Jain Center Minnesota MN 2007 07 Pratishtha

Author(s): Jain Center Minnesota USA
Publisher: USA Jain Center Minnesota

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I am God And the Devil Too!
by
Professor Vastupal Parikh, Ph.D."
Human beings consider ourselves to be a very intelligent species. Our ingenuity has conceived and built several systems constituting family, social, religious, political, economic and industrial networks. Our success in these endeavors has brought us tremendous material success. Humans have built homes and palaces to live in, towns and cities for shelter; and roads, cars, trains, ships, and airplanes for transportation. But along the way, development in the name of survival has changed to development as a way to "have" more -- to fulfill a seemingly insatiable need.
Humans have exploited the oceans and streams for fish, land for nature's mineral resources, and forests for vast quantities of timber. The slaughter of fish and wildlife has become entertainment. No other species kills other living beings just for fun or the pleasure of the palate, and none soils its own nest. Our machines and factories have created still more wealth. So successful has been human inventive genius that soon we even invented an omnipotent God and started fantasizing himself to be in our image. Such fantasy might have been acceptable but for the terrible record of human species. No other species has developed weapons of mass murder and accepted genocide, religious and ideological wars, empire building, colonization, and subjugation. Yet, here too, human genius is at work! We invented even a devil to absolve ourselves of all our evil acts and to whom we can assign blame. Man is an intelligent genius indeed!
Little do we understand that no one but our self is responsible for our acts....that the devil and the God are both within us! Our soul, if pure, is godly but we also harbor the devil in the form of our passions. We are so egotistic and self-righteous that we have no respect for other living beings. Our selfrighteousness makes us believe that our race, our religion, our nation, and our political systems are so superior that we have the right to impose our authority and will on others, or kill other living beings for profit, food, pleasure, or fun. Our ego and cruelty has made us insensitive to the pain we inflict on animals. We wage wars, and build war academies to turn young minds in to killing machines. We have amassed enough nuclear weapons to blow up our planet with the flick of a switch. Aren't these devilish acts? Yet, amazingly, we see ourselves as the most intelligent species!
Our desires have no limits. We designed animal farms for the mass production of animals for slaughter, and trawlers to catch millions of fish in one sweep. Make no mistake - these "farms" are not the idyllic settings of Charlotte's Web, they are factory-like farms where thousands of cows, pigs, chickens, etc. are stuffed in small cages for all their short lives, fattened prematurely, pumped with drugs, and slaughtered for humans. A 2006 United Nations report concludes that animal farming and animal consumption have the most devastating effect on our environment. The world is currently raising over 50 billion farmed animals for slaughter each year. This contributes significantly to the destruction of forests, extinction of plant and animal species, soil erosion, pollution of ground water, and depletion of fresh water and arable land. Animal farming contributes significantly to the greenhouse gases - carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide (9%, 37%, and 65% of world totals, respectively) of which methane and nitrous oxide are 23 and 296 times more detrimental to global warming than carbon dioxide.
This article is based on Dr. Parikh's book, Jainism and the New Spirituality, 2nd Edition, Peace Publications, Toronto, Canada, WWW/Peacepublications.com
* Livestock's Long Shadow, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report, http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000448
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