The food fight

[1]

Swami Tejomayananda [1]

A question often asked by people concerns vegetarianism, and the position of the scriptures on non-vegetarianism. The general injunction given is: Do not eat meat. There are a number of reasons why this injunction is given.

From the spiritual standpoint, there is one Self or one life that pulsates in all beings. Since all life forms want to live happily in this world, we do not have the moral right to take away a life or to cause unhappiness to others. The greatness and dignity of human beings is their ability to sacrifice their lives for others.
The person who sacrifices his comforts, his happiness or even his life to protect others is considered great. Therefore, if we kill other beings for the sake of our own pleasure, we are cutting the very root of the glory of human life and degrading ourselves.
Hearing this, some non-vegetarians put forth an argument: If vegetarians can kill and eat plant life, then why we can’t we eat animals? This argument is fallacious. If we extend this reasoning a little further, we would then be asking why can’t we eat humans. No one will agree with the argument when it is taken that far.
Even though there is life in all life forms, there are degrees of evolution and of the manifestation of intelligence. The degree of feeling and understanding and of mental and physical pain, is much less developed in plants as compared to animals.
According to our scriptures, the purpose of human life is to know the truth. In order to know the truth, we must sustain our lives, but it needs to be done with proper discrimination. This means that even when we are eating herbs and plants, we should eat moderately and with discrimination.
However, non-vegetarianism is not completely forbidden. Vedas and scriptures give us the permission to eat meat as a concession to our human weaknesses, which sometimes make us incapable of living up to a higher ideal. The purpose of this concession may be illustrated by the following example. A diabetic person when told to avoid sweets completely will have an intense craving for the same. The intelligent doctor knows this; so he asks the patient to reduce the intake. The permission to eat sweets is not a sanction, but a concession. Similarly, people in the world develop strong cravings for things, and when they are suddenly prohibited from having them, there is a tendency to revolt against those injunctions and to find illegal ways of obtaining and enjoying the things they crave.
The scriptures understand the weakness of the human mind and give instructions according to individual needs. It is up to us to use, misuse or abuse them depending on our awareness as to whom we
are cheating — the system or ourselves?