Transcend the Madness of this Material World

If you want sanity, you have to be transcendental to the madness of this material world. Here even on the slightest provocation, because their minds are not peaceful, people will engage in fighting for no legitimate reason Especially in this age people will commit murder or nations will go to war simply due to frustration over their miserable existence. They foolishly think that by exerting their so-called supremacy they can find satisfaction. Because they are not the supreme, by this method they will never be successful. If they would like to take our advice, we can inform them to stop artificially trying to be the supreme. Acknowledge that you are subordinate to the supreme and fully surrender yourself unto Him. This will give you genuine lasting happiness, not your attempts to be supreme.

Teaching Real Sanity at ISKCON's Jagannath Mandir
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-10 June 2012

Answers by Citing the Vedic Version

Question: Muslim Halal Food and Krishna Prasadam

Muslims kill an animal with a prayer to God and then consume it. We Vaisnavas kill a plant for consumption and then offer to Krishna and eat it. Can you kindly clarify the difference between the two processes?

Humbly yours

Milind

Answer: You Are What You Eat

Praying to God to bless one's food before eating it, as the Muslims do, and offering one's food to God before eating it, as the Vaisnavas do, are two entirely different things. In the standard Muslim prayer the Muslims ask God to bless their food. They do not offer it to Him. In the Bhagavad-gita God instructs that we only can eat food that has been first offered to Him with love, and He prescribes that we can only offer Him vegetarian food.

There are scriptural injunctions that give facility for meat eating. But still one has to pay a heavy price for that sanctioned meat eating. For example, in the Markandeya Purana, which is for persons in the mode of ignorance, it is prescribed that one can kill a goat before the Goddess Kali after acknowledging that by such killing one will become a goat in his next life to be killed and eaten by the very same goat that he is killing now. Such scriptural injunctions are not for encouraging meat eating. They are for discouraging those persons in the mode of ignorance who will eat meat any cost. The government licenses the consumption of liquor and tobacco, not to encourage their consumption, but instead to restrict and discourage their consumption. Scriptural injunctions for meat eating are in the same category.

Any scriptural injunction in any scripture that allows meat eating is for persons in the mode of ignorance. Following such scriptures does not free one from the heavy karma of killing and eating an innocent creature. Such scriptural injunctions are for persons in the mode of ignorance to add God consciousness to their already sinful lives. Such remembrance of God will gradually elevate them to the Vaisnava platform on which they will only eat vegetarian food which has been first offered first to God. A taste for such exclusively pure eating is required for entering into the kingdom of God because in the kingdom of God there is no meat eating. In other words, anyone who desires to enjoy the taste of blood and flesh would not be satisfied finding themselves in the vegetarian kingdom of God and would want to return to this material world to enjoy the taste of bloody flesh.

It should also be noted that killing and eating a plant without offering it to Krishna or God first is also sinful, just as is killing and eating an animal. The final lesson to be learned is that one can only eat what is first offered to God with love and devotion and that God will only accept offerings from the vegetarian category. Eat an animal, and you will become an animal. Eat the remnants of the foods offered to God with love and devotion, and you will attain the kingdom of God.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari