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VEGETARIANISM Complied By: Sanjay Bharatha

Those nanny goats, ewes and sows which are with

young or giving milk to their young are protected,

and so are young ones less than six months old.

Cocks are not to be caponized, husks hiding living

beings are not to be burnt and forests are not to be

burnt either without reason or to kill creatures.

One animal is not to be fed to another." Edicts of

Ashoka, Fifth Pillar.

The earliest records of (lacto) vegetarianism come

from ancient India and ancient Greece in the 6th

century BCE. In both instances the diet was closely

connected with the idea of nonviolence towards

animals (called ahimsa in India) and was

promoted by religious groups and philosophers.

Traditionally in India and other vegetarian

societies the only animal products acceptable for

consumption were the dairy products.

The Physical and Health implications of

non-vegetarian food:

The beautifully garnished and aromatic

non-vegetarian food that is thus served, usually

hides the stark truth that what is bring served is

actually a stinking dead body of a helpless and

deathly scared animal or bird mercilessly and

painfully slaughtered for no fault its, after being

subjected to untold suffering of having it’s throat

slit and also skinned while being very much alive.

Vegetarianism – The indispensable Niyama for the

Modern Age for our very Survival and Sustainability

This topic may sound a bit clichéd but it is worth

the repeat in a variety of ways because the neglect

of this very same issue is throwing at us the

unimaginable and innumerable life threatening

challenges which, if not met successfully, would

result in a total catastrophe.

All of us, to some extent, understand the moral

implications of non-vegetarian food but its far

reaching Spiritual, Environmental, Economic and

Health & Welfare implications are either unknown

or ignored as if being unimportant or negligent.

Lets us consider one by one all those factors that

are directly influenced by not keeping the said

Niyama (principle) of vegetarianism.

History of Vegetarianism:

Being the land of Tapas (Penance), India is

historically considered the birth place of

vegetarianism. And also the scope for

vegetarianism in India was always immense due

to the vast variety of flora that is found there. This

combined with the preference for vegetarianism

resulted in hundreds of varieties of vegetarian

dishes being invented in every part of this vast

country catering to the specific needs of each

section of multifarious population.

Anyone who is a seeker of spiritual life, especially

the way of Sanatana Dharma, will be aware that

the right diet is one of its basic requirements. In

India it was and still is largely mandatory for

individuals and families involved in spiritual

practices to be vegetarian. This practice is also

found to be prevalent among many spiritually

oriented individuals, communities and sects

around the world.

Indian emperor Ashoka asserted protection to

fauna thus: "Twenty-six years after my coronation

various animals were declared to be protected

”parrots, mainas, aruna, ruddy geese, wild ducks,

nandimukhas, gelatas, bats, queen ants, terrapins,

boneless fish, vedareyaka, gangapuputaka, sankiya

fish, tortoises, porcupines, squirrels, deer, bulls,

okapinda, wild asses, wild pigeons, domestic

pigeons and all four-footed creatures that are

neither useful nor edible.

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It is said that in the olden days, in India, only three

diseases existed, one of which was oldage. But

after the advent of flesh eating groups into India,

76 new diseases appeared for the first time. The

same is the case with all such societies around the

world that were introduced to flesh eating.

There are certain sections in all societies which

advocate flesh eating but Nature has not endowed

the Humans to be carnivorous. This can be proved

by certain of the observations given out by the

experts who have studied this subject in all detail,

which are as follows:

a) Human teeth are similar in setting to that

of herbivorous animals.

b) The intestines of carnivorous animals are

shorter and hence the food is processed

and expelled quickly unlike in humans who

have longer intestines like herbivorous

animals. Hence flesh food is not quickly

expelled in Human digestive system.

c) Carnivorous animals possess larger liver

and kidneys than herbivorous animals so

that the waste products are easily expelled,

unlike in humans.

d) The amount of Hydrochloric acid produced

in the digestive system of carnivorous

animals is ten times more than the

herbivorous animals and humans thus are

conducive for digesting the flesh food,

unlike in humans.

And various other serious considerations for

avoiding the flesh meat are as follow:

• According to a 2006 United Nations initiative,

the livestock industry is one of the largest

contributors to environmental degradation

worldwide, and modern practices of raising

animals for food contributes on a "massive scale"

to deforestation, air and water pollution, land

degradation, loss of topsoil, climate change, the

overuse of resources including oil and water, and

loss of biodiversity.

• Currently, 70% of all the wheat, corn and other

grain produced are fed to farmed animals. This

has led many proponents of vegetarianism to

believe that it is ecologically irresponsible to

consume meat.

• The initiative concluded that "the livestock

sector emerges as one of the top two or three most

significant contributors to the most serious

environmental problems, at every scale from local

to global.

• In 2006 FAO estimated that meat industry

contributes 18% of all emissions of greenhouse

gases. This figure was revised in 2009 by two

World Bank scientists and estimated at 51%

minimum.

• The International Resource Panel's Priority

Products and Materials report, published in 2010,

found that animal products caused more damage

than producing construction minerals such as

sand or cement, plastics or metals.

• Currently, more than half the world's crops are

used to feed animals.

• In America, more than one-third of the fossil

fuels produced are used to raise animals for food.

• The authors explained that Western dietary

preferences for meat would be unsustainable as

the world population rose to the forecast 9.1

billion by 2050.

• The authors concluded that a global shift

towards a vegan diet was vital to save the world

from hunger, fuel poverty and the worst impacts

of climate change.

• By killing millions of animals every year we are

losing millions of tons of natural manure and are

using chemical based fertilisers and hence the cost

of food products is increasing at a very rapid pace.

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• A 2010 report from United Nations Environment

Program's (UNEP) International Panel of

Sustainable Resource Management, states that

global shift towards a vegan diet is critical for

mitigating global issues of hunger, fuel, poverty

and the worst impacts of climate change

• As per the science of Ayurveda the food that we

take goes on to become our mind matter after

undergoing 7 transformations. And hence it has

direct influence on our thoughts and thereby our

actions or karma, which means on our fate too.

• Number of cells are continuously being born in

our body, which replace the older cells and in

every few months the new cells actually replace all

the older cells in our body, this means that the

quality of new cells and hence the efficiency of our

body and mind and emotions depends upon the

quality of our diet. If we eat such harmful animal

products we can just imagine what effect it has on

us over a period of time.

Apart from avoiding the above said perils one

has many more advantages by turning to

vegetarian food. Few are as follows:

• Vegetarians tend to have lower body mass

index,

• Lower levels of cholesterol,

• Lower blood pressure and fewer

incidences of heart disease, hypertension,

type 2 diabetes, renal disease, osteoporosis,

metabolic syndrome, dementias such as

Alzheimer’s disease and other disorders.

• Soya Beans and Ground Nuts are found to

possess more proteins than meat or eggs.

• In a world of diminishing safe water supplies it is

worth bearing in mind that animals fed on grain

need much more water than grain crops.

• According to the theory of trophic dynamics, it

requires 10 times as many crops to feed animals

being bred for meat production as it would to feed

the same number of people on a vegetarian diet.

• In tracking food animal production from the feed

through to the dinner table, the inefficiencies of

meat, milk and egg production range from a 4:1

energy input to protein output ratio up to 54:1.

• The result is that producing animal-based food is

typically much less efficient than the direct

harvesting of grains, vegetables, legumes, seeds

and fruits for human consumption.

• A person existing chiefly on animal protein

requires 10 times more land to provide adequate

food than someone living on vegetable sources of

protein.

• With relation to global warming the Carbon

Dioxide is not the only greenhouse gas. Methane

has about 21 times more Global Warming

Potential (GWP) than Carbon Dioxide and Nitrous

Oxide has 296 times the GWP of CO2. The

livestock industry is a major contributor of these

gases

• A person existing chiefly on animal protein

requires 10 times more land to provide adequate

food than someone living on vegetable sources of

protein.

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• All the suffering, fear and helpless anger

cause various hormones like adrenaline to

flow through its blood and get mixed with

its flesh. And soon after it dies this painful

death its dead body is infested with many

micro-organisms that cause decay. Such

flesh when ingested by humans acts as a

veritable poison for the body and mind.

• The connection between infected animal

and human illness is well established in the

case of salmonella;

• Only recently, however, have scientists

begun to suspect that there is a similar

connection between animal meat and

human cancer, birth defects, mutations,

and many other diseases in humans.

• 20% of all cows are afflicted with a variety

of cancer known as bovine leukaemia virus

(BLV). Studies have increasingly linked BLV

with HTLV-1, the first human retrovirus

discovered to cause cancer.

• Scientists have found that a bovine

immunodeficiency virus (BIV), the

equivalent of the AIDS virus in cows, can

also infect human cells.

• It is supposed that BIV may have a role in

the development of a number of malignant

or slow viruses in humans

• The proximity of animals in industrial-scale

animal farming leads to an increased rate

of disease transmission.

• Transmission of animal influenza viruses to

humans has been documented, but illness

from such cases is rare compared to that

caused by the now common human-

adapted older influenza viruses,

transferred from animals to humans in the

more distant past.

• In 1997 more cases of H5N1 avian influenza

were found in chickens in Hong Kong.

• The amounts of benefits we derive from

animals are far greater than the benefits

we derive by butchering them. Animals do

a lot of hard work in the farms and

elsewhere around the world thus saving a

large amount of energy apart from

providing free fertilisers to our crops.

Hence killing animals for food is like

burning the currency notes to make coffee.

Various studies have found the Health Risks

associated with flesh eating as follows:

• Non-lean red meat, in particular, has been

found to be directly associated with

increased risk of cancers of the

oesophagus, liver, colon, and the lungs.

• Animals are affected with various diseases

due to many environmental, poor feeding

and low immunity causes and all these are

passed onto humans when they consume

animal flesh.

• Various very harmful enzymes are

released into their blood stream while the

animals are lined up for being slaughtered,

due to fear, terror, anger and helplessness

and thus those enzymes enter the flesh of

animals prior to those being slaughtered.

• Hence humans who eat animal flesh become

prone to a number of incurable and strange

new diseases. This diseased condition is

transferred through the generations of

humans, further complicating the problem.

Here I also intend to elaborately reproduce

quotations from an excellent book on this subject by

C. W. Leadbeater, called 'Vegetarianism and

Occultism', published by the Theosophical

Publishing House.

In this book Leadbeater investigates both the

physical and visible reasons and also the hidden

occult reasons for strictly avoiding all kinds of

meat.

Citing purely physical reasons he writes

Vegetables contain more nutriment than an equal

amount of dead flesh. The proteins, which are

considered to be principal benefit of consuming

dead flesh, have only one origin; they are organised

in plants and nowhere else. In the animal body

these proteins, which the animal has observed from

the vegetable kingdom during its life, are constantly

passing down to disorganisation, during which

decent the energy originally stored in them is

released. Moreover this tissue change is

accompanied by the formation of various poisons,

which are found in flesh of any kind. Hence these

downgraded proteins in animal flesh are of

quality when consumed by humans because the

animal has used up half of it.’

He further writes ' many serious diseases come

from this loathsome habit of devouring dead

bodies.' He quotes highly placed medical experts

as saying 'Flesh is infected with terrible diseases as

cancer, consumption, fever, intestinal worms,

rheumatism, gout, cerebral congestion, plies,

constipation, eczema, worms, scrofa, etc., which are

readily communicated to flesh eaters. The presence

of uric acid in meat is also a prime cause of

diseases.'

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Here I also intend to elaborately reproduce

quotations from an excellent book on this subject by

C. W. Leadbeater, called 'Vegetarianism and

Occultism', published by the Theosophical

In this book Leadbeater investigates both the

l and visible reasons and also the hidden

occult reasons for strictly avoiding all kinds of

Citing purely physical reasons he writes ‘the

Vegetables contain more nutriment than an equal

amount of dead flesh. The proteins, which are

principal benefit of consuming

dead flesh, have only one origin; they are organised

in plants and nowhere else. In the animal body

these proteins, which the animal has observed from

the vegetable kingdom during its life, are constantly

organisation, during which

decent the energy originally stored in them is

released. Moreover this tissue change is

accompanied by the formation of various poisons,

which are found in flesh of any kind. Hence these

downgraded proteins in animal flesh are of very less

quality when consumed by humans because the

He further writes ' many serious diseases come

from this loathsome habit of devouring dead

bodies.' He quotes highly placed medical experts

d with terrible diseases as

cancer, consumption, fever, intestinal worms,

rheumatism, gout, cerebral congestion, plies,

constipation, eczema, worms, scrofa, etc., which are

readily communicated to flesh eaters. The presence

rime cause of

He further states ‘Vigour of the body is often

boasted by flesh-eaters, and he may be able to do a

large amount of work in short time but he soon gets

hungry and becomes weak unlike the vegetarians

who have much more endurance. This is proved by

history that of all tribes of Greeks, the Spartans

were strongest and enduring owing to their simple

vegetable diet. So is the case with Roman

gladiators.’

He recollects the marvel of a British Officer at the

enormous strength displayed by the Tamil coolies,

who easily lifted the weight equivalent to that

which was lifted by four English labourers.

He further quotes Mr. H. P. Fowler as saying ‘the

flesh food owing to the excitation it exercises on

the nervous system induces habits or

intemperance in everything like alcohol

example.

It also intensifies the lower nature of man and

leaves an intense craving because flesh food

doesn't fully nourish the bodily tissues, thus

leading a recourse to various stimulants in order

to satisfy this vague craving. Hence the

drunkenness and all the poverty, wretchedness,

disease and crime associated with it may be

frequently traced to error in feeding’.

Writing about sin of slaughter

money made in this business is strained in blood,

every coin of it. And those who feed on dead flesh

encourage this crime by making it remunerative

and are hence sinful because whatsoever a man

does through another he does himself.'

Vigour of the body is often

eaters, and he may be able to do a

large amount of work in short time but he soon gets

hungry and becomes weak unlike the vegetarians

who have much more endurance. This is proved by

tribes of Greeks, the Spartans

were strongest and enduring owing to their simple

vegetable diet. So is the case with Roman

He recollects the marvel of a British Officer at the

enormous strength displayed by the Tamil coolies,

ed the weight equivalent to that

which was lifted by four English labourers.

He further quotes Mr. H. P. Fowler as saying ‘the

flesh food owing to the excitation it exercises on

the nervous system induces habits or

intemperance in everything like alcohol for

It also intensifies the lower nature of man and

leaves an intense craving because flesh food

doesn't fully nourish the bodily tissues, thus

to various stimulants in order

to satisfy this vague craving. Hence the

drunkenness and all the poverty, wretchedness,

disease and crime associated with it may be

frequently traced to error in feeding’.

sin of slaughter he says ' the

money made in this business is strained in blood,

every coin of it. And those who feed on dead flesh

encourage this crime by making it remunerative

and are hence sinful because whatsoever a man

does through another he does himself.'

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And man has within himself matter belonging to

all these higher planes, so that he is furnished with

a vehicle corresponding to each of them, through

which he can receive impressions and by means of

which he can act. And as his physical matter is in

close touch with the astral and mental matter, if he

builds his physical body with the gross and

undesirable matter like dead flesh and alcohol, he

draws into his astral and mental bodies’ course

and unpleasant counterpart. This is visible at once

to the eye of a developed clairvoyant.

Twice lately I have heard from psychic people that

they felt the awful aura of Chicago and similar

cities even miles away from it due to the ruthless

murder of countless animals whose vast hosts of

souls with very strong feelings of horror, pain and

resentment and how these feeling recoil at all

points upon human race, especially upon children.

And hence such cities are terrible places to bring

up children. Such slaughterhouses not only make

pest-hole for the bodies of children, but for their

souls as well. Many of your children are

unnecessarily and inexplicably afraid. They feel

the terror of they know not what.

Strong forces are playing about us for which you

cannot account, and you do not realise this all

comes from the fact that the whole atmosphere is

charged with the hostility of these murdered

creatures.

The stages of evolution are closely interrelated,

and you cannot do this wholesale murder upon

your younger brothers (animals) without feeling

the effect terribly among your own innocent

children.

Surely a better time shall come, when we shall be

free from this horrible blot upon our civilisation,

then by degrees we shall all rise to a higher level

and be freed from all these instinctive terrors and

hatred.

Thus a carnivorous diet is fatal to anything like

real development or progress. In the next issue we

shall know the about the principles of Saatvik

Food.

-- To be continued --

Sanctity of the Cow

In Sanatana Dharma, the cow is representative of

divine and natural beneficence and should therefore be

protected and venerated. The cow symbolizes the

dharma itself.

Kamadhenu, the sacred cow which grants all wishes

and desires lives in Swargalok (heaven), emerged from

the ocean of milk (Ksheerasagar) at the time of

samudramanthan (the great churning of the ocean.

Kamadhenu's complexion is like the white clouds.

Every part of cow's body has a religious significance. Its

four legs symbolize the four Vedas, and its teats the

four Purusharthas. Its horns symbolize the gods, its

face the sun and the moon, its shoulders Agni (the god

of fire), and its legs the Himalayas.

Lord Brahma created the Brahmins (priests) and the

cow at the same time, the Brahmins were to recite the

religious scriptures while the cow was to afford ghee

(clarified butter) for offerings in religious sacrifices.

Brahma also affirmed it to be the mother of gods, ought

to be worshipped and anybody who killed a cow or

allows another to kill it, was deemed to rot in hell, for

as many years as there are hair upon his body.

Cows they are honoured at least once a year, on

Gopastami. During this celebration, cows are bathed

and decorated in the temple and given offerings.