Our Only True Happiness

Srila Prabhupada describes in his purport to Srimad Bhagavatam 3.21.12:

"Real devotees of bhakti-yoga accept only the material necessities of life absolutely needed to maintain the body and soul together; they refrain completely from all exaggerated material sense gratification."

This is a very important point. If we overindulge in sense gratification, it is not possible to give up the bodily conception of existence, which keeps us bound up in the cycle of repeated birth and death. Therefore, we should never think that our happiness comes from sense gratification. We must instead always remember that our only true happiness is having a loving relationship with Lord Sri Krishna.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

Loving Krishna is Our Only True Happiness

Answers by Citing the Vedic Version:

Question: Why Some Scriptures Allow Meat Eating?

Why some scriptures allow meat eating and others do not?

Thank you
Vikram

Answer: To Discourage Meat Eating

Just as the government gives license for smoking and at the same restricts it and warns against it, in a similar way for people who are addicted to meat eating there are scriptural injunctions which strongly warn against meat eating while simultaneously allowing it under stringent restriction. In this connection Srila Prabhupada explains as follows:

It is very difficult for one to give up his attachments all at once. If one is addicted to meat-eating and is suddenly told that he must not eat meat, he cannot do so. If one is attached to drinking liquor and is suddenly told that liquor is no good, he cannot accept this advice. Therefore, in the Puranas we find certain instructions that say in essence, "All right, if you want to eat meat, just worship the goddess Kali and sacrifice a goat for her. Only then can you eat meat. You cannot eat meat just by purchasing it from the butcher shop. No, there must be sacrifice or restriction." In order to sacrifice a goat to the goddess Kali, one must make arrangements for a certain date and utilize certain paraphernalia. That type of puja, or worship, is allowed on the night of the dark moon, which means once a month. There are also certain mantras to be chanted when the goat is sacrificed. The goat is told, "Your life is being sacrificed before the goddess Kali; you will therefore be immediately promoted to the human form." Generally, in order to attain the human form, a living entity has to pass through many species of life on the evolutionary scale, but if a goat is sacrificed to the goddess Kali, he is immediately promoted to the human form. The mantra also says, "You have the right to kill this man who is sacrificing you." The word mamsa indicates that in his next birth, the goat will eat the flesh of the man who is presently sacrificing him. This in itself should bring the goat-eater to his senses. He should consider, "Why am I eating this flesh? Why am I doing this? I'll have to repay with my own flesh in another life." The whole idea is to discourage one from eating meat.


We can see in the above quote from Srila Prabhupada that even if one eats meat under scriptural injunctions, he still has to take birth as an animal and be killed and eaten by the very same animal whose flesh he has eaten. There is no religious system that allows one to eat meat without having to suffer the consequences. Even the Bible says, "He that kills an ox is as if he killed a man." Although the government allows smoking, an intelligent man will not smoke. Similarly, even though there are scriptural injunctions that allow meat eating, an intelligent person will not do so. He will avoid obliging himself to become an animal to be slaughtered and eaten in his next life by the very same animal that he ate.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari