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went to the same washbasin to wash and clean my mouth and hands. While doing so, I looked up towards the ceiling and noticed that right above the washbasin there was the stuffed head of a dead deer, hung for show and display. Believe me: I was shocked. If I had seen that deer's head prior to the luncheon, I would have refused to eat there and just walked out. Another shock to me was that all those other Jains who were facing the washbasin must have seen the same deer's head, but they had no reaction and perhaps enjoyed their meals. Is this how far we Jains have come? Nobody says
anything, even to another Jain, and it continues. Now you decide: is this behavior consistent with ahimsa?
JAINS HAVE BEGUN EATING & SERVING MEAT & ALCOHOLIC DRINKS This is unfortunately true. It is becoming quite a real scenario in some homes. Some people tell me that the percentage of Jains who eat meat is already quite high (I don't know how high) and is on the rise. Some first generation immigrants in the West and a good number of second and third generation Jains in the UK and North America have taken to flesh eating. In India, I am told that some Jain kids will not dare to eat non-vegetarian meal at home but may be eating outside at restaurants (away from the watchful eyes of their elders). Dismayed by such trends, one Jain leader painfully told me that time is coming when we will regularly need to ask a Jain to tell whether he/she is a vegetarian Jain or a non-vegetarian Jain. This is unbelievable. I have been to a few Jain homes in US where the lady of the house and mother cooked non-veg foods for her children, in spite of the fact that both parents claimed to have grown up in strict Jain families in India and were still pure vegetarians themselves. A few times, I have tried to talk to the parents fostering non-vegetarianism in their children, but the father
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An Ahimsa Crisis: You Decide
