question- vegetarian foodsDigest Number 429

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JAI SRIMAN NArayana!

Asmath Gurubyo Namaha!

 

--- wrote:

> Wed, 19 Jun 2002 16:42:00 -0700 (PDT)

> DJQ <nite_errant

> Re: question - vegetarian foods

>

>

> Pardon me for my ignorance of Hindu theological

> terms,

> but I gather you are addressing the issue of

> religious

> and social law. This is a matter with which I have

> some degree of experience, although that experience

> is

> within the context of western thought. For me, the

> following ideas from Steiner have been most helpful.

 

Vaishnavas do not eat meat because the food they eat

has to be first offered to Sriman Narayana, and Lord

Krishna in Bgagavadgitha said that He accepts only

patram (leaf), pushpam (fruit), phalam (fruit) and

thoyam (water, liquid). Also, Vaishnavas do not eat

meat because all the satvik puranas are against eating

meat and they preach ahimsa (nonvoilence). Certain

types of sadhus (according to Srimad Bagavtham) eat

only fruits and more advanced sadhus eat only the

fruit that has fallen from the tree and they do not

pluck any fruit from the tree. I thought, JET USA

group is only for discussing the Vaishnava thought.

 

>

> "There is no law enforced by family authority that

> was

> not once intuitively conceived and formulated as

> such

> by an ancestor. Even the conventional laws of

> morality are first established by specific persons.

> And the laws of the state always arise in the heads

> of

> state officials. Those minds have set up laws over

> other people, and no one becomes unfree except by

> forgetting that origin and making the laws either

> into

> extra-human commandments,

 

What you quoted above might be Skinner or Steiner or

any other materialist's thought. However, we beleive

in Vedic injunctions as practiced by our acharyas wh

themselves are pious and nonvoilent.

 

>Here in the West, we are instructed that the human

>body cannot make three of the essential amino acids.

>I do not know how this conclusion was derived.

 

Did they conduct research on Vegetarians or did they

conduct research on non-vegetarians who were deprived

of meat for a specific period of time? A major

portion of the population in India do not consume

meat. Yet, they are surviving and are healthy. If

moksha is the goal, then we should avoid eating meat.

 

>How do we address the Alaskan population

>who cannot survive without eating meat?

 

First, do they want to get out of the cycle of birth

an death? We can not simply impose our relegious

beliefs on them. In fact, Lord Krishna asked us not to

teach this science of relegion to some one who does

not ask for it. However, with Krishna's mercy, there

is always a solution.

 

>I mean to cast no aspersions here, but such complex

>issues do not readily yield to simplistic injunctions

>and emotional appeals.

 

The issue, although may appear complex, reduces to the

decesion to become a mumukshuv (inteerested in

moksham) or to remain a bubukshuv (remain as a

material enjoyer).

 

Jai Sriman Narayana

Narender Reddy