cow dung

[Guest guest]

According to our Vedic principle, nobody has got the right to question

anyone unless that person is accepted as spiritual master. Otherwise, it is

waste of time. Spiritual... If you want to question somebody, you must

accept his answer. You cannot argue. That is acceptance of authority. Just

like in Vedas, whatever injunctions are there, we accept it without any

argument. That is Vedic instruction. People sometimes say: "Is it Vedic

instruction, that I have to accept it without argument?" Actually, that is

Vedic instruction. Just like, for example, the Vedas says cow dung is pure.

Now actually we are accepting, those who are following the Vedic

principles, they accept cow dung as pure. Actually, it is pure. But if we

argue: "How is that, that animal stool is impure, even human stool is

impure. How cow dung, which is stool of another animal, is pure?" It is

contrary. But actually, we accept. Actually we accept. Similarly,

conchshell, conchshell is nothing but bone of an animal. According to our

Vedic version, if you touch the bone of an animal, you become immediately

impure. You have to take bath. But this bone of animal, conchshell, is

taken to the Deity room. It is so pure. So from our human consciousness we

find contradiction in the Vedic instruction, that in the Vedas, in one

place, it says that the bone of an animal is impure; in another place says

the bone of a particular animal is pure. The Vedas says the stool of an

animal is impure, but in another place it says that the stool of the cow

animal is pure. So apparently we find contradiction. But still, because we

accept the authority of the Vedas, therefore we accept the statement also.

We accept the bone of the conchshell, and we accept the stool of cow as

pure. That is acceptance of authority. You cannot argue. Even though it

appears it is contradictory, you cannot argue.

 

Srila Prabhupada