Gandhi Before Gandhi

SR No.: 007501
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Bipin Doshi, Priti Shah
Publisher: Jain Academy Educational Research Center Promotion Trust Mumbai
Publication Year: 2009
Total Pages: 198
Language: English
Classification: Book_English & History
File Size: 34 MB

Page 128

GANDHI BEFORE GANDHI
beings. The third kind of food gives us grossness, sluggishness, slothfulness. This food if left over a day or over a night, it changes in taste. There is also too much fat in animal food. All these are considered to be of the third kind. The third kind of food, carries us lower and lower in the gradations of life and so it is advisable to avoid it altogether.
What kind of diet we need?
being if we cannot give it to any being. That is the fundamental proposition of our religion. If we follow that rule then any destruction of life is surely to be avoided. Now the question may arise that for any kind of food destruction of life is necessary; as even in the vegetable there is life, and one must not destroy that life in order to prepare food for one's diet. We admit that we have to destroy life in order to live, but life is of so many grades, so many classes, one higher than another, and if that argument is to be applied, that it is same to destroy any kind of life, whether animal or vegetable. Can we also apply this argument to the destruction of human beings? We all make a distinction there. Why do we not destroy human being's then? We say that they have souls. But we also know that we can never destroy the soul; they only leave the body and go to some other place or into some other body, according to the opinion of all religionists the soul is not destroyed with the body, only the relation is broken. However knowing this well, we do not destroy human life because we consider knowing this well, we do human life on higher grade.
Does diet have to do something with the mental and moral nature? This is where our Hindu philosophy lends us with some wisdom. When we eat certain kind of food, it may be nutritious so far as the physical part of the body is concerned, but at the same time it may create peculiar emanations from the body which would lower us so far as our moral nature is concerned. Therefore, notwithstanding its nutritious character, we will avoid that kind of food because according to our philosophy it is of the third kind, having grossness. It may be nutritious, but it may excite our passions and therefore hurt us. The scientists will say the same thing but they would insist that we should eat that kind of food because it stimulates the palate and therefore does not injure health. Everything cannot be judged from viewpoint of healthy food, simply by its effect on the physical aspect. It is said that there are many elements in animal food which would be nutritious and would help to support the human body, certainly, in fruits and nuts and other things too which do not come from the animals,
we find these same elements. We say that there are moral and ethical reasons against eating animal food, and not only these but also spiritual reasons.
The relation is higher and more intimate in the case of the human being as compared to animals, and higher in animals as compared to vegetables. We apply this rule even to our business affairs; we follow this rule when there are two kinds of business, one more and the other less profitable; we follow that which is more profitable. Similarly, we will abandon that business in which we must lose a thousand dollars before that in which we lose a less sum or nothing at all. We should apply this rule in case of diet; there are spiritual reasons for avoiding the diet in which certain kinds of feelings and emotions are created. Let us consider the mental state of the animals, especially when they are prepared for death, just imagine the state of a chicken at time of being killed and its mental condition. Suppose a merchant dealing in cotton receives a telegram in the city of
In the first place the moral philosophy of our religion says that we have no right to destroy life in any