r Chaitanya Sraswat Mah Philippines

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Vaishnavas Are Not

Vegetarians
17 January 2015

rla Bhakti Siddhnta Saraswat hkur explains

the necessity of eating only to serve the Lord.

Translated from a Bengali quotation

published in r Gauya Daran,
Volume 1, Issue 10, on Thursday, 10 May
1956.
The scriptures say (Manu-smti: 1.49), Anta saj bhavanty
ete sukha-dukha-samanvit [Plants have internal
consciousness and experience pleasure and pain]. Trees, vines,
grass, shrubs, herbs, and so on are all souls endowed with
consciousness. Therefore, even one who considers oneself a
vegetarian in fact commits violence against other souls.
Vaiavas are not non-vegetarians or vegetarians. They accept
prasdam offered to the Lord that is approved by the pure
scriptures and maintain their life for the purpose of serving the
Lord. Fish, meat, and other unholy things are never fit to be
offered to the Lord; they are the food of people in the mode of
ignorance. Even green leaves, vegetables, and other vegetarian
foods, if they are not taken as the prasdam of the Lord, and
even when they are, if they are thought to be material foods and
seen only for the purpose of ones own taste, then by eating
them, violence against other souls is perpetrated.