Rupa delves on nonvegetarians and the concept of purity-pollution in eating habits, exclusively for Different Truths.

Allow me to invite you to one brief interaction on a WhatsApp group I belong to.

A member posted a video clip of cows and calves being force-led in a line to a machine provided by the government where they are slaughtered after fearful resistance to being killed. This share by one group member elicited some understandable reactions on the heart-wrenching brutality.

Those who eat meat clearly understand there has to be bloodshed and life is lost for the dish to decorate the platter served for your meal.

I could not resist questioning the reactions, as to why people get so shocked. Those who eat meat clearly understand there has to be bloodshed and life is lost for the dish to decorate the platter served for your meal.

Most kids and all adults are aware of where that meat on the table comes from?  Why the momentary hypocrisy of disowning the process of how it got there in the first place? Out of sight process makes it no less cruel.

Butchers line of work, like that of a healing surgeon, makes him not react to blood. He gets indifferent to grief, death-cry, and pain of scared creatures under his sharp blade over time.

Butchers line of work, like that of a healing surgeon, makes him not react to blood. He gets indifferent to grief, death-cry, and pain of scared creatures under his sharp blade over time. He is the last responsible person in this entire food-chain where there are consumers for the product at the other end, i.e. meat eaters.

Hangman’s job requires hardening oneself when carrying out a criminal co-being’s sentence to “hang until death”, which is no less gruesome. So why is he a lesser being when the society is responsible for handing out the verdict to be carried out?

Where and how can we the masses possibly be contributing to or alleviating this cruel process or outcome?

Some of us choose to be herbivores to which a carnivorously inclined points out that “the living plants” that are being consumed are killed too.

Some of us choose to be herbivores to which a carnivorously inclined points out that “the living plants” that are being consumed are killed too. Arguments drawn from evolution where hunger and maybe choice led humans to be man-eating cannibals, leave alone creatures from the animal kingdom.

Passions run high when one opines differently, worse is the physical, aggressive, violent reactions to these choices wherein one cruelty leads to another, be it for choices as individuals, religion or politics.  Where does this cycle of cruelty end?

“Can’t help it, no one can. It is the cycle of Theory of Karma, I dither when I remember my carnivorous days…”

Another member quipped in, “Can’t help it, no one can. It is a cycle of Theory of Karma; I dither when I remember my carnivorous days! It is divine when someone migrates to being herbivorous, beyond the intellect! No offence, simply sharing my two bits! I design and build the best exotic Bars and Grills in Africa also the meatery but I myself do not have chocolate containing eggs. I enjoy being a strict Vegan and have no emotions in dining with nonveg friends and family.”

Yet another member responded, “The word Karma triggered my thoughts through this post. I have wondered why cruelty and infliction of pain is an integrated design of nature; the food chain; a good number of species eats their own offspring. Maybe the feelings invoked through them is essential in evolving our wisdom. Long back while I was in the US, I had switched over to vegetarianism for a brief period of two years with lots of conflicts in my own thinking and reasoning. Now, when I go to a chicken shop to buy chicken, I helplessly turn my head when the bird is being killed and giving up its life for my next meal. I have often asked myself whether the soul of the animal I eat is of a different nature than my own soul, the Hindu scriptures distinguish them as Jiva Atma (I had learned about this from former school principal for the first time).”

Karma, as I understand, is a collective phenomenon designed to evolve our experiential wisdom through our ever-evolving perception.

Karma, as I understand, is a collective phenomenon designed to evolve our experiential wisdom through our ever-evolving perception. Our soul or consciousness is the awareness of our accumulated experiences stored as energy units across all lifetimes. I do not know if “all lifetimes” include lives, from a bacterium through millions of species on our planet as proposed by the theory of karma in the Hindu scriptures.

A few agreed, some grunted their disgust and then came a deluge of posts nothing to do with anything, just pure entertainment.  WhatsApp world is back to more wordy exchanges and life returns to as-it-was!

Photos sourced by the author from the Internet