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> In article <ghenE95KD0.E5s@netcom.com> M Suresh <msuresh@india.ti.com> writes:
>
> .. stuff deleted ..
>
> > .. stuff deleted ..
> >
> > There is a gradation of jiva's or souls. Killing a higher life form
> > causes more suffering than killing a lower life form. For example
> > the lives of bacteria lost during breathing or consuming curd is not
> > the same as the life of a cow. Such a gradation could be
> >
> > Matter < Cellular life < plants < small animals < animals < cow < man
>
> .. stuff deleted ..
>
> > To quote the Buddha, who himself on occasion ate meat, "if eating
> > grass were to provide religious merit, deer would reach heaven before
> > man."
>
> This is yet another example of using a quote for the wrong reason
> which is sometimes seen in srh/srv. The quote is meant for
> vegetarians not to become proud of themselves and start condemning
> non-vegetarianism. It cannot be for justifying non-vegetarianism
> because buddha himself advocated ahimsa.
>
> That is a matter of debate. The fact remains that Buddha was a
> non-vegetarian by the definition of vegetarians today.
There is no point in trying to dilute the fact that Buddha advocated
ahimsa and advocated compassion to all living beings. In fact he
was against animal sacrifice.
> He was
> indifferent to meat or vegetables but vegetarians have a strong
> aversion towards meat.
Everybody is not a Buddha. As I pointed out he ate meat because it
was offered to him unlike having a regular non-veg diet. Similiarly
Shirdi Sai Baba drank liquor when it was offered to him. This
cannot be taken as a green signal for all drunkards. In that case
drunkards should be able to drink molten iron which also Sai Baba
did when it was offered to him. Similiarly I have read in srv or
srh that Meera Bai said that if abstaining from sex can lead one to
God then eunuchs would be the first to attain him. This sounds
similiar to your Buddha quote. But it should not be taken as an
encouragement of immorality. Such quotes should be taken in the
right spirit and not as aids to hypocrisy.
And there is no harm in having aversion to meat if you have not
tasted it at all. It is natural. One has so many aversions.
Trying out all of them is not the solution to becoming indifferent
to them. One cannot become a jnani like Buddha just by imitating
him. It would be like a crow sporting peacock feathers.
> .. stuff deleted ..
>
> To answer your question directly, Merit and sin is not only
> associated with action but also the knowledge, attitude and
> sincerity that is behind the action. Therefore lower level things
> do not attain merit/sin because they do things mechanically, but man
> does because he can discriminate between right and wrong and is thus
> responsible for his actions.
>
> Unh, unh, unh! If lower-level things operate mechanically and do not
> incur either merit or sin, then how do they advance in your system to
> higher levels ? (Puranically, things like this are expressed as "thus
> Vishnu was frozen and could not move. ;-)).
Nature takes care of their evolution.
> If only man has intelligence and only he incurs sin, then only man
> could evolve either into a lower or higher form! No? Of course in
> your model he would just get stuck in the lower form because he won't
> be able to ever incur merit ever again. Is that your model? I want
> to first establish a common understanding of your theory.
Suffering for sins need not be by a permanent reverse in evolution.
In fact one can suffer more as being born as a man.
> The second question that arises with such models which allow
> independence to the great "thinking human beings" is that why would we
> have independence ? Why would God give us independence ? Does that
> not make him less powerful ? Or does he want to torture us ?
All this is god's leela and beyond our comprehension through
questions like why? In other words I cannot explain why :-).
> > And yet Vaishnavism
> > believes man to be the highest form why ? So what if he has
> > intelligence, obviously you could obtain religious merit by eating
> > grass!
>
> If you eat grass not to attain religious merit, not to prove a
> point, but because you genuinely cannot bear any harm caused to
> living things and also if you are a devotee of the lord you will
> definitely attain very great religious merit.
>
> Let me get this straight. First you claim that you must not eat grass
> to attain religious merit, but because you cannot bear any harm done
> to a living thing. But if you do eat grass, and believe in the Lord
> then you WILL get religious merit. Is that what you want to say ?
Yes.
> Thus you do not wish things to die and exhibit a great fear of things
> dying. Thus please explain what harm can I cause to another thing,
> should it "die"!
Everybody fears death and goes through suffering while dying. So
killing another causes harm because it undergoes suffering. If you
are hinting at "Atma never dies" and all that stuff, it should be
applied for the right reasons and not for enjoyment of non-veg.
> How is dying equivalent to "harm" in your
> philosophy. Should I die naturally, is that harmful to my future
> karma ? Who bears the bad karma for my so called "natural" death ?
> Does not your Lord cause it ?
Natural death is inevitable. Birth and death is part of our own
karma.
> And yet the Upanisads say that the entire Universe is food and all
> entities in it are food! I wonder if that is true, what do you think
> ?
I have not heard of this. It sounds like the christian concept
that all creatures are made for man. Anyway it is better to accept
positive things first and accept other things only after a proper
understanding.
regards,
Suresh.
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