Only an insensitive human can kill an animal || Acharya Prashant (2018)

Acharya Prashant

Video Information:  Shabdyog session, 19.9.2018, Advait Bodhsthal, Greater Noida, India  Context:   ~ Why should one turn vegan?  ~ What is the relationship between veganism and spirituality? ~ How veganism is related to compassion? ~ Why is adoption of Veganism, a need for the hour?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~   If you look into the eyes of an animal and do not see your own face, then you are a blind one.  ~ Acharya Prashant

Transcript

00:00 If you are violent towards other beings, it only means that you are violent towards yourself

00:22 as well, because you and the other being are essentially one.

00:31 The differences are countless, but worthless.

00:43 You look at yourself and you look at a parrot or a goat or any small living being.

01:01 These eyes as biological instruments will only show you differences between yourself

01:11 and the other creature.

01:14 But if you have wisdom and compassion, you will see a great similarity.

01:21 Both of you are hungry for love and liberation.

01:35 And if you value your own hunger, how will you not value the other's hunger?

01:46 You are supposed to liberate the other.

01:52 In that lies your liberation.

01:55 You are not to annihilate the other.

02:00 If in the other's liberation lies your liberation, then surely in the other's annihilation lies

02:07 your annihilation.

02:10 But to see this equation, first of all you need to have the sensitivity, the attention

02:20 to clearly see that at a deep level you and the goat are one.

02:27 But if you are someone who accords a lot of value to things like culture, civilization,

02:34 language, knowledge, intellect, clothes, names, labels, then you will say, "Oh, goat is a

02:43 goat, a man is a man and a goat is such an inferior product of evolution and all that.

02:49 It's so very foolhardy.

02:52 Yes, the goat does appear inferior.

03:00 But the inferiority is in a very inferior dimension.

03:07 I do not deny that in the dimension of the intellect, the goat is inferior to the human

03:13 being.

03:16 But the dimension of intellect is itself an inferior dimension because in this dimension

03:21 you never gain liberation.

03:23 So how can it be a superior dimension?

03:29 In the existential dimension, you and the goat are one.

03:33 In the existential dimension, all beings striving for liberation are one.

03:43 And is there a being that is not striving for liberation?

03:46 No, not at all.

03:48 To be existent is to be desirous of liberation.

03:53 Otherwise, why would you exist at all?

03:59 We exist to be loved and liberated.

04:07 And you cannot have liberation in isolation.

04:11 Because as long as you are a believer in isolation, that itself is bondage.

04:22 To move towards your liberation is to realize that nothing like isolation exists.

04:33 Your deepest desire is also the deepest desire of your neighbor.

04:42 And the deepest desire of you and your neighbor is the same as that of the insect crawling

04:51 in your labor's lawn.

05:03 And of the bird perched on your terrace.

05:12 Come close to a stranger, an insect, an animal, a bird.

05:28 Spend time with them without bias.

05:34 And it will become very difficult for you to say that the animal is not a person.

05:49 The fundamental mistake that most human beings make is that they only have images about consciousness.

06:05 We never actually get close to the conscious beings that we kill and exploit for food or

06:12 convenience.

06:18 So we do not even have the basic respect, the courtesy, the decency to refer to animals

06:27 properly.

06:30 We look at an elephant and say it is moving.

06:41 Is the elephant a machine?

06:49 We do not see that all sentient beings are actually persons like us.

07:03 Mostly we do not see.

07:07 And when we are compelled to see, we pretend that we have not seen.

07:11 Because if we admit that we have seen, then we will have to mend our ways and that is

07:18 inconvenient.

07:20 [Music]

Category

Transcript

Recommended