If killing is so bad, why do carnivores exist at all? || Acharya Prashant (2021)

Acharya Prashant

‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant? Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...   Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books? Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...  ~~~~~  Video Information: 20.03.2021, Open Session, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India  Context: ~ Does killing a lion and killing a man the same thing? ~ Do carnivores animal have the choice not to kill? ~ How does killing any animal affect human consciousness? ~ Why in nature all living beings are not vegetarians? ~  If killing is evil then why do carnivores, lions, and wolves exist at all?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~ .

Transcript

00:00Why in nature all living beings are not vegetarian?

00:13Why does life eat life?

00:18If killing is evil, why do carnivores, lions and wolves exist at all?

00:28Please understand, it is not killing that is bad.

00:37Killing does not operate in a vacuum.

00:44The killer is the one in question.

00:49Who is killing?

00:53Who is killing?

00:55If the lion is killing, then it is one thing.

01:00But if man is killing, then it is a totally different thing.

01:04Do not say that the moot question is killing, no.

01:10The moot question relates to the killer, not killing per se.

01:18Is that clear?

01:19If you can understand this, then the rest of things will be very clear automatically.

01:22The thing is not so much about killing.

01:26It is much more about, actually only about the killer.

01:32So there is a difference when the lion kills the deer versus when the man kills the deer.

01:40The lion kills the deer, the lion had no option.

01:44The lion is programmed to kill the deer, the lion kills the deer.

01:51The lion has no higher consciousness to attain by not killing the deer.

01:57The lion is not supposed to practice compassion.

02:03And if the lion will not kill the deer, the lion will die.

02:07The lion is almost like a machine.

02:10Will you say that your car is killing the fuel?

02:18But that's how it happens.

02:21You put fuel in the car and what happens to the fuel?

02:24It is burnt, turned into smoke, gone, finished, killed.

02:29But do you call it violence?

02:31No.

02:32The relationship between the lion and the deer is a bit similar.

02:38None of them, rather neither of them are creatures of consciousness.

02:43In that sense, they are more similar to machines.

02:47They do have consciousness, but their consciousness is lower with respect to man.

02:51When you take man as the benchmark, then both the lion and the deer are quite lowly in terms

02:58of consciousness.

02:59So, in that sense, I am comparing them to machines.

03:03They are like machines because they operate in very very pre-scripted ways.

03:08They are pre-programmed to do what they do.

03:11You don't have to teach the deer to eat grass.

03:16You don't have to teach the lion not to eat grass and herbs.

03:21If you give meat to the deer, the deer will simply walk away.

03:26If you give grass to the lion, the lion will simply walk away.

03:29It's not a matter of ideology.

03:31It's not a matter of teaching or training.

03:33It is designed like that.

03:35It is a machine.

03:36It will not admit anything else.

03:40So machines, therefore, obviously cannot be called as evil.

03:49It would be stupid to call a machine evil.

03:52It would be equally stupid to call a machine virtuous.

03:56Machines are neither vile nor virtuous.

04:00Now come to man.

04:02Man has consciousness.

04:04Man has decision-making ability.

04:07If man compares himself to a lion or a wolf, then he is debasing himself, is he not?

04:14You are a man.

04:15You are a creature of high consciousness.

04:16Why do you want to follow the dietary pattern of a wolf, which is a creature of a low consciousness?

04:25So man has choice.

04:27Therefore, man has to practice compassion for his own sake.

04:32Man has to ask himself, is it the only way possible to feed my stomach?

04:38Do I really have to kill consciousness to sustain consciousness?

04:43And even if I have to kill consciousness to sustain consciousness, does it have to be

04:48an animal which has a relatively higher level of consciousness compared to grass?

04:54Man is conscious.

04:57Animal is conscious.

04:59And the grass is conscious.

05:00All three are conscious, right?

05:02But man's consciousness is extremely high.

05:05And it has the potential to go even higher, greatly higher.

05:11The sky is not the limit.

05:14That high the man's consciousness can go.

05:17So man is conscious.

05:18The animal is conscious.

05:19The animal is conscious is an in-between kind of consciousness.

05:23The grass too is conscious.

05:24The grass's consciousness is very lowly, very basic.

05:29So if the man's body is designed in a way that it has to have food, and food will necessarily

05:36involve killing.

05:37You are very right.

05:38As you said, life eats life.

05:41You are very right.

05:42That for one biological form to survive, it has to consume another biological form.

05:47But I have the choice, which biological form do I kill for my physical sustenance?

05:53This or this?

05:55This is animal.

05:57And this is grass.

06:01Given the choice, I will choose not to kill a relatively higher form of consciousness.

06:08And in this I fully admit that even when I am eating the grass or the radish or the apple,

06:15violence is still involved.

06:16But I am helpless.

06:20If I have to avoid even that level of violence, then I have to commit suicide.

06:27Or I shouldn't have been born.

06:29If the body is to be sustained, then the minimum level of killing has to happen.

06:36But what's important is the word minimum.

06:40Keep it to the minimum.

06:41Keep it to the minimum.

06:42It's not a matter of absolutes.

06:44It's not in binaries.

06:45You cannot say that I will not kill a living being at all.

06:49If you will not kill a living being at all, you won't survive.

06:52Simple.

06:53All living beings are getting killed in your throat, in your gut, on your skin, every moment.

07:01Even as you inhale, you take in so many microbes.

07:04And they are all getting killed.

07:08You don't even know, you take in a fizzy drink and you do not know what kind of slaughter

07:13it has done in your elementary canal from here till there.

07:24That's the minimum.

07:25What do I do?

07:26What do I do?

07:27Even as I step on the floor, something is getting killed.

07:31I cannot avoid it.

07:33But I should avoid what is avoidable.

07:36Killing an animal is avoidable.

07:37I should avoid it.

07:38By saying that, I am not at all saying that I am not guilty of killing at all.

07:46Even the purest vegetarian or vegan is committing some level of killing.

07:54But he can be exonerated if that killing has been kept to a minimum.

07:59That's the word minimum.

08:01Keep it to a minimum.

08:02Keep it to a minimum.

08:04Keep it to a level that is unavoidable.

08:08You should say this level, beyond this level, sir, I couldn't have gone.

08:12And if I need to go beyond this level, then I just need to give up the body.

08:16When you kill to eat, don't you have an option?

08:22As human beings, the lion does not have an option.

08:24If you have an option, why don't you exercise it?

08:26You have to answer.

08:29You have to answer.

08:30And science is totally out on this.

08:34There are no secrets left.

08:39When you eat flesh, you are doing great damage to even your own biological system.

08:45And you are doing great damage to this entire ecosystem.

08:49And still you are hell-bent on killing.

08:52You are doing damage to both your consciousness as well as your body.

09:01And needless to say to the environment, ecosystem, we have talked in detail on how flesh consumption

09:10is related to climate change.

09:14You still want to kill.

09:22I can only squirm in pain.

09:24Are you getting it?

09:27Will the veganism movement be successful if that movement only talks about the benefits

09:41of the body?

09:42Will the center get the same, less?

09:45No, you see, you cannot have a veganism movement.

09:51You need to have a spiritual movement.

09:54Turning vegan would be then a very smooth thing to do.

10:01But if you want to be a vegan without being spiritual, you will not be able to remain

10:05vegan for long.

10:08So forget veganism, turn to real spirituality and you will find that you have become a vegan

10:18even without consciously deciding to be one.

10:23If you are spiritual, how will you decide to slaughter consciousness itself?

10:33The reason why veganism is not very successful worldwide and especially in India is because

10:41it has no spiritual moorings.

10:45Without a strong spiritual base, veganism is bound to fail.

10:54For so long, Indians have avoided killing to the best extent possible.

11:06Even today, if you look at the total number of vegetarians in the world, more than half

11:14of them are Indians and that is not because of some vegetarian movement or veganism movement.

11:25That is because of the Indic religions.

11:29True spirituality necessarily begets compassion.

11:35There was no veganism and yet Indians were not known to massively kill.

11:44Obviously, there were sections of meat eaters as well.

11:50I am not saying all Indians were abstaining from meat.

11:54But by and large, the Indian diet did not consist of flesh.

12:00Why?

12:03Because of spirituality, because India was a country deeply steeped in religion.

12:10Obviously religion has harmed India in a big way in many different dimensions.

12:18But when you are discussing religion, you should not forget the massive contributions

12:28of religion either.

12:31Where there is a fault, we must call it out.

12:37But where credit is due, we should not be found miserly.

12:46That's the basic requirement of honesty or not.

12:52So religion has inflicted quite a lot of problems on India, we admit that.

13:00But we must also admit that the Indian consciousness has in many ways benefited due to religion.

13:11The benefits we must not only keep but also increase.

13:18The faults we must remove, reject, correct.

13:24That should be the right approach.

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