution of the foodstuff, and at last he who eats such cooked animal food are all murderers
- Here we have so many ladies and gentlemen present, but every one of us is rendering some service to the superior. That is our position. The inferior animals, they are rendering service to the superior animal. The superior animal is eating the inferior
- Human beings who are accustomed to eating meat and flesh must also depend on the production of vegetation in order to eat the animals. BG 1972 purports
I
- I have seen in the Western countries, they are growing food grains for the animals, and the food grains are eaten by the animals, and the animal is eaten by man
- In Calcutta there are many butcher shops which keep a deity of the goddess Kali, and animal-eaters think it proper to purchase animal flesh from such shops in hope that they are eating the remnants of food offered to the goddess Kali
- In cases of emergency, one may be allowed to live on the flesh of animals of all description, but that does not mean that there should be regular slaughterhouses to feed the animal-eaters and that this system should be encouraged by the state
- In this temple, we don't eat anything. Neither we eat grass, neither we eat animals. We eat krsna-prasada
- It (animal sacrifice) is good for the animal in the sense that the sacrificed animal is at once promoted to the human form of life after being sacrificed at the altar, and the animal-eater is saved from grosser types of sins
- It is a fact - an animal is eating another animal. It may be vegetable or animals, but they are disturbing. Therefore it is said, "As it is allotted." You should eat such and such. Not that indiscriminately you can eat everything
K
- Kali does not eat meat, but it is the sastra's injunction that those who are unable to give up meat-eating, they may sacrifice one goat, not cow, one small animal before the goddess Kali, on amavasya (new moon) day - night, not day - and they can eat it
- Kill the poor animals and eat, but don't produce food grain. The whole world, this rascaldom is going on. I have traveled over many countries, all over the world. In Africa and Australia there are so much vacant land
- Ksatriyas are allowed to hunt in the forest for the purpose of learning the killing art, not to kill animals for eating or for any other purpose
- Ksatriyas, they have to learn how to kill. So practically, they should go to the forest and kill some animal. And if he likes, he can eat also. If he likes, he can eat also
O
- One who is smaller or weak, he is enjoyed by the stronger. That is the nature, you will find. The goat, the cows, they are animals. We are also animals, or living entity. But those who have got hands, they eat the animals who have no hands
- Others may eat your children and you eat others' children... That day will come, that is stated. These animal eaters will eat now one another's children
S
- So it is not that the vegetarians are less passionate than the animal-eaters or flesh-eaters. Nature's codes are different. It can be controlled. But human consciousness, this control is, I mean to say, practiced from the brahmacari life
- Sometimes they put forward this argument that "You are also eating vegetables. They have got life. Why you object that nonvegetarians who are eating four legged animals...?"
T
- The animal eats simple grass. Does it mean that you are advanced than the animals? There is no logic. Eating is eating. "One man's food, another man's poison." That is another thing. But eating is there
- The animal-eaters, they're like jackals, vultures, dogs. They're similar to these animals, the animal-eaters. It is not human food
- The other meaning of the word (pasu-ghna) refers to those who are actually killing animals. This means persons who are animal-eaters, for they are all engaged in killing animals, such as hunting & opening slaughterhouses
- The procedure under which animal sacrifice is allowed in the scriptures is good both for the animal sacrificed and the animal-eaters
- The sudras, they can take a goat and sacrifice before the deity, goddess Kali, and then eat. Nobody should be given unrestricted freedom to eat meat. Or wine. If one is adamant to drink wine, then there is Candi-puja, Durga-puja. That means restriction
- The superior animal is eating the inferior animal, jivo jivasya jivanam (SB 1.13.47). Big snake is eating small snake. There is a verse in the Srimad-Bhagavatam, apadanam catus-padam
- The Vaisnavas are trained to become freed from the four kinds of sinful activities - illicit sex, indulgence in intoxicants, gambling and eating animal foods
- There are many bad habits we acquire in the association of material contamination, chief of which are illicit sexual relationships, eating animal food, indulging in intoxication, and gambling
- They (animal-eaters) do not know that goddess Kali never accepts nonvegetarian food because she is the chaste wife of Lord Siva
- They (the animal-eaters) are recommended to drink wine by worshiping the goddess Candika. The purpose is restriction. People have given up all this restriction. Now they are regularly opening wine distilleries and slaughterhouses
- This is another good instruction to animal-killers. There are always animal-killers and animal-eaters in human society because less civilized people are accustomed to eating meat
- Those who are animal-food eaters, they are fourth class - and less than that, those who have no distinction of eating any kind of flesh . . . there are certain classes of nation also. They say the Chinese people, they eat anything
- Those who are animal-killers and animal-eaters, they cannot understand finer philosophical matter. Their brain is gross. Therefore they are much inclined to mechanical way of life
- Those who are eating another animal, they are not human being. Although they have got the form of human being, they are not considered human being
- Those who are meat-eaters, they can eat other, non-important animals, but cows must be saved, even from economic point of view. Here it is said that go-raksya. It does not say, Krsna, "elephant-raksya."
- Those who desire to eat meat may satisfy the demands of their tongues by eating lower animals, but they should never kill cows, who are actually accepted as the mothers of human society because they supply milk
W
- We are eating every, anything. Any moving animals we can eat - bird, beast, goats, cows, horse, ass, whatever is available. - Yes, you can eat. But that is the natural law for the animals and uncivilized man, not for the civilized man
- We are not propagating the philosophy of ahimsa, or nonviolence, because in some way or other, there is violence, either you take fruit or grain or animal. But the principle is that you have to take prasadam
- We must remember that a sinful man cannot develop God Consciousness. The four pillars of sinful life are: 1) no illicit sex, 2) animal killing or animal eating, 3) indulgence in intoxication in any form, and 4) take to the life of gambling
- When a man eats and the animal eats, either it is done by instinct or by intelligence, but where is the difference?
- When people become too much animal-eater and simply giving the evidence of Vedas, "In the Vedas it is sanctioned," but without caring for the ritualistic process
- Why you should eat animals? That is uncivilized life. When there is no food, when they are aborigines, they may eat animals, because they do not know how to grow food. But when the human society becomes civilized, he can grow so many nice foods