From IIM Ahmedabad To Happiness

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

Page 65

THE HYGIENE OF FOOD
judgment, the sense of morality, and the capacity to act in the right way. A drunkard finds pleasure only in the company of men of his own type and his pursuit of sensual pleasure constantly acts as a strain on his body, dragging it into all kinds of unhealthy surroundings and uncongenial environment. One can now easily imagine what the combined effect of eating meat and drinking wine would be on the finer instincts and merciful nature of our soul.
It is a generally accepted negative virtue to not doing unto others what we should not like them to do unto us. Since the Self is characterized by pure goodness, it follows that he alone who actively practices equanimity, in his thoughts and deeds, can be said to practice virtue actively. He then not only tolerates, but actually becomes filled with affectionate sympathy for all living beings. It follows from this that no one who is not prepared to renounce himsā (injuring others) can ever hope for salvation or immortality. There are three forms of committing himsā: (1) the actual commission of the harmful act oneself, (2) its abetment when done by another, and (3) the encouraging of those who have already committed it independently of oneself. The United States of America, after the 9/11 attacks, vowed to punish the terrorists who committed the crime, those who abetted it and also those who, in any way, were grooming and encouraging terrorism. Similarly, those who slaughter animals, they who get them slaughtered, and also they who purchase their dead limbs are travelling on the path which leads to suffering and pain.
In our blind materialism we have neglected to consider the only important thing that is to be known, namely, the Soul. We have considered the physical encasement superior to everything else, and are doing our best to enhance its comforts, forgetting that the real enjoyer is not the body at all, but something of which the body is merely an objectified expression. If the body were the
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