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Tulsa Jain Sangh Pratishtha Mahotsav 2004
Pramoda Chitrabhanu Jain Meditation International Center
New York City
VEGETARIANISM A Compassionate Approach to Life
I would like to start this article with a quotation that aptly describes today's subject that is Vegetarianism: A Compassionate Approach to Life.
"Unseen they suffer, unheard they cry. In agony they linger, in silence they die. Is it nothing to you, all ye who pass by?"
-Anonymous.
These are the lines that express the pain and suffering of the animals that are subjected to exploitation and torture for the human greed.
It is a sad to see that the innocent, dumb and defenseless creatures are being put to cruel pain far from the human eyes. The thought itself makes one's heart bleed with anguish and grief. How can we as human beings sit quietly when our younger brothers and sisters are in terrible state? Is it not our duty to protect and help them? But how difficult it is to predict man for, "Man is an actor. He acts all manner of men, and each one is a lie. Only the animal in him is real," says William Saroyan. Probably he is right by saying so, for the bestiality in the man has created a violent and destructive world in which we live today.
There is so much suffering going on in this world behind the curtain, that it is a highly guarded secret. How long shall we pretend to believe that animals have no souls and so they feel no pain. It is time to wake up from our slumber and ignorance and face the truth. Animals are living beings just like you and me and as we suffer from pain and agony they do also. Let us stop being violent and act to end the cruelty that is meted on the dumb and innocent creatures. For violence begets violence and love begets love.
To begin with let us see animals as living beings and not as things that are made for human beings to use and consume. For they are lives full of emotions and feelings that experience pain and pleasure as we do. As Dr. Albert Schweitzer the Nobel Peace Prize Recipient in 1952 said in his book “A Place for Revelation" that "wherever you see life-that is you. What is this recognition, this knowledge apprehended by the most learned and most childlike alike? It is 'Reverence for Life,' reverence for the impenetrable mystery that meets us in our universe, an existence different from ourselves in external appearance yet inwardly of the same character with us. Terribly similar, awesomely related. This dissimilarity, the strangeness between us and other creatures are here removed. Reverence before the infinity of life
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