Search:
Bhakti List Archives

Re: 2 interesting questions

From the Bhakti List Archives

Lakshmi Narayanan • March 7, 1995 


	Ahem!

	oooo Boy... this opens a *BIG* can of worms. 
	Me and my wife always have discussions on things like these and I end up losing
	(not able to answer satisfactorily probably because of my lack of enough knowledge)

	To Q1 below... I have a corollary...

	Only fairly recently we have discovered (in the last 100 or so years) that plants
	are living beings too. How is it  we "kill" them - I am not talking about fruits - 
	to get grains like rice, wheat etc.?  Just because they don't bleed &/or protest
	does not mean they don't hurt.
	

	About Q2 below... i have a point-of-view...

	We are now pitting Laukeekam against Vaideekam (i think)
	In olden days, the dog was never allowed inside the house! Why say "olden" days?
	As a child, when I used to visit my grandmother in a remote village near Mysore, 
	the dog used to eat our leftovers from the leaves on which we ate.
	Ofcourse we did not have *any control* what the dog ate in its "own private time"
	it definitely used to go from houes to house to eat!!
	So the question in itself has relevance only in the modern (Laukeeka) world...

	There are some compromises you have to make when you embrace Laukeekam, as we all've done
	by coming to this country. Why come this far? Even in India, there is Laukeekam!!!
	As a true Brahmanan you are not allowed to eat until you 
	do sandhyaavandnam  at the Nadee Teeram (river bank) daily and not until you see the sun! 
	My father used to say a cloudy day is called DurDinam (bad day). SO... No sun... No food!!!!

	All I can say is we all have to strike a balance. The real-life analogy is teh balance
	between work and family time. Each one of them has its own rewards. it is upto you
	how you balance them. THere is no one black/white answer.

	My 2 cents, :-)
	LakshmiNarayanan




	
> From uucp@summit.novell.com Tue Mar  7 16:14:27 1995
> Content-Length: 1041
> Content-Type> : > text/plain> 
> X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 4.1
> Date: Tue, 07 Mar 1995 15:51:10 -0500
> From: VISH@summit.novell.com (Vish Vishwanath)
> To: prapatti@srirangam.esd.sgi.com
> Subject: 2 interesting questions
> 
> in talking about vedic philosophies with folks from non-vedic
> background and non-indian perspectives, i often come across
> some interesting questions. here are two such questions. pls
> note that both these were asked in good faith by good people
> with a curiousity to know how the vedas deal with them and not
> to pull my chain.  
> 
> (1) eating eggs and meat is forbidden, you say. if the reason is
> that they are jeevAtmAs, what about an artificially fertilized egg ? it
> surely has no opportunity to be a living being - ever. why not eat
> them.
> 
> (2) your pet (by the way, our family just adopted a golden retreiver
> puppy - a delight who listens to vishnu sahasranama and
> seems to enjoy it !) needs its diet of Alpo and other meat based
> food - for its survival. what do the shAstrAs say about keeping
> such food at home and feeding it .
> 
> (my approach is that i feed it like i am feeding it prasada and
> take care of it as though i have been entrusted its life by
> Narayana himself)
> 
> could any one of provide insight on them...
> 
> Narayana!
> 
> Vishwanath
> 
> 
>