Guest guest Posted April 27, 2005 Report Share Posted April 27, 2005 As long as the cows and devotees are safe, and no harm is coming to the land, it would seem to me that you are taking some of the hard-earned wealth of the renters and converting it into devotional service. Hard to see any problem there. > Dear Rupanuga Prabhu > > Thank you for your response. > > The present horses are a neighbourly jesture by us. They give a donation > for the Cow Protection Project in reciprocation. > > At present the benefit to the temple is good-will and some finances. By > next year we may well have excess land in that there will be more grass > than our herd can graze or eat as hay. Having horses on for short periods > until our herd builds up seems an advantage to us as long as there is > ethical justification as well as financial benefit to the goshalla. > > ys syam > (Text PAMHO:9749535) ------ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 27, 2005 Report Share Posted April 27, 2005 Since I was one of the main people who pushed for the section prohibiting cows meant for slaughter from grazing on ISKCON property, I'll contribute my feelings on the question. It's useful to think of the original reason for this rule. There were various instances where ISKCON was being implicated in cow slaughter, and we felt it was spiritually corrosive for devotees of Krsna to be put in the position of supporting cow slaughter. Examples: 1. Certain temples would get a bull calf from a local dairy and use it in their Govardhana puja celebration. Once the celebration was over, the calf was returned to the dairy for certain horror and eventual slaughter. This seemed dangerous and hypocritical for a group which was supposed to be an advocate of cow protection. 2. One farm was accepting direct monetary payments to allow a neighbor's beef cattle to graze on it's land. Guests could come and see the beef cattle and admire them -- only to learn that they were headed to a slaughter house the next week. This also seemed hypocritical. 3. Another farm allowed beef cattle to graze on its land for a tax exemption worth thousands of dollars. Again, the question was raised, how can an organization which claims to protect the cows, be involved in accepting financial benefits for helping enrich those who would then send the cows to slaughter? So this is the type of issue that we were trying to address with this rule. The point is that it's not appropriate for a group which claims to value cow protection to turn right around and engage in some type of activity which supports cow slaughter -- particularly when we accept a substantial financial benefit from that activity. In particular, I was very strong on this point. Any activity which supports cow abuse and cow slaughter definitely weakens the spiritual potency of the temple or community that engages in that activity. But, in reference to the present situation, where the purpose is just being neighborly, there is no substantial financial benefit since the neighbors are involved in a hobby and not a business of selling horses for meat -- this type of thing doesn't really seem to be offensive. Especially due to the small scale of the situation. And, it can even be hoped, by the gentle influence of the devotees, they may even be persuaded eventually, not to sell their pet animals, but to let them live out their lives just as they see the devotees next door doing with their cows. Thus I feel in this type of situation it should be permissable. It's often a very fine line in these situations, but this does not seem like abuse of the animals. I'd say that any hesitation in doing this would be more likely to stem from the possibility that animals from outside might spread some type of disease such as foot and mouth disease. But I would be confident that Syamasundar prabhu would be competent to judge whether the risk of disease is sufficient to make this a dangerous practice. your servant, Hare Krsna dasi - "Syamasundara (das) (Bhaktivedanta Manor - UK)" <Syamasundara (AT) pamho (DOT) net> Tuesday, April 26, 2005 12:00 pm Horses on ISKCON owned or rented land > Dear Rupanuga Prabhu > > Thank you for your response. > > The present horses are a neighbourly jesture by us. They give a > donation for > the Cow Protection Project in reciprocation. > > At present the benefit to the temple is good-will and some > finances. By next > year we may well have excess land in that there will be more grass > than our > herd can graze or eat as hay. Having horses on for short periods > until our > herd builds up seems an advantage to us as long as there is ethical > justification as well as financial benefit to the goshalla. > > ys syam > > ----------------------- > To from this mailing list, send an email to: > Cow-Owner (AT) pamho (DOT) net > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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