FoodBanter.com - View Single Post

fanabba

On Jul 8, 3:58*pm, and/or www.mantra.com/jai (Dr.
Jai Maharaj) wrote:
> In article >,
> *fanabba > posted:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Dr. Jai Maharaj posted:
>
> > Reasons Why Hindus Don't Eat Meat
>
> > Forwarded article from:
> >http://www.hinduismtoday.com
>
> > WHY HINDUS DON'T EAT MEAT
>
> > Besides being an expression of compassion
> > for animals, vegetarianism is followed for
> > ecological and health rationales
>
> > REASONS
>
> > * * In the past fifty years, millions of meat-eaters --
> > Hindus and non-Hindus -- have made the personal decision
> > to stop eating the flesh of other creatures. *There are
> > five major motivations for such a decision:
>
> > 1. The Dharmic Law Reason
>
> > * * Ahinsa, the law of noninjury, is the Hindu's first
> > duty in fulfilling religious obligations to God and God's
> > creation as defined by Vedic scripture.
>
> > 2. The Karmic Consequences Reason
>
> > * * All of our actions, including our choice of food,
> > have Karmic consequences. *By involving oneself in the
> > cycle of inflicting injury, pain and death, even
> > indirectly by eating other creatures, one must in the
> > future experience in equal measure the suffering caused.
>
> > 3. The Spiritual Reason
>
> > * * Food is the source of the body's chemistry, and what
> > we ingest affects our consciousnes, emotions and
> > experiential patterns. *If one wants to live in higher
> > consciousness, in peace and happiness and love for all
> > creatures, then he cannot eat meat, fish, shellfish, fowl
> > or eggs. *By ingesting the grosser chemistries of animal
> > foods, one introduces into the body and mind anger,
> > jealousy, anxiety, suspicion and a terrible fear of
> > death, all of which are locked into the the flesh of the
> > butchered creatures. *For these reasons, vegetarians live
> > in higher consciousness and meat-eaters abide in lower
> > consciousness.
>
> > 4. The Health Reason
>
> > * * Medical studies prove that a vegetarian diet is
> > easier to digest, provides a wider ranger of nutrients
> > and imposes fewer burdens and impurities on the body.
> > Vegetarians are less susceptible to all the major
> > diseases that afflict contemporary humanity, and thus
> > live longer, healthier, more productive lives. *They have
> > fewer physical complaints, less frequent visits to the
> > doctor, fewer dental problems and smaller medical bills.
> > Their immune system is stronger, their bodies are purer,
> > more refined and skin more beautiful.
>
> > 5. The Ecological Reason
>
> > * * Planet Earth is suffereing. *In large measure, the
> > escalating loss of species, destruction of ancient
> > rainforests to create pasture lands for live stock, loss
> > of topsoils and the consequent increase of water
> > impurities and air pollution have all been traced to the
> > single fact of meat in the human diet. *No decision that
> > we can make as individuals or as a race can have such a
> > dramatic effect on the improvement of our planetary
> > ecology as the decision not to eat meat.
>
> > HISTORY
>
> > The book FOOD FOR THE SPIRIT, VEGETARIANISM AND THE WORLD
> > RELIGIONS, observes, "Despite popular knowledge of meat-
> > eating's adverse effects, the nonvegetarian diet became
> > increasingly widespread among the Hindus after the two
> > major invasions by foreign powers, first the Muslims and
> > later the British. *With them came the desire to be
> > 'civilized,' to eat as did the Saheeb. *Those atually
> > trained in Vedic knowledge, however, never adopted a
> > meat-oriented diet, and the pious Hindu still observes
> > vegetarian principles as a matter of religious duty.
>
> > * * "That vegetarianism has always been widespread in
> > India is clear from the earliest Vedic texts. *This was
> > observed by the ancient traveler Megasthenes and also by
> > Fa-Hsien, a Chinese Buddhist monk who, in the fifth
> > century, traveled to India in order to obtain authentic
> > copies of the scriptures.
>
> > * * "These scriptures unambiguously support the meatless
> > way of life. *In the MAHABHARAT, for instance, the great
> > warrior Bheeshm explains to Yuddhishtira, eldest of the
> > Paandav princes, that the meat of animals is like the
> > flesh of one's own son. *Similarly, the MANUSMRITI
> > declares that one should 'refrain from eating all kinds
> > of meat,' for such eating involves killing and and leads
> > to Karmic bondage (Bandh) [5.49]. *Elsewhere in the Vedic
> > literature, the last of the great Vedic kings, Maharaja
> > Parikshit, is quoted as saying that 'only the animal-
> > killer cannot relish the message of the Absolute Truth
> > [Shrimad Bhagvatam 10.1.4].'"
>
> > SCRIPTURE
>
> > * * He who desires to augment his own flesh by eating
> > the flesh of other creatures lives in misery in whatever
> > species he may take his birth.
> > MAHABHARAT 115.47
>
> > * * Those high-souled persons who desire beauty,
> > faultlessness of limbs, long life, understanding, mental
> > and physical strength and memory should abstain from acts
> > of injury. MAHABHARAT 18.115.8
>
> > * * The very name of cow is Aghnya ["not to be killed"],
> > indicating that they should never be slaughtered. *Who,
> > then could slay them? *Surely, one who kills a cow or a
> > bull commits a heinous crime. MAHABHARAT, SHANTIPARV
> > 262.47
>
> > * * The purchaser of flesh performs Hinsa (violence) by
> > his wealth; he who eats flesh does so by enjoying its
> > taste; the killer does Hinsa by actually tying and
> > killing the animal. Thus, there are three forms of
> > killing: he who brings flesh or sends for it, he who cuts
> > off the limbs of an animal, and he who purchases, sells
> > or cooks flesh and eats it -- all of these are to be
> > considered meat-eaters. MAHABHARAT, ANU 115.40
>
> > * * *He who sees that the Lord of all is ever the same
> > in all that is -- immortal in the field of mortality --
> > he sees the truth. *And when a man sees that the God in
> > himself is the same God in all that is, he hurts not
> > himself by hurting others. *Then he goes, indeed, to the
> > highest path. BHAGVAD GEETA 13.27-28
>
> > * * Ahinsa is the highest Dharm. *Ahinsa is the best
> > Tapas. Ahinsa is the greatest gift. *Ahinsa is the
> > highest self-control. *Ahinsa is the highest sacrifice.
> > Ahinsa is the highest power. *Ahinsa is the highest
> > friend. *Ahinsa is the highest truth. *Ahinsa is the
> > highest teaching. MAHABHARAT 18.116.37-41
>
> > * * What is the good way? *It is the path that reflects
> > on how it may avoid killing any creature. TIRUKURAL 324
>
> > * * All that lives will press palms together in
> > prayerful adoration of those who refuse to slaughter and
> > savor meat. TIRUKURAL 260
>
> > * * What is virtuous conduct? *It is never destroting
> > life, for killing leads to every other sin. TIRUKURAL
> > 312, 321
>
> > * * Goodness is never one with the minds of these two:
> > one who wields a weapon and one who feasts on a
> > creature's flesh. TIRUKURAL 253
>
> > End of forwarded article from:
> >http://www.hinduismtoday.com
>
> > Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi, Vedic Astrologer
> > Born and raised in a Hindu family in Varanasi, a vegetarian since birth
> > Om Shanti
>
> > The principles of *Sanatan Dharm *are profound in their wisdom !
>
> Jai ho Sanatan Dharm kee!
>
> Tributes to Hinduism
>
> 1. Mahatma Gandhi:
>
> "Hinduism has made marvelous discoveries in things of
> religion, of the spirit, of the soul. We have no eye for
> these great and fine discoveries. We are dazzled by the
> material progress that western science has made. Ancient
> India has survived because Hinduism was not developed
> along material but spiritual lines.
>
> "India is to me the dearest country in the world, because
> I have discovered goodness in it. It has been subject to
> foreign rule, it is true. But the status of a slave is
> preferable to that of a slave holder."
>
> 2. Henry David Thoreau:
>
> "In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous
> and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita in
> comparison with which our modern world and its literature
> seems puny.
>
> "What extracts from the Vedas I have read fall on me like
> the light of a higher and purer luminary, which describes
> a loftier course through purer stratum. It rises on me
> like the full moon after the stars have come out, wading
> through some far stratum in the sky."
>
> 3. Arthur Schopenhauer:
>
> "In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and
> so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It has been the
> solace of my life -- it will be the solace of my death."
>
> 4. Ralph Waldo Emerson said this about the Gita:
>
> "I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavad Gita. It was as
> if an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but
> large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old
> intelligence which in another age and climate had
> pondered and thus disposed of the same questions which
> exercise us."
>
> The famous poem "Brahm" is an example of his Vedanta
> ecstasy.
>
> 5. Wilhelm von Humboldt pronounced the Gita as:
>
> "The most beautiful, perhaps the only true philosophical
> song existing in any known tongue ... perhaps the deepest
> and loftiest thing the world has to show."
>
> 6. Lord Warren Hastings, the Governor General, was very
> much impressed with Hindu philosophy:
>
> "The writers of the Indian philosophies will survive,
> when the British dominion in India shall long have ceased
> to exist, and when the sources which it yielded of wealth
> and power are lost to remembrances."
>
> 7. Mark Twain:
>
> "So far as I am able to judge, nothing has been left
> undone, either by man or nature, to make India the most
> extraordinary country that the sun visits on his rounds.
> Nothing seems to have been forgotten, nothing overlooked.
>
> "Land of religions, cradle of human race, birthplace of
> human speech, grandmother of legend, great grandmother of
> tradition. The land that all men desire to see and having
> seen once even by a glimpse, would not give that glimpse
> for the shows of the rest of the globe combined."
>
> 8. Rudyard Kipling to Fundamental Christian Missionaries:
>
> "Now it is not good for the Christian's health to hustle
> the Hindu brown for the Christian riles and the Hindu
> smiles and weareth the Christian down; and the end of the
> fight is a tombstone while with the name of the ...
>
> read more »- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

Dhanyavaad for your seva to Sanatan Dharm !