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Food habits (was: Re: superstitions)
In article <3945pg$kvd@ucunix.san.uc.edu>, lulla@athena.mit.edu (The Spy) writes:
|> In article <38hou6$haq@ucunix.san.uc.edu>, vivek@cs.rice.edu (Vivek Sadananda Pai) writes:
|> |>
|> |> In article <37ut7c$1bk@ucunix.san.uc.edu>, srinivas@Glue.umd.edu (Nagulapalli Srinivas) writes:
[...]
|> |> |>
|> |> |> [ I have nothing to do with the main thread of the topic, but want
|> |> |> to respond to some of the comments and views of yours.]
|> |> |> I don't get it. You think Vivekananda promoted "completely ignorant
|> |> |> views" and you consider him as "idiot", right?? Kudos to your originality
|> |> |> and irrationality. Without logical, empirical, spiritual and even actual
|> |> |> experience-based proof to back-up, calling a person who epitomised one of the
|> |> |> sublime truths by actually living them and not by mere preaching, shows only
|> |> [...]
|> |>
|> |> This is a bit off topic, but since it does deal with Vivekananda, here goes:
|> |> Does anybody know what the story was with Vivekananda's fondness for
|> |> pork, even as a sanyasi? Everyone who I've asked has said that he did
|> |> eat pork, but nobody could give me an explanation as to why.
|> |>
|> |> If it is the case that he did eat pork, and he was doing so just to
|> |> satisfy his taste buds, I'd have to wonder what sublime truths could
|> |> come from one who unnecessarily killed animals for food. And, I should
|> |> clarify a bit - I'm referring to sublime religious truths only.
|> |>
|> |> -Vivek
|> |>
|>
|> Vivekananda was not a "perfect" person. To clarify, he was a perfect
|> soul, but needed to take on a personality so that he could do his
|> work in the world. Ramakrishna said V. would have a "veil of maya"
|> until his work was complete. As such, he had a personality, ate meat,
|> smoked, made occasional mistakes, etc.
|>
|> One other thing. He did not "unncecessarily" eat pork and other meat.
|> He said he "knew it was wrong" even as he did it. Many times when he
|> was a guest in others' houses, he ate what they cooked so that he wouldn't
|> inconvenience them or waste food.
Well, I'm glad to see that there was some concept of "wrong" in all of
these actions. However, I don't understand why there was this "necessity"
to eat dead animals. Inconvenience doesn't strike me as a very good argument.
If he's the guest of honor, he's can basically dictate the terms of his meal.
And, if he's not, vegetables and side dishes were around even back then.
Wasting food doesn't wash, either - he could have just given it to someone
who does eat meat, or thrown it to the ants.
|> One final comment. When V. was doing his ascetic practices before
|> becoming a sanyasin, he was very strict about his diet. According to
|> his book on Raja Yoga, he said he found that eating only grains and
|> milk was ideal for attaining results. After he attained all the
|> "sublime truths" - to use your words - he relaxed his habits. Unless
Just a nitpick on this - the words "sublime truths" are clearly not
mine, as is evidenced by what I've quoted.
|> you yourself have attained samadhi or accomplished a fraction of what
|> he has, you can't blame him for relaxing his habits. After all, he had
Do you really believe that one has to "accomplish a fraction" of what
someone else has to decide whether the person was doing right or wrong?
I take it from the viewpoint of the pig- do I really want to have my
head chopped off so that someone else can avoid being "inconvenienced"?
|> already reached the highest truth and was sacrificing his own peaceful
|> life in order to teach others.
I try to judge people based on their actions. I'm not a perfect
person either, and I don't make any claims of being one. However,
what's to say that I'm not a perfect soul, have attained samadhi, and
everything I do that doesn't seem to fit is just the veil of maya
creeping in? This isn't some rhetorical question, but instead, it's
a rule of thumb.
Internally, we all have some mechanism to separate what we believe
are "true leaders" from the hoaxes. In my case, it's just a question
of leadership by example - is there some sort of glaring contradiction?
And, in this case, I think there is.
-Vivek
P.S. And, as for "accomplishing a fraction" of what he did - I've
"converted" one person to vegetarianism directly, and I've influenced
a few more. It's not anything I'd say I'm going to attain self-realization
for, but then again, it does make for a few more happy pigs and cows
in this world. (And, of course, it helps those people in their spiritual
progress, one would hope)
