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Violence for food must cease. It is time to stop this shocking desensitization of consumer taste buds. It is time to stop trading in meat importing or exporting it. It is time to consider closing down slaughterhouses. It is time to give up making our stomachs a graveyard of dead animals.
Jain religion propagates taking to vegetarianism, which would spare precious animal and bird life. Vegetarian way of life is not only a way of removing ourselves from supporting the machines of violence and the mentality of callousness towards helpless creatures but it gives a new and fresh outlook on life, of feeling one with the creation, feeling a deep kinship with the beings with whom we share this planet. George Bernard Shaw wrote:
"Like carrion crows, We live and feed on meat Regardless of suffering and pain. We cause by doing so. If thus we treat defenseless Animals for sports and gain. How can we hope in this world to attain? The peace we say we are so anxious for?” Non-violence towards Nature
C.
Earth is rapidly dying. In the name of progress humans are destroying forests that influence the climate. Cradles of world's vegetational wealth are being bulldozed and burnt. Air, water and space are being polluted. Earth's survival is at stake. 21st century may well face a water crisis if we do not judiciously conserve and develop our water resources. Humans need to realize the dangerous situation being created by their reckless exploitation of Earth's resources virtually amounting to rape of the Earth. Jain philosophy calls for restraints in consumption and limitation of wants so that nature's resources are not plundered and exhausted. The culture of unbridled as well as wasteful consumption in affluent societies is the violence of most undesirable nature and it must be halted.
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Ahimsa: The Ultimate Winner * Jain Education International
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