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Jainism: The Cosmic Vision Paul was jocular in his tone when he said, "In that case man would be extremely coward. A tiger-hunter is really a brave man !"
I rejected his logic and said, "Excuse me, but I fail to understand your definition of bravery. A tiger-hunter keeps himself away at a very safe distance, occupying a seat on a raised platform on a tree and that, too, in the company of marksman and you would call him a brave man ! In terms of intelligence, the tiger is as good as a small child. In no case, such tiger-hunting would be an act of bravery."
Stella had another argument. She said, "May be all that you say is right. But I fail to understand that a man would not eat meat for the sake of flesh of his body."
I said, "In fact, our body is made for vegetarian food. Carnivorous animals do not have longer infesting, as we humans do have. Humans have flat chewing teeth, they have hands to hold their food-items and their saliva is alkaline - all these suggest that man is basically a vegetarian animal and his body is most suited to vegetarian food as against nonvegetarian food. One of the researchers of Academy of Medicine, Paris has derived a conclusion that a vegetarian needs five-times less time than a non-vegetarian to get relaxed. Besides the physical one, there is mental advantage also. He also adds that a vegetarian's capacity to face and solve the problems and difficult issues of life is two to there times more than that of a non-vegetarian."
Vegetarianism humans and sustain the animals. Our country Belgium is totally non-vegetarian and two of our food dishes viz. carbonades and waterzooi are popular all over the world and these dishes, a craving for the foreigners, are made of beef and fish. Here the people are fond of relishing different species of fish. Vegetarians, like you, won't get suitable food anywhere. Poor vegetarian ! Some of them have to eat potato chips on the roadside, but the tomato sauce on the chips is a non-vegetarian item. I think, you don't intend to starve this country by your sophisticated arguments favouring vegetarianism."
Paul's argument was very aggressive. Stella's displeasure against Paul's offensive method and angry mood was evident on her face. It seemed that she did not like the disrespect that was shown to one whom they had invited as a guest. However Paul was right in saying that the whole of Belgium was full of non-vegetarians'.
But I was very quite and polite. I said, "Mr. Paul! When you eat meat of any animal, I think, you don't believe that you eat it's meat alone, you are also gulping down all the vegetables that the animal has so far eaten. One interesting and specific calculation has revealed that when you enjoy a dish of a 1 kg of meat, you gulp down 10 kg of vegetables simultaneously, but unwittingly. This would mean that a single non-vegetarian eats away the meal of ten vegetarians. In terms of an entire life's food-stuff of an individual, a single non-vegetarian eats away food-stuff fifty times more than that of a vegetarian."
Stella added, "It would mean that non-vegetarians are the root cause of starvation on this earth."
Rene had also something to say. He said, "You talked about the starvation resulting from food being eaten away by
Paul had another aggressive argument for pro-nonvegetarianism; he said, "I think, you don't bother about the human food. It is very strange that you want to starve the
