Vaisnavas Are Not Vegans

22ND JUNE, 2017

BY: SATTVIC DASA

Devotees we are not to be Vegans. Srila Prabhupada NEVER ever said for us to be vegan or preach Vegan. He said we give Krishna what He wants. He said, “Krishna must have his milk.”

When Srila Prabhupada was on the planet the cows were being just as much slaughtered and abused as they are now. It’s even written in his purports about this. But we have to realize when we offer to Krishna this milk or anything made from those cows milk, who will eventually be slaughtered and whose sons are being dragged away just after birth for slaughter. Those cows will get a human birth in their next life and a chance to serve Krishna again and get a chance to become liberated. That is all due to your offerings. If devotees stop offering their milk these cows (who are mostly actually humans who have to be slaughtered again and again due to eating cows etc..and they must suffer thousands and even millions of lifetimes and be slaughtered again and again. But if the devotee offers their milk they stop this terrible cycle, as Lord Krishna becomes pleased with their service of giving Him their milk products. This is their only hope. You are their only hope. So do not stop because of some who do not understand this truth. Srila Prabhupada is the MOST merciful and we are offering to him and he is offering to Lord Chaitanya and Lord Nityanand and Sri Sri Rahda Krishna.. They will deliver them and all will be rectified.

Let us not think that we are more merciful than Srila Prabhupada by being Vegan? No! Who can be more merciful than Him, but the Supreme Lord. He has instructed all the temples and devotees to offer Krishna’s milk products. He even knew that in the USA, even at that time you could not get cows milk without Vitamin D added, which is fish oil. (He knew that) but he said that Krishna must have His milk and we take the remnants. So we are protected and so are the cows.. Let us not have any doubt about this. And he said milk is liquid religion. By serving these cows by offering their milk we and they get the mercy. We are not the ones slaughtering them. Just as in India after the cows are too old to produce milk, many householders let them go stray on the streets (not wanting to care for them after all the service they did. Ultimately those cows will be slaughtered either by someone who kidnaps them or by some cars who hurt or kill them. So let us not think its much better.. They leave their dear cows to the streets. He knew that was going on back then and it is still going on… Yet we still offer the cows milk products in all temples of India and at home.

Srila Prabhupada knew if we proclaim vegan then no one will care for cows at all. And still, slaughter will go on…They will not see the benefit of milk and how cows milk will give everyone a good brain as it is the most nourishing substance for the brain. It refines the finer tissues and puts one in the mode of goodness. It is only the meat eaters, they will suffer terribly for slaughtering these cows and the farmers will also suffer for taking the calves away from the cows and slaughtering them and the restaurants that sell it. But the devotees will benefit and the cows will benefit from our offerings. So let us not stop this service.

Yes if at all possible we should try to buy organic milk and milk products, but many people can not afford it as they are much more expensive. Ultimately Krishna will protect you. But we should continue to preach the greatness of cows, cows milk, ghee, butter, yogurt, etc etc….. and Srila Prabhupada wanted that for all the Govindas Restaurants that we use Ghee as that ghee will make them feel fully satisfied that they will not feel the need to eat meat. This is the way to help souls become vegetarian. They must eat ghee cooked in their food. Let the new generations understand the importance of cows and farming and stop this nonsense of learning all this so called technology. As Srila Prabhupadsa said “you can not eat nuts and bolts.” That we should do farming and become self-sufficient. Show the world what a great service this is and to protect cows. And show them the greatness of milk. and the bulls are great for farming and their cow dung and urine is extremely beneficial… If they do not understand all this.. Cows will become useless to them. We must preach the way Srila Prabhupada and give up this idea of vegan. If someone is allergic to milk that is their misfortune if they feel it affects their health badly again great misfortune. But we know that Srila Prabhupada said it is the best food substance and many saints lived off of cows milk or yogurt.

All glories to Srila Prabhupda all glories to Lord Krishna’s cows and the offerings of their milk products by the devotees. Hare Krishna!

 

 

Read another article on the benefits of milk vs veganism

 

17 comments

  • Dattatreya

    Tha’ss right …

    Vaishnavas are not rabbits …

    Bheema was not a rabbit !!!

  • Julia K

    Let me add to the discussion, that our goal is not to be healthy, which vegans also proclaim. Our goal is to liberate from the cycle of birth and death where we do not have to take birth again, whether healthy or sick, Thank you once again Srila Prabhupada!

    • Matangi Devi Dasi

      ” Julia ”

      Indeed … but it’s easier to get to liberation from the cycle of birth and death from a healthy body , than from a diseased miserable one .

      And besides , vegan rabit food is not well suited for lumberjack types , and would soon create a negative rep
      for anything deemed ” vegetarian ” , and then many people would eat meat again … but for good !

  • Ram

    Vaishnava`s don`t support abuse of mother cows.
    Hare Krishna

  • Palindhika Reyes

    Sri Krishna! Are you asking us to be the means by which these cows will have a human form after being abused, tortured, and killed for you to have milk? Doesn’t sound right. That is not Krishna! Is the Hare Krishna movement asking for the sacrifice of cows and their calfs? And after getting a human form, what huarantee is there that they will continue a vaishnava life and be liberated?

    • Dattatreya

      What the heck are you talkin’ about ?!?

      • Kirtaniya

        Hare Krishna. The dairy industry is extremely, extremely cruel to our dear cows, especially now in recent times. They are forcefully impregnated in solitary confinement or cages. they are abused, their babies are killed in front of them or they are separated from them. They are milked from extremely painful machines and after that they send her to slaughter, or they kill her if milk production declines? it’s much crueler than I described. I will never support this industry and pay for their suffering, because by supporting it we’re encouraging these cruel situations for our dear loving cows.

  • Marivel

    Hi’ i have been a vegan for 6 years now.
    I love being a vegan i meditate i do yoga’
    and i’am in a much better place now;
    i feel good i love who i’am and i ‘am so
    happy. When i was eating meat i was
    fat 145 pounds all the time without energy i regret eating meat cause i never knew how
    people slaughter cows or any animal’
    my life was so negative i could not get
    any where i was really so unhappy
    with my life. Now i stand up for the rites of animals rescue animals from slaughter houses… I’am an animal lover
    animals are so precious beautiful angels..
    I love animals so much; they give you love hugs this little angels are always there by your side… Thank God i became a vegetarian!
    __/\__ Namaste __/\__
    Marivel

  • Dharmada Nirvadyachari

    Hare Krishna!
    1. I am sure that Sri Krishna would be a vegan if he knew that we humans kill all male calves, that we slaughter the cows after 3-4 years, that we separate the calves right after birth. At least the author of this article is aware of this and is not hiding this truth.

    2. There is no proof that we can know that Sri Krishna would be happy if we drink that kind of milk. I believe Sri Krishna would be very sad if he knew what the cows are going through because devotees just misunderstood the scriptures and took the single words too literally.

    3. There are no traditional paintings of Sri Krishna separating cow mothers from their babies, there are no paintings of Krishna supporting the slaughtering of cows. The pictures show Sri Krishna as the saver of the cows, he seems to be in cow sanctuaries and not in dairy farms.

    4. If human souls in the shape of incarnated suffering cows have bad karma because they ate meat in previous lives then it does not follow that we must increase their suffering! It is our duty and dharma to help those who suffer, and to decrease there pain and console them. Otherwise, we create bad karma for ourselves. That means we would just be heartless, and wouldn’t have learned our lessons in compassion. But Shri Krishna is Compassion and Mercy himself.

    5. The sentence “If we are vegan no one will care for the cows” is not true at all, because the vegans are the only ones who really care for cows. They give cows sanctuaries where they are not every year inseminated (nowadays mainly artificially), no matter how old they are are, they have a place in sanctuaries where they can have plenty of food, where they can have their babies (if they were pregnant before the rescue) and can grow up next to the mother in a happy and natural way.

    6. I volunteered in a cow hospital with a sanctuary in India and I have seen so much violence, that it is absolutely not possible for me to increase the suffering of the calves, the buffaloes and the cows by consuming dairy products. I never ever have seen so much violence before in my whole life. The dairy industry is one of the cruelest industries.

    7. I believe that love and compassion will liberate me and not following rules from misunderstood scriptures.

    8. Symbols
    Many of these stories of Lord Krishna are clearly symbolic and they should not be taken literally:

    As a child, Lord Krishna lifted the Govardhan mountain with his little finger in order to shelter the people of Gokul from a thunderstorm. This symbolizes that Lord Krishna will shelter us from the trials and tribulations of daily life if we surrender to Him. -> clearly symbolical

    Lord Krishna danced on the hood of a seven-headed snake, Kaliya, and persuaded the snake to stop infesting Gokul. This symbolizes that our devotion to Lord Krishna will help us overcome the seven obstacles: fear, guilt, shame, grief, lies, delusions and attachments, and thus open our seven Chakras to attain enlightenment. -> clearly symbolical

    Then Lord Krishna can play through each of us (the flute with the seven open holes) to create beautiful music.
    -> clearly symbolical

    Lord Krishna loved butter, which symbolizes the solid mind fixed on God.

    Milk is the fluid mind that has doubts about God.
    To milk, we add some curd, the thought of God, and let it curdle for a while. Then we churn this curdled milk to obtain butter, the solid mind fixed on God. When we clarify this butter, we get ghee, which is the clarified solid mind that is fixed on God. We light our diyas, the holy lamps, with ghee to signify enlightenment.

    We can replace all that with a coconut:
    The coconut signifies the ego. We break the coconut in the Puja, and that means we surrender our body, mind and soul to God and then shatter the coconut, our ego

    The coconut water symbolizes the fluid mind that has doubts about God.

    What is left is the coconut fruit, which is the solid mind fixed on God.

    When we refine this coconut fruit, we get coconut oil, which is the clarified solid mind fixed on God.

    Therefore, coconut oil can be a vegan substitute for ghee to light the lamps in our homes and temples, since it has the same significance as ghee.

    We don’t lift mountains with our little fingers just because Lord Krishna did so. We don’t dance on the hoods of seven-headed snakes to imitate Lord Krishna. Therefore, we don’t have to eat butter just because Lord Krishna loved butter.

    9. The holy cow
    If you say that you would never deliberately hurt an innocent being unnecessarily, then, by definition, you are Vegan. The act of deliberately hurting an innocent being unnecessarily is “Himsa” and its negation is “Ahimsa”.

    The cow and the bull played special roles in ancient Hindu lives. They provided labor for plowing fields, manure for nourishing the soil and milk for the daily sustenance of the Hindus. Until a few decades ago, the daily diet of Hindus consisted mainly of locally grown fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and grains, with limited variety. This limitation necessitated the occasional consumption of dairy products to maintain the health of the Hindus.

    This is why even Mahatma Gandhi couldn’t adopt a strictly plant-based vegan diet less than a century ago as he clearly stated in his Keynote address to the London Vegetarians Union in 1931.

    However, these days, we have access to an incredible variety of fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains and seeds in our supermarkets, which have allowed millions of people to adopt strictly plant-based diets even though they are not as disciplined or possess the self-control of a Mahatma Gandhi.

    The American Dietetic Association has now clearly stated that it is unnecessary to consume animal foods of any kind at any stage of our life cycle.

    In the olden days, as a recognition for providing the necessary life-sustenance of ancient Hindus, they treated the cow with reverence, as their mother. However, this mother is now being abused tremendously in industrial farming facilities today. Unlike the ancient Hindus who took the excess milk for human consumption after the calf had finished drinking to his fill, industrial farms separate the calf from the mother within one or two days of birth in order to extract all of the milk for human consumption. Despite such extreme measures to maximize production, our domestic animals now consume FIVE times as much food as all human beings put together.

    If the same dairy production were to be achieved using “Ahimsa Dairy” methods, then that would necessitate an order of magnitude increase in the global bovine population! The situation we face today is akin to that of a weight-lifter, lifting five times his weight above his head, discovering that he is on quicksand and that he’s sinking. Knowing that his weight alone is too much for the quicksand to bear, what is the first thing that he should do?

    10. It is not true that milk is healthy! The opposite is true:
    The American Dietetic Association has now clearly stated that it is unnecessary to consume animal foods of any kind at any stage of our life cycle.

    • Dattatreya

      ” The American Dietetic Association has now clearly stated that it is unnecessary to consume animal foods of any kind at any stage of our life cycle. ”

      We don’t need their useless input to tell us what to eat or not eat …

      If cows are not milk producing , they will be killed or will be flushed out of existence …

      We know since many years that cows / bulls etc … are treated very … very badly in this hellish Kali-yuga …

      It’s hard enough to try to turn people at large into vegetarians while promoting nourishing / healthy dishes that include dairy products , and nearly impossible while promoting rabbit like ” Vegan ” food …
      We need to teach these rascals to treat cows … and animals … properly , not push for this retarded
      ” Vegan ” fanatical extremism …

      The human body needs dairy products ( especially children ) , nothing can replace it …

      • Kirtaniya

        Actually people who do not consume dairy have a low risk of cancer , low risk of diabetes and live a longer lifespan. I would totally drink milk if it weren’t produced in the way it is now. The cruelty is really bad and all milk products now days are filled with saturated fat, it is way too acidic and it disrupts our bodies acid/alkaline balance because of the added chemicals when it is produced.

        And remember , the only reason why cows are killed is because we PAY for them to be killed. We pay dairy industries to keep breeding them, if we didn’t do that they wouldn’t be there in the first place. Also, it’s not hard to turn people vegan, everyone is going vegan now because they’re aware of the cruelty.

        Krishna would never want to see his dear cows treated like this, we have no excuse to pay for their suffering and the only reason why people argue against veganism is because they like the taste of dairy. Taste is no excuse to cost an entity their life.

        • Dattatreya

          ” the only reason why people argue against veganism is because they like the taste of dairy ”

          That’s a bunch of crap …

          I argue against veganism ( besides arguing against the bloody ” Dairy industry ” long before you were born ) because it’s not a good option … people go vegan for a few years , and then get sick for lack of proper nourishment , then they turn around and blame
          ” vegetarianism ” for their health problems ( the net is full of that already !!! ) …

          If you stopped your virtue signaling for a minute, you might realize that !!!

      • Sarath

        Dharmada Nirvadyachari has given a very sensible viewpoint. But most of the ISKCON devotees have a cult like mentality with no ability to think independently. They can justify anything and everything their leaders approve of, no matter how cruel. They take the scriptures literally, and the leaders’ words unquestioningly, and all others are rascals for them.

Leave a Reply to Dattatreya Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *