Consciousness is your only savior || On Advait Vedanta (2019)

Questioner (Q): You said that consciousness is precious, it should be valued, and that is why we shouldn’t kill animals. We can take it the other way around also, that if we are killing animals, it means we are killing our own consciousness somewhere, and therefore we are not valuing consciousness. So, if there is meat consumption, there is killing of consciousness, and therefore we don’t love our consciousness.

Acharya Prashant (AP): True. The less you love yourself, the more likely it is that you will be a flesh eater, and the more you love yourself, the more you know your welfare. The more determined you are to help yourself out of this mess, the more loving and more compassionate you will be towards all conscious beings.

Q: So, we can say that when the mind is at rest and the mind is more loving towards consciousness, then that is a more permanent and a right solution to not only get rid of animal cruelty but other cruelties also. For example, rape is also such a cruelty where the consciousness is not valued.

AP: Correct. And there is a definite correlation between these things. All kinds of cruelty come from the same source. Be it rape, be it debauchery, be it environmental damage, or be it flesh consumption, or be it dairy consumption, all of them are co-related. They all have a central route, which is lack of love, which is lack of awareness, which is a lot of ignorance. And when they go away, it is quite likely that all of them will together, in a bundle, disappear.

Q: So, to see the bigger picture, spirituality is the only solution?

AP: Spirituality is the only solution to everything. Spirituality is the only solution to the one we are. It is not merely a solution to our problems; it is the solution that dissolves the one we are.

Q: There is a kind of logic that is quite often given in favor of animal consumption: For example, if the people are living in coastal regions, they say that they can find only fish there, so there is no option but to eat fish.

AP: You find your family members regularly in your house. Why don’t you eat them? This is nonsensical logic. If you say that in coastal regions you find fish, then in your house you daily find your wife and your kid and your parents—why don’t you eat them up? So, it’s not about what you easily find, what you can easily lay your hands on.

Then there is the very common argument of flesh eating being physically natural to man. People come up and say, “You know, all our ancestors were flesh eaters. When man used to live in the jungle, he was a flesh eater, so why are we doing something so unnatural today? Why are we saying that we don’t need to have flesh?” This is quite interesting—more ridiculous than interesting, but still interesting.

If you talk of Prakriti (physical nature) and if you say, “In Prakriti , man has been a flesh eater and therefore we must continue eating flesh,” then we must also continue living on trees. Man has left Prakriti far behind. Now, why do you want to opportunistically quote Prakriti in order to just justify appeasing your taste buds? If living in a prakritik way is so dear to you, then you go back to the jungle. If you say that “When man used to live in the jungle, he used to eat flesh, so he must continue eating flesh,” then I will say we must continue living in the jungle.

You didn’t bat an eyelid leaving the jungle. Leaving the jungle was so much okay with all of us, right? Then we didn’t say, “Oh, it is anti-nature to leave the jungle!” In the jungle, did you have houses of brick and concrete? No. So, why are you having it? In the jungle, did you have the institution of marriage? In the jungle, did you have language? In the jungle, did you have money? In the jungle, did you have air conditioners? In the jungle, did you have science? Prakriti does not give you any of these. Prakriti gives you no science, no social institutions, no money, no knowledge, no language.

So, you have already left Prakriti behind. Man’s center is no longer Prakriti . Now, why are you unnecessarily quoting Prakriti to say, when we used to live in the jungle then we used to have flesh, so let’s continue to have flesh? I repeat, if you want to continue to have flesh, then go back to the jungle.

Man’s center is no longer Prakriti . Man’s center must ideally be Ātman , Truth, but a great tragedy has befallen: Prakriti we have left far behind, Ātman we have not reached, and our center is now ahaṃkāra , ego. And this ego sometimes quotes Prakriti and sometimes quotes Ātman , as per its own conveniences.

Brushing your teeth is highly unnatural—why do you do it? Getting your kids vaccinated is highly unnatural—why do you do it? Saying good morning to somebody is highly unnatural—why do you do it? Going to your job is highly unnatural—why do you do it? None of that used to happen in the jungle.

You have left the jungle far behind. Why are you quoting the laws of the jungle, the ways of the jungle, to justify eating flesh? When you have left everything behind in the jungle, then please leave flesh eating also behind in the jungle. Operate from a better center; you are no longer the animal. In the jungle you were the animal, so flesh eating could have been justified. Are you still the animal? No, you are the human being—the human being who has left the jungle far behind.

So, please discover what it means to be a human being. Please discover your right center.

Q: The whole issue is because we are stuck in the middle.

AP: The whole issue is because you have left the jungle and yet not reached where you set out to reach; in between you are stuck.

Man is in a very precarious position. Animals are well-settled; the free ones, the Buddhas, are also well-settled. Man is unsettled. Animals are not restless; they are well-settled in the jungle. The liberated ones, the sages and the fakirs and the saints and the gurus, they are also well-settled. But the world’s population, man in general, is highly unsettled and restless. He is neither in the jungle nor in the place he left the jungle for; he is in the city.

Q: There is one very interesting thing that happens: they say that producing babies is natural and you must do that, but at the same time they use all kinds of artificial means to produce them.

AP: Producing babies is natural. But then, it is not natural to produce babies only with your wife. In the jungle that does not happen. If you say that it is natural to have babies, then it is not natural to have babies only with one woman. Nature does not say, “Have babies only with one woman or one man.” If you want to quote nature, then go ahead and have babies with everyone you can find!

You cannot selectively quote Prakriti and what is happening in the jungle. Either you become totally prakritik and then you will have to go back to the jungle, or you say that the jungle is now behind us and our center is now not the body, not Prakriti , not the jungle; our center is illumination, and from there we operate.

See, man left the jungle to reach Heaven but got stuck in the city; that’s his situation. And in the city there is a traffic jam, so he can’t move to any place. And, remaining in the city, he has destroyed all the jungles, so he can’t even go to the jungle either. So, man’s situation is very delicate.

Q: You said that consciousness must be given the highest priority. Being with a limited consciousness, how am I going to judge what serves consciousness and what doesn’t?

AP: Using whatever limited stuff you have. You are limited and that’s why you are restless. Using this limitation, you see that the other one too is limited and restless. And you don’t like being restless, you want to be helped. Just as you want to be helped, help the other one as well. It does not help the other one to slaughter him. The other one is just like you: he too is feverish, struggling consciousness.

If you have no compassion for somebody who is just like you, it only means you have no love for yourself. If you cannot help your mirror image, are you helping yourself? The other conscious and struggling being is your mirror image, just like you, different only in the trivial externalities—name, shape, form, age, species. In all these matters, the other one is probably different than you. But essentially, he too is a consciousness clamoring for, longing for a final rest. Now, do you want to bring him to the final rest, or do you want to slaughter him and give him rest?

Look at an animal; the animal is so much like us. We are the animal. In slaughtering the animal, you are only proving that you do not care about yourself at all. Look at the animal’s eyes. Is there really a difference between your eyes and the animal’s eyes? Look at the expectation in the eyes of the animal. Look at the fear.

The animal, in fact, really wants exactly the same thing that you want. It’s just that he is far behind you, and he is therefore far less likely to get what you might get. But he is in the same queue, in the same queue but way behind; wanting the same thing, but far less likely to get it. But the queue keeps moving; one day the animal too will get it—but not if you slaughter him. In slaughtering the animal, you are reducing the animal’s chances and your own chances.

You see, you want redemption, don’t you? And you say, “I am suffering, somebody please help me.” Now, look at what you are saying. You are saying, “If somebody is suffering, he needs to be helped.” That’s your argument, is it not? When you say, “I am suffering, I need help,” what you are actually saying is, “I am suffering, I deserve help.” So, the principle you are operating on is: if you are suffering, you need to be helped.

Now, look at the animal and apply the same principle. And if there is a principle, the principle has to be universal. You cannot say, “The principle is there but it applies only to me.” Now, the same principle works on the animal as well, right? The animal too is suffering; what it needs is help. It needs your embrace; it does not need to be on your plate.

You see, even as I speak all this, I know that a lot of this will not cut ice with many a people. I know that a lot of this will just not make sense to a lot of people; it won’t just reverberate with them. Only those who already carry some empathy will know what I am saying. Others will conveniently find loopholes, and loopholes there are many. You can quote this, you can quote that, you can quote some scriptures, you can quote some practice, you can quote some research paper to disprove what I am saying, and you can very easily do that. You don’t even need to work hard. If you just want to discredit me or disprove me, do not even bother coming up with a proof. Just say, “I don’t want to believe,” and that is sufficient—because that’s the intention.

If the mind is already made, why do you need to look for proofs? Proofs are needed when one is honestly exploring for the truth. If you are already listening to me with a set mind, with preconceived notions, with prejudices, with the decision already being made, then there is no need to waste time in fetching proofs. Just say, “No, I want to kill animals, I love eating their flesh,” and that is sufficient. You can continue doing that.

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