NOBLE COW: MUNCHING GRASS LOOKING CURIOUS AND JUST HANGING AROUND
3.
Cow
A Life Form For All-round Good Of The World
Cattle occupy a unique role in human history and many culture consider cattle the oldest form of wealth, and cattle raiding consequently is one of the earliest forms of theft.
Many of the problems we are now facing, including violence and wars, are a direct result of the massive animal killing going on everywhere. We don’t connect it. It’s karma. When we do something violent to another living entity, the violence comes back to us. It’s like bouncing a ball off the ground. Scientists can relate to the natural forces at work in the bouncing ball but they can not see the forces acting on a more subtle level.
People Just Don’t Think About It!
People just don’t think about it. Even when we are young, our mother always lovingly served us meat and potatoes and encouraged us to dine heartily on the carcass so we could “grow up big and strong.” And the TV adds and the billboards daily reinforce the conditioning that it’s “perfectly normal” to kill animals for food. So most never question it; they don’t make the connection between the seemingly innocent hamburger on their plate and the horror of the slaughterhouse. Out of sight, out of mind.
But the fact is, to satisfy our corrupted appetites, billions of animals are unnecessarily and brutally butchered every year. And year after year this inhumanity continues to be overlooked. Is it right that animals, fully sentient beings, are made to suffer simply because we “like the taste?” Has selfishness overcome our reason? We’ve got blood on our hands. It’s no wonder there is so much violence in our society when we exhibit so much violence towards animals. “What goes around comes around.”
Cow And World’s Well-being
Cow is a life form meant for all round good of the world. It’s something like a mother whose every gesture is for the good of the child. Cow protection ensures world’s well-being in all respects - economic, social, environmental, ecological, physical, political, intellectual, moral, cultural and emotional.
Modern civilization has made considerable advances in the fields of science and technology but the world has not become a better place to live. Rather the opposite is true.
If we study the life of a typical villager in any traditional community, we may find him living with his wife and a few children in a thatched hut with mud walls and a dirt floor. He has a couple of cows, a well and some land. He may have never gone beyond two or three neighboring villages, but he's happy. He lives to a ripe old age, doesn't get many diseases, works honestly in the fields, and has enough milk and grains to eat. With his extra produce, beyond what he needs to maintain his family, he may trade for clothing, jewelry and other items. In other words, he lives a very simple life. And he has sufficient time in hand to cultivate art, culture and to nurture the tradition, in a crime and stress free environment. Now this ‘backward and undeveloped’ community needs to be developed and science and technology need to be introduced in their lives. Soon they will be a ‘developed’ lot with pollution, crime, stress, life-style diseases, family breakdown, drugs, violence, prostitution and financial meltdowns. This is what is being done to our world in the name of progress and development.
A world that has moved away from cow protection and resorted to indiscriminate cow killing is not happier. In fact it is a lot less happier than its ancestors who were seemingly bereft of plasma TVs, touch screen ipods and 6mm laptops. Of course, these ancestors (who were not in Vedic tradition) might have killed cows but cows were never a staple.
Its interesting to note that pastoral communities have highly developed art, culture and music. Cowherds are good at playing flutes and other instruments. In a stress free life, living with gentle animals, they can afford to play flute while doing their “job”. Imagine doing it while sitting on a computer terminal for ten hours a day or while steering a monstrous truck, darting on an expressway. Modern industrialized living kills all finer instincts and promotes bestial passions.
World Progress Under Scanner
World progress has increasingly come under scanner of late. The question being asked has three dimensions - first whether we have really made progress when progress is taken to mean overall well being and happiness of society. Secondly whether the progress has been in the right direction? While busy looking at the speedometer, have we missed the milestone? What would be the use of speeding along if the road we have taken is the wrong one. Thirdly, whether the so called progress is really required?
Cow
A Life Form For All-round Good Of The World
Cattle occupy a unique role in human history and many culture consider cattle the oldest form of wealth, and cattle raiding consequently is one of the earliest forms of theft.
Many of the problems we are now facing, including violence and wars, are a direct result of the massive animal killing going on everywhere. We don’t connect it. It’s karma. When we do something violent to another living entity, the violence comes back to us. It’s like bouncing a ball off the ground. Scientists can relate to the natural forces at work in the bouncing ball but they can not see the forces acting on a more subtle level.
People Just Don’t Think About It!
People just don’t think about it. Even when we are young, our mother always lovingly served us meat and potatoes and encouraged us to dine heartily on the carcass so we could “grow up big and strong.” And the TV adds and the billboards daily reinforce the conditioning that it’s “perfectly normal” to kill animals for food. So most never question it; they don’t make the connection between the seemingly innocent hamburger on their plate and the horror of the slaughterhouse. Out of sight, out of mind.
But the fact is, to satisfy our corrupted appetites, billions of animals are unnecessarily and brutally butchered every year. And year after year this inhumanity continues to be overlooked. Is it right that animals, fully sentient beings, are made to suffer simply because we “like the taste?” Has selfishness overcome our reason? We’ve got blood on our hands. It’s no wonder there is so much violence in our society when we exhibit so much violence towards animals. “What goes around comes around.”
Cow And World’s Well-being
Cow is a life form meant for all round good of the world. It’s something like a mother whose every gesture is for the good of the child. Cow protection ensures world’s well-being in all respects - economic, social, environmental, ecological, physical, political, intellectual, moral, cultural and emotional.
Modern civilization has made considerable advances in the fields of science and technology but the world has not become a better place to live. Rather the opposite is true.
If we study the life of a typical villager in any traditional community, we may find him living with his wife and a few children in a thatched hut with mud walls and a dirt floor. He has a couple of cows, a well and some land. He may have never gone beyond two or three neighboring villages, but he's happy. He lives to a ripe old age, doesn't get many diseases, works honestly in the fields, and has enough milk and grains to eat. With his extra produce, beyond what he needs to maintain his family, he may trade for clothing, jewelry and other items. In other words, he lives a very simple life. And he has sufficient time in hand to cultivate art, culture and to nurture the tradition, in a crime and stress free environment. Now this ‘backward and undeveloped’ community needs to be developed and science and technology need to be introduced in their lives. Soon they will be a ‘developed’ lot with pollution, crime, stress, life-style diseases, family breakdown, drugs, violence, prostitution and financial meltdowns. This is what is being done to our world in the name of progress and development.
A world that has moved away from cow protection and resorted to indiscriminate cow killing is not happier. In fact it is a lot less happier than its ancestors who were seemingly bereft of plasma TVs, touch screen ipods and 6mm laptops. Of course, these ancestors (who were not in Vedic tradition) might have killed cows but cows were never a staple.
Its interesting to note that pastoral communities have highly developed art, culture and music. Cowherds are good at playing flutes and other instruments. In a stress free life, living with gentle animals, they can afford to play flute while doing their “job”. Imagine doing it while sitting on a computer terminal for ten hours a day or while steering a monstrous truck, darting on an expressway. Modern industrialized living kills all finer instincts and promotes bestial passions.
World Progress Under Scanner
World progress has increasingly come under scanner of late. The question being asked has three dimensions - first whether we have really made progress when progress is taken to mean overall well being and happiness of society. Secondly whether the progress has been in the right direction? While busy looking at the speedometer, have we missed the milestone? What would be the use of speeding along if the road we have taken is the wrong one. Thirdly, whether the so called progress is really required?
"...the gentle, large-brained, social cow, that caresses our hands and face with her rough tongue, and is more like man's sister than any other non-human being—the majestic, beautiful creature with the Juno eyes..."
~W. H. Hudson,