Mail Archive

Krishna, cows and everything

• Subject: Krishna, cows and everything
• From: Derk
• Date: Fri Jun 30 11:24:26 1995
• Message-Id: id548

Dear Derk


Hello! Hare Krishna!

>>Well we are working for Krishna so karma doesn't really come into it... You
>>get karma if you are doing something for yourself but if it's for Krishna
>>it's transcendental.
>
>That seems a bit circular.  So if you really believe you are working for
>Krishna there can be no bad karma huh?  People have attempted genocide with
>such principles. People who really believed they were doing right.  I do not
>think such philosophies are for me.

Yes. It can be quite tricky... People can justify all sorts of things on this
basis. So we have to follow the instructions of our spiritual master. If you have
a qualified spiritual master he will properly guide you..

>
>>>I am sure your intentions were good, but I suggest you look closer at
>>>your means, because they never justify the end.  If nothing else, this is
>>>true because justification is a trap.
>>
>>Well sometimes the means justify the end. It all depends on the situation
>>really.
>
>Perhaps you can give me an example where ["bad"] means justify the ends. (I
>said that backward before and assume you did too(?).)  Because I have come
>to see things from a different standpoint, and perhaps you will enlighten me.

It is conceivable that in current "new world order" mood that many "good" things
could become "bad" according to popular opinion... They don't like God and
religion for example. So telling people about God may become illegal [as it was in
communist Russia]... But we will still tell people about God.. Even against the
law..

>
>I just meant I had heard much of the philosophy before.
>

Keep hearing it... It takes time to appreciate it.

>>Now it is very different. I don't know what you feel about these things. I
>>would like to hear. What are people interested in now? I find the "been
>>there done that" mood is very common... And I fear mostly people are
>>becoming more and more materialistic, more and more atheistic, generating
>>more an more bad karma and heading for a very miserable existence in hell.
>>It is not so good...
>
>I cannot say I believe in hell in any conventional sense.  If anything, I
>have a more taoist or perhaps buddhist idea that all is exactly as it should
>be in this moment; that each being has its lessons to learn in this life,
>and its own path to walk.  It is a hard view to take at times, but that
>seems to be where faith enters.

Yes. That's the problem. All nonsense philosophies that tell you exactly what you
want to hear. They are very popular of course. But they are all going to hell
nonetheless...

>
>
>>>"When we say plants do not feel pain, what we mean is that they do not
>>>scream so loud."
>>
>>Yes. Unfortunately the Buddhists have become very degraded. The whole idea
>>of Lord Buddha's philosophy was ahimsa, non-violence. Now they are coming up
>>with all sorts of excuses to break  their own principles. And the people in
>>general love it. There's no God, daily sex is a recommended healthy
>>activity, you can eat meat, drink, take drugs.. Its all ok...
>
>The line I left did not advocate violence.  It simply implied it is naive to
>think it any kinder to murder plants than animals.


We don't murder plants... You pick the fruit from the trees, you harvest the grain
after the plant naturally dies, you pick the tomatoes from the plants...

But yes, there is sin in cooking vegetarian food for yourself also...

                          yajna-sistasinah santo
                          mucyante sarva-kilbisaih
                        bhunjate te tv agham papa
                          ye pacanty atma-karanat

"The devotees of the Lord are released from all kinds of sins because
they eat food which is offered first for sacrifice. Others, who prepare food for
personal sense enjoyment, verily eat only sin." (Bhagavad-gita 3.13)

Only if we cook for Krishna is the result free from Karma...

>  I do not advocate
>raising any animals to be butchered, though nor do I have any great love of
>bovines.

I just wrote an article on this...

> (scarlet witch) wrote:
>
>>In article <3oeg5l$ksa@news.bu.edu>,  (Andrew Rakeman) writes:
>>>
>>> cows cant wish, they cant think, they are dumb as nails.
>
>>Hmmm...i would seriously doubt that you know much about animal psychology at
>>all. Using your own cognitive experiences as a frame of reference does not
>>count.
>
>Cows can think. They can think about what they want to eat. They know what they
like and what they don't like.... But they certainly are not super-intelligent.
But that doesn't mean they don't have a right to live. Every living being has a
right to live.
>
>It is true that every living entity lives by eating another living entity... That
is the law of nature. But thoughtful people don't want to cause unnecessary
suffering, and it is quite possible to cook and eat very nice food without killing
animals.
>
>Of all animals the cow is very special because she gives us milk... I know many
of you are vegans and don't drink milk... That is another thing. But cows and
people have lived side by side in many civilizations and have both benefited. The
people can arrange for the protection of the cows and take them to the pastures
where they can find nice grass... The cows eat the grass and turn it into milk
which is [despite all the "anti-milk" propaganda] a miracle food.
>
>The cow turns her blood into milk. She pumps blood into her udder and it is
transformed peacefully, naturally and non-violently into milk. Milk contains
everything you can get from meat [but not the violence and aggression]. It is a
complete food. You can live on milk.
>
>In the past sages in India would travel and every morning, at the time of milking
the cows, they would visit someones house and request some milk. No one would
refuse for there was plenty of milk and the benefits of giving charity to the
sages were well known. In return the sages would tell the householders something
about Krishna, thus helping them to advance spiritually. So milk is so good that
you can live on it. There are very few other foods like this.
>
>Most vegans I have met are not actually against milk, but they are against the
violence the modern dairy industry commits against the cows. This is a big
problem. Modern dairies treat the cows like machines and treat them very badly.
But that doesn't make milk bad. Rather than giving up milk we should correct the
problems in the dairy industry... That would be the best thing.
>
>So as devotees of Krishna, we have a special interest in protecting the cows
because Krishna likes the cows very much. He is a cow-heard boy. It seems
amazing... How could God be a cow-heard boy? But sometimes truth is stranger than

fiction... So he likes the cows very much. So, because God likes the cows very
much, killing cows is more sinful than killing other animals. Any unnecessary
killing is sinful. But killing cows is very sinful.
>
>Many of the problems the world is now facing including violence and wars, are a
direct result of the massive cow killing which is now going on everywhere. We
don't connect it. It is karma. When we do something violent to another living
entity that violence will come back on us in the future. It's just like bouncing a
ball on the ground... it will bounce back up again. Scientists can relate to the
forces and natural principles at work in the bouncing ball but they cannot yet see
the same forces acting on a more subtle level. But karma is the same law that
causes the ball to bounce back up... it works with our actions as well as with
balls!
>
>
>>>
>>> you know for a fact what other PEOPLE feel?? i know what happens
>>> everytime i eat meet and put on my leather, and i care, but the
>>> animals had no rights to begin with.
>
>Of course animals are less intelligent than people. They can't defend themselves
against us. But that doesn't mean they have no rights. They are born into this
world just like you and me and they have a right to live here also.
>
>We are all spirit souls. You and I are now in human bodies but we, the spirit-
souls are not different from the spirit-souls in the cows body. It's a question of
consciousness that's all. We get a body according to our consciousness. If you are
in human consciousness you get a human body, if you are in dog consciousness you
get a dogs body... It depends what you want. If in this human life you dedicate
your whole life to surfing, always thinking of the ocean, always thinking of
catching a big wave... Then naturally you will be thinking of surfing at the time
of death and your next body will be one suited to surfing. Because you were in
"Surfing consciousness" at the time of death... So you can get a dolphin body or a
seal body... And you will be in your element. Built in wetsuit, built in flippers,
living in the ocean. What more could any surfer wish for? [BTW I have NOT cross-
posted this one to alt.surfing!] :-)
>
>But Surfing consciousness is not really so good... There are sharks, the water is
sometimes too cold... and you have to die also... It is better to become Krishna
conscious so at the time of death we think of Krishna and go back to Krishna, back
home, back to Godhead. That is the best thing. There we have our original
spiritual body which is eternally youthful, full of knowledge and full of
pleasure... which is what we are looking for here but can never find... It's our
real home, our natural position. To be in the spiritual world with Krishna.
>
>We all have some relationship with Krishna that we have forgoten. Some of us are
His friends, some of us are His parents, even some of us are His wives and lovers.
Everything is there in the spiritual world because everything here is a perverted
reflection of the spiritual world... So what we see here exists there as well but
in its original pure form...
>
>>>
>>> im telling your mom that you called her a cow!!
>
>Yes. The cow is one of our mothers because she gives us milk. First our real
mother gives us milk then this job is taken by mother cow. There are many mothers,
the earth is also our mother...
>
>>That was just plain stupid. I could use loftier criticism, but what's the point?
>
>Yes. Criticism is not very constructive. It is better to try and understand. You
will find it makes a lot of sense.
>
>
>>My friend, you will always be full of questions. Why the sudden desire to get
>>answers?
>
>A very philosophical statement indeed... Human life is meant for questions and
for finding the answers. If we stop asking the questions we are no better than the


dogs and cats and we will become dogs and cats in our next life... That would be
missing a great chance...
>
>

>What I do advocate, somewhat contradictory to your home page (it
>seems) is that the human race stop growing beyond its bounds and destroying
>its home.  What environmental issue that we are facing now would be such the
>concern if our population was still what it was 100 years ago?

This idea in not valid. It is not the big populations that are the problem. We
want to consume so much... that's the problem. The earth can happily support a
very big population, but we are very greedy, that's the problem. So we would
prefer to kill them and enjoy everything ourselves... (abortion, euthanasia...)

>  Sure, the
>planet could theoretcally house whatever you said (many billion), and we
>could all be crammed on this planet with all the space used to grow wheat

No. There would still be plenty of open spaces, forests, etc... We are growing
enough grain already but we are breeding artificially large numbers of animals to
be killed... and feeding the grain to them. But we can eat the grains ourselves...
Our body can handle this much better and it is FAR more efficient... You don't
need to use any more land at all. On the other hand, the McDonalds alternative is
completely destructive. They will have to clear all the land to grow enough grain
to supply their "grain-feed" beef. And they are doing i too. They care about their
profits, that's all...

>for our needs, and there could be no open spaces left.  We can keep on
>crowding other species to extinction.  But WHY?... why?  I might suggest a
>good book recently I read called "Ishmael".  It deals a lot with that.

It's a nonsense idea. I don't know where you live, but I live in Australia and
there is ABSOLUTELY NO CROWD HERE! We have something like 17 million people in a
huge country and 5 million live in Sydney, 4 million in Melbourne, 2 million in
Brisbane, 1.5 million in Adelaide, 1.5 million in Perth... That leaves about 5
million who mostly life in a few [smaller] big cities... The country is quite
empty!!!

BTW India has 1/3 the land-mass of Australia and a population of 900 million
people. But there is are still forests, jungles, mountains, open-space... In fact
80% of the people live in self-sufficient small villages... It's a different mood
altogether.

>
>>Chant Hare Krishna and be happy!
>Thank you (why would I do that?).

Because it will uncover your original consciousness.. You will become "self-
realized" and when you can see your self you will be able to see Krishna too. And
then you will be in your original position, eternally youthful, full of knowledge
and full of bliss... It's what we are all looking for.

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