No argument against flesh consumption || Acharya Prashant, in conversation (2021)

Acharya Prashant

‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant? Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...   Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books? Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~  Video Information: 07.12.2020, Interview Session, Rishikesh, Uttrakhand  Context: ~ Does killing by a lion and killing by a man a same thing? ~ Does a carnivore animal have a choice  not to kill? ~ How killing any animal affect human consciousness? ~ Why should one turn vegan?  ~ What is the relationship between veganism and spirituality? ~ How is veganism related to compassion?  Music Credits: Milind Date ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Transcript

00:00So, since the last 7-8 years I have very actively been involved in animal rescue, because I

00:10relate to their faces and their suffering more than anything else.

00:14So, what is we all know the condition of animals, how dismal, how torturous.

00:25We know about Jallikattu, we know about these kind of mad animal spots, brutal spots, dog

00:35bites and bull fights and stuff.

00:38So, how do we resolve all this, how do we resolve this, what is your take?

00:50Because I have been actively been there rescuing and feeding and taking care and stuff.

00:55And it is a massive juggernaut and sometimes depressing also to see how it is right from

01:05the slaughter to, you know, I mean everybody in my family is a non-vegetarian except for

01:11me.

01:12So, every time they all come over and you know, you know, so there is this debate every

01:19time.

01:20So, you know how, how do we, again I know it does boil down to them.

01:25It is very simple, the way our bodies are, we can take in animal flesh.

01:39The fact is, there is nothing in your body that does not want animal flesh.

01:50You can bring up a child on 60-70% meat and fish and egg and this kind of diet and the

02:02child can grow up into a physically strong and mentally active human being, it is very

02:11possible.

02:12So, Prakriti, this physical nature has no objection to humans eating flesh, just as

02:26Prakriti has no objection to a lion killing a deer for food.

02:36We may keep saying, oh, it is not good, this, that, forget it.

02:43Meat eaters in general you may find are sturdier, taller, all those things, yes, of course,

02:52we know that meats are not good for the body, we also know the health benefits of veganism,

03:00we know all those things, but still, the majority of the world consumes flesh copiously

03:11and is still more or less healthy.

03:15If you look at Nobel Prize winners, more than 90% of them would be flesh eaters.

03:20So, it is not as if they are just doing physically well, they are doing materially and intellectually

03:28well as well.

03:32So, and if you compare non-meat eaters, vegetarians or vegans to flesh eaters, you may even find

03:44that the flesh eaters are more prosperous, because the West is more prosperous and the

03:50West is largely meat eating.

03:55So, there is no material argument against flesh consumption, first of all, let us get

04:02that straight.

04:04You cannot convince someone of health benefits, you cannot convince someone of prosperity,

04:10you cannot convince someone of mental health, all those arguments have very little weight

04:18and that is why those arguments have largely failed.

04:22You go and tell someone that meat eating is not good for you and the doctors say that,

04:28well, that is true.

04:30In one particular position, the doctor will tell you, avoid red meat, in another position,

04:35the same doctor will tell you, eggs are very good for you, oh, this kid is underweight,

04:39give him chicken soup.

04:43So, medical science is quite equivocal on that.

04:52You cannot very unambiguously declare that medical science is against flesh consumption,

05:00because it is not.

05:07What is it then, that would make a person quit harassing animals, whether in the form

05:18of jelly kattu or a leather belt or a shiny purse or a fur coat or milk tea or of course

05:34flesh or zoos or pets or so many other forms of exploitation or even the things that we

05:49do to stray dogs.

05:52What would convince a person to not do all those things?

05:55You cannot have, remember, any material argument, yes, there are a lot of material arguments,

06:01of course, I know, I have been into this since long, but none of those material arguments

06:08clinch the day for you, they are not decisive, they can make you think, but they will not

06:16force you into submission.

06:19You cannot have a final argument that you present to a flesh eater and he will turn

06:26vegetarian in a flash, that is not going to happen.

06:31They have such creative ways of arguments.

06:34And many of their arguments are factually not misplaced, when they say those things,

06:41they are factually not misplaced.

06:44So, what is it that makes a person just do away with all this nonsense and violence?

07:01The argument cannot be material.

07:04The argument has to be related to your identity as a suffering consciousness, when you realize

07:19who you are, then you will not do things that hurt you.

07:33I am suffering and I am suffering because I do not love myself enough, had I loved myself

07:38enough I would have taken care of myself, I am suffering in the inner way, that animal

07:49is so much like me, that animal is conscious, so much like me, so much like me.

08:00If I can exploit that animal, if I can wreck suffering on that animal, I can do the same

08:08to myself.

08:11The more I am violent towards that animal, the more I am violent towards consciousness

08:21itself, because remember, it is a mark of low consciousness to consider consciousness

08:31as fragmented, please get the flow of the whole thing.

08:38I am suffering because my consciousness is lowly, it is a characteristic of lowly consciousness

08:46to think that my consciousness is different from your consciousness, the very otherness

08:55is a characteristic of low consciousness, so I am already suffering because my consciousness

09:04is low, that is making me live in hell and because of my low consciousness I think that

09:10that dog or that goat or that chicken is a separate, totally isolated, totally entity

09:21that I can slaughter without any repercussions on my own well-being, that is a mark of my

09:29own lowness, now if I slaughter that, I am just extending, reinforcing my lowness therefore

09:38my suffering, it is a mark of high consciousness to understand that consciousness is not fragmented,

09:49the thing within that bird is the same as the thing within me, not only the same, it

09:55is one, therefore if I hurt the thing within the bird, I am hurting the thing within me,

10:01I don't want to hurt myself therefore I am not going to hurt the bird, are you getting

10:07it?

10:08So only when you are greatly interested in your own inner well-being, will you quit flesh

10:15consumption or animal harassment or cruelty, otherwise you will continue and you will have

10:22a thousand reasons, several of them very difficult to argue against, realization of

10:34one's own true identity and depth in wisdom, this is the only way, exploitation of environment

10:50and cruelty towards all living forms is going to stop or reduced, otherwise it is going

10:57to continue, what is bad is that even those who are vegetarian are usually vegetarian

11:07for very flimsy reasons, I am born in a Brahmin family or a Jain family or some other reason,

11:14therefore I don't take to eat meat, now this is such a shallow reason, it will just yield

11:21any time, yield to pressures, yield to circumstances, yield to company, I am a college going boy

11:34and it's a thing in my modern circle to be vegan, therefore I am vegan, without having

11:43any spiritual core, I am vegan, now this kind of veganism is going to be very short-lived,

11:48it's not going to work, plus that fellow is going to remain violent in spite of being

11:54vegan and if you are violent, then that violent is going to seep into your relationship with

12:02animals in some way or the other, you may not be an active flesh consumer, but you would

12:07still be contributing to animal cruelty in some way or the other, because the violence

12:11within you has not abated, so the only way we can address this violence in the relationship

12:23between man and animals or man and woman, man and man, this entire issue of relationship

12:31is by addressing the question of identity, unless we realize who we are, if we think

12:38of ourselves as men, women, rich, poor, young, old, we will stay very distant from the truth,

12:50doesn't matter what your gender is, how much money you have, which caste you come from,

12:57you and I are the same, because you have sleepless nights, I have sleepless nights, you have

13:04nightmares, I have nightmares, you do not know what you want, I do not know what I want,

13:13unless we realize we are all one in our suffering, unless we look into a dog's eyes and see our

13:22own pain, it will be very difficult to stop us from hurling a stone at that dog, you have

13:36got this chicken and you have the knife in your hand, you look at the chicken and if

13:42you cannot see something that's just from within you, you just cannot see almost your

13:55own face there, if you cannot see that, that being is as much afraid of death as you are,

14:11you will slaughter, you will slaughter. Morality and idealism are too small to work

14:25against ignorance, ignorance is a mighty thing, the only thing mightier than ignorance is the

14:34light of truth, Maya is no lightweight, she trumps everything, except the truth, the reality,

14:46so if you want to counter Maya through moralistic arguments and these modern ideologies and such

14:56things, you will fail. The person is a vegan but he wants a big house for himself, the person is

15:11a vegan and he wants a big house for himself and of course in the house there is going to be no

15:15leather, no fur and the house is big, hello sir, how are you vegan, where is all the electricity

15:25going to come from, don't you know what causes the destruction of forests, you are indirectly

15:31contributing to the destruction of forests and you call yourself vegan, how? The fellow is a vegan

15:40but believes that climate change is a hoax, what kind of veganism is this? We will remain

16:01cruel because there is nothing in our physical nature that forbids cruelty, in fact whenever I

16:11speak about animal cruelty, people retort by saying that but even the lion kills the deer,

16:24and that's quite a revelation because that fellow is equating himself with the animal,

16:32with the predator, with the predator, in Prakriti we all are predators, even the deer is a predator,

16:39even the deer is a predator, so the fellow is saying I am not a conscious being, I am an animal

16:48being, I am just like the lion and if the lion can kill, I too can kill, as long as your identity is

16:55that of the physical being which is the animal being, you will kill, only when you realize that

17:02you are not going to be satisfied remaining the animal being, will you acknowledge that you are

17:12the conscious being beyond the animal, then you will say I will not do what the animal does,

17:18because doing what the animal does is not going to satisfy me, what the animal does is for the

17:24animal, I am not the animal, therefore I cannot follow the ways of the animal, I'll do what a

17:31suffering consciousness must do and a suffering consciousness can hardly kill and expect freedom

17:39from suffering, I am suffering, I am waiting outside the doctor's cabin and what do I do there,

17:49I shoot lizards, the doctor is not going to be happy with that. So if we are all a part of the

18:09same consciousness, so when Ramana Maharshi says that there are no others or when Osho says,

18:16man ki aakanshaon ka vistaar hi sansaar hai, how do we, I understand that all you can do is be a

18:28good human and try to inculcate all you know the facts of consciousness into your being and around

18:39wherever you are, how do you reconcile when these two stalwarts say these kind of things,

18:47I mean if I have to tell it to a five-year-old. The five-year-old probably already understands

19:00it intuitively. Or say an 11-year-old. Depends on how badly distorted the 11-year-old is.

19:08Yeah. So it's not difficult to help them see that thing, no? They talk to dogs, they play with

19:22rabbits. They are always, they are living it, right? They are already living it. They don't go to the

19:28rabbit and wriggle their necks, you won't have seen five or 11-year-old doing that, right? Because

19:36there is already an innate realization that the stuff and me are the same. In fact in children's

19:45shows or comics or cartoons, you'll always find animals talking. This anthropomorphization itself

20:01suggests that kids see the same consciousness in animals as they do in themselves. Or nature or

20:08anywhere else. Or in nature, even trees have names. Even trees have names. Even toys have names. So

20:16it's not that difficult to see. It's just that when your mind is dominated by greed and lust and

20:25hunger, then you choose not to see these obvious things. I want to kill that goat because of my

20:33ideology or hunger or religious values, whatever, some nonsense. I will choose not to see what's

20:41there in the goat's eyes. It's a choice made. It's a deliberate choice towards self-delusion. If I

20:50look into the goat's eyes, I cannot slaughter the goat. Therefore, I'll look elsewhere and just.

20:54That's why many of my relatives also say, I can't see while cutting, but when I don't see while cutting, I eat it.

21:04You are cheating yourself in the worst possible way and you expect life to be kind to you. You expect not to be

21:23cheated by others. If you have grown such expertise in deception, be prepared to be deceived now.

21:32Amazing. Talking about these random happenings, as you said that, you know,

21:42ja ka gala tum kaati ho, fir wo kaate tumhar. Kabir said it very rightly.

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