From IIM Ahmedabad To Happiness

Author(s): Vijay K Jain
Publisher: Vikalp Printers

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FROM IIM-AHMEDABAD TO HAPPINESS
pursuits, lose the courage to oppose and discard a wrong path, howsoever immoral it might be, as long as their cravings were satisfied.
Coming back to the topic of food, slaughter of cattle for the sake of filling our stomachs, which can be filled just as well, if not better, with non-animal dainties is an unbecoming act for the soul that aspires for freedom and bliss.
If we would but ponder a little over the matter, we should find that the slaughter of animals is not only sinful, but quite unnecessary as well. Taste, of which we make so much in insisting upon an animal diet, is only an acquired something. When a man takes to smoking, his instincts revolt from the fumes of nicotine, but with each repetition they become more and more blunted, till they lose their natural delicacy altogether, and actually long for that thing which they had abhorred before. The aesthetic pleasure which simple, wholesome, non-animal food affords to the soul on account of its natural purity, cannot be equalled by the most sumptuous and expensive preparations from dead entrails and carcasses of birds and beasts, however much we might endeavour to conceal their sickening stench by condiments and spices. Nonvegetarian food not only vitiates the natural instincts of the soul, but also tends to harden one's heart.
Anyone who would aspire for spiritual unfoldment must break his connection with this curse of civilization - wining and dining. Drinking of wine makes us unconscious and is the cause of error in vision and judgment. A person in whom the craving for liquor has passed the limit of control will readily do anything to obtain the means for procuring it. His moral degradation might start from the self-abasing begging of money as a favour, to theft, and might end up in robbery and murder. Thus the unconquerable longing for the gratification of the senses also deprives one of the power of
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