What you eat is eating you out || Acharya Prashant, in conversation (2022)

Questioner (Q): Dear Guru ji, we are so honored to be here today, Thank you!

Acharya Prashant (AP): I'm glad.

Q: Can you tell us the truth about the dairy industry? A lot of Indians might not know what's going on and for the ones that do know that's going on, they usually respond by saying, “Well, Lord Krishna had milk” or “it's our tradition” or “we have to do Abhishek”, “it's in the culture”, things like that… Could you explain?

AP: See, even if one is not in possession of facts, there are a few basic rules of thumb. Let's say, I have this (pointing to something on the table). And it yields me money, and who am I? I am the usual, normal, average, greedy person; that's how we all are since birth. And if this is yielding me money and comforts and whatever, will I let this go, first thing?

Secondly, what all will I do to extract more money from it? Thirdly, will I not want more and more of such money spinners? So, I may not know what we do with the buffalo or the cow in the factual sense. I might not know what is happening exactly inside that dairy or that farm, but don't I know how man is? I may not know the facts of the dairy industry, but do I not know the facts of our inner self?

We are greedy people and if an animal can give me something that gives me money, I’ll do anything to extract more and more of that stuff from that animal, which happens to be a female mammal.

So, I will do everything to get more milk. Which means I have to keep her constantly pregnant, which means I have to artificially inseminate her. And I don't need to have video evidence for that. I probably don't even need to visit the dairy to see whether it is actually happening. It is bound to happen because that's the way we are and we are the ones who run that dairy. So, how is it possible that when we are corrupt and greedy and exploitative in all aspects, all walks of life at all times, we'll just spare the poor animal?

We don't spare our relatives, we don't spare our own family, we don't spare our own selves, why will we spare the animal? So, you can just using your own example, extrapolate what we would be doing to the cow or the buffalo or the goat or to the hen and you won't be wrong, provided you are extrapolating with some honesty. Why will you want to show, forget compassion, even basic mercy to the animal if extending mercy reduces the productivity of that animal resource?

Even at the time of slaughter, you will slaughter the animal in the worst possible way provided that worst possible way is financially beneficial to you, is that not so?

And I don't even need evidence to corroborate what I'm saying though plenty of evidence is already available and it's not confidential, you just have to Google or search for videos and you will get it. If giving an animal painless death requires an additional two minutes, why will I spend even those additional two minutes, even in the moment of slaughter?

So, it's obvious what we are doing to the animals and they don't have a voice so they won't, never come out on their own to narrate their story, right?

Q: A lot of people think, ‘we have a cow in the backyard’ or ‘these cows are being respected’ or ‘it's a goshala’ or ‘the calf is getting some milk, it's okay'. A lot of people are talking about this A2 milk. Can you elaborate a little bit on that?

AP: You see, it does not matter what the name of that particular species is, it's obvious, it's not the human species, right? Is there any other species that consumes the milk of anybody other than its own mother, that too for a limited period of time? - First question, a very basic question. Any mammals in million species that consumes the milk of anybody other than its own mother, that too for a very limited period of time?

Secondly, is goat milk useful to, let's say, a tiger cub? Can you raise a tiger cub on goat milk and the tiger being the tiger has all the prowess to subdue the goat and consume her milk. Does the tiger do that? Even the tiger knows that it's nonsensical to even attempt, no? Then how can the milk of one species be useful to the kids of another species?

The buffalo milk is constituted to bring up a huge mindless buffalo, weighing five-hundred or eight-hundred kilograms. It is not a fluid designed by prakriti to be useful to a human kid. It's obvious, no? That's the reason why buffalo milk is not the same as human milk, else the two would have been the same. Which means, human milk is for human babies, and buffalo milk or cow milk is for their own calves. You exchange the two it won't be suitable.

In fact, you just flip the example. If you give human milk to a tiger cub or to a goat kid, it won't be beneficial. Now that was as far as kids go. But the thing is, we consume milk. We continue to consume milk long after we have ceased to be kids. What does a forty or sixty year-old mean by consuming so much dairy?

And I watched your well made movie yesterday. It was this figure that Indians are consuming… what three hundred and fifty - three hundred and seventy grams of milk per day, which is the highest in the world or way above the global average. Now what is a fifty-year-old doing consuming so much dairy? You are not even a kid!

First thing, you are not even a kid, you don't even have the right enzymes in your body to process, to digest the milk protein, and then again, that milk that you are taking in is not coming from your own species, it's coming from somewhere else. So, just a little application of mind tells that it means nothing. It does not matter whether it's the milk of A2 or a goat, or a yak or camel, or doesn't matter. I don't think I've answered all parts of your question. There was something else you added to the question.

Q: I think you covered it, you got it. Thank you.

AP: You said something about Lord Krishna?

Q: Yes, a lot of people will make excuses for the ones that do know there's cruelty in milk, but they'll say, “Well, Lord Krishna had it” or “it's tradition”, or “abhishek”...

AP: Please, you have to understand, Lord Krishna consuming milk in his childhood, only in his childhood. Do you hear or read of him consuming milk after he was grown-up? First question.

Second thing, when you have an Avatār, that Avatār is constrained by the limits and conditions and conventions of his time and age. So, he was brought up in a clan of cow keepers, cattle rearers. That was the profession that the entire neighborhood was following, right? And bal-Krishna (Little Krishna) is just a little baby. He will do what the entire surrounding is doing, and he will wear what everybody else is wearing.

So, saying that Little Krishna used to drink milk, is just like saying that Little Krishna used to wear the costumes of his time. Just as he is bound to wear the costumes of his time, similarly, as long as he is little, he is bound to follow the customs of his time.

We are talking about Avatār, we are not talking about Ātma or Brahm or Satya here. And all the Avatārs are definitely limited by the conditions of their time.

It is a belief that you take birth, “Sambhavāmi Yuge Yuge”, you take birth in a particular milieu. And if you're taking birth in a particular milieu, of course you don't expect Krishna to walk around in western formals. He will wear what they did. His parents, his relatives and the entire area. And he'll speak the language that they spoke just as you would speak the language. as was spoken by the people of his time, similarly, as long as he is young, he will follow the customs of the people of his time, because the Avatār is not supposed to be perfect in the first place.

The Avatār is not “Pūrṇa Satya”. The Avatār is not even supposed to be the perfect Truth. Since the Avatār is embodied, the Avatār has come to be born, so, he is supposed to have the bearings, attributes, characteristics of his particular time and age, right?

Does he play the violin? He plays the flute. Why the flute and why not the violin? Does he speak French? No, he speaks the language of that place and time. Now why doesn't he speak French? Because he was born at a place where there was no French. He was born at a place where there was no violin.

If an Avatār today takes birth in France, he will probably play the piano and speak French. So these are time-bound attributes. These are not to be taken as Timeless. These depend on the time in which the Avatār was born. That's the reason why different Avatārs show different characteristics.

Now, Truth is one. Then why are the characteristics of the different Avatārs so much at variance with each other? Somebody is very composed, somebody talks in one way, somebody wears one kind of attire, somebody's carrying around in another way. Why are such variations seen?

Because those are the variations of the time and place of their birth “Deśakāla”. They are not variations in the Truth. Now what depended on a certain time and place must be left to that time and place. What is it that must be carried forward? That which is Timeless!

Eating habits, sartorial habits, linguistic preferences, where do all these come from? They come from that geography and that age, right? And geography and age are not timeless. They are limited. Such habits, such characteristics belong only to that period, and must not be carried forward to the coming centuries. What is it then that must be carried forward to the coming centuries up to time-eternity? The Bhagavad-gītā! Because in that you have something which time can never besmear or blemish.

The Bhagavad-gītā alone is timeless in the entire narrative of Sri Krishna. All else is time-bound. And that which is time-bound has very little utility. When we go to the scriptures, when we look at our honored Avatārs, so, when we look at our Avatārs, we look at them to have a glimpse of that which time can never touch. We do not look at them in a historical sense. We do not look at them to follow the things that they did at that point in history in time.

We do not look at them because we want to emulate what was happening in the 10th century BC. The 10th century BC is gone. However, the Bhagavad-gītā shall never turn stale. And it is to Gītā that we offer our love, our respect, our salutations. All else is just time and place. And what is there at one point in time shall be turned useless by another point in time. Time is just the flow of Prakriti, right? And that exactly is the message of Bhagavad-gītā. Now at what place is it mentioned in Bhagavad-gita that to follow the teachings of Krishna you have to be a dairy consumer?

So, Arjun is unwilling to fight, Arjun does not know his Dharm. And Krishna tells him, “Arjun, have some lassi (buttermilk)”? Is that how the Bhagavad-gītā proceeds? Is there any mention of dairy in the Gītā? So when you look at Krishna, please look for the essential. That would be the only respect that you can offer to Shri Krishna. All else is just time-bound dramatics. It fades away very quickly. No point trying to hold on to it. You cannot stop the flow of time. But definitely you can bow your head down in front of that which is timeless and that should be our attempt.

Q: Can you explain what a mother is going through with her calf, is the same thing as what we go through?

AP: Obviously, very obviously. But then first of all, we have to first admit that the human mother too, in her attachment to the child, is very much an animal. We don't admit that.

We believe that the human mother and the cow are separate beings. They are not. Because attachment is very much an animalistic quality. What happens is we treat the mother's relationship with the kid as love. Don't we say that, ‘the mother's love for the child’? The moment you say, ‘Mother's love for the child’, you have artificially raised that animalistic relationship to a conscious level because attachment is animalistic, Love is conscious.

The fact is that even the human mother is just attached to the child. Why? Because even the human mother is an animal. And similarly, the cow or the buffalo or the goat is attached to her child. Now, when you admit that human beings too are just animals, now, you see that the human mother is just the same as the cow.

And if you treat with great respect the relation between the human mother and her baby, then how can you treat me with disrespect, the relationship between the cow and the calf?

As long as you do not see that the woman equals the animal equals the cow. How are the woman and the cow same? How are the women and the cow same? Because they both are animals, right? But if you admit that they both are animals, you'll have to substitute the word ‘Love’ with ‘attachment’ because animals can have attachment, but no Love. Instead, we want to call the relationship between the human mother and the child as Love. You want to call that Love, therefore, you will not admit that the human mother too is an animal. Therefore, you'll be forced to declare that the human mother and the cow are different. The cow is an animal. The human mother is divine. Now, this is a bad, false and artificial division. It is imaginary, does not exist.

Man and animal are normally one. They become different only when man walks on the spiritual path and raises his consciousness. Otherwise, man and animal are just one. And if man and animal are just one, my argument is, have the same standards for them.

If you treat the relationship between a human mother and her kid with so much respect, we have so many songs in adulation of ‘maa’s mamta’ (mother’s love), then why separate the poor cow from her calf and milk her and make fancy statements like, ‘the calf cannot digest so much milk, and therefore, we are doing the cow a favor by taking away the extra milk’?

All kinds of extraordinary arguments are made, ‘you know, by milking the cow we are doing her a favor, because the calf will die if it takes so much of milk’. So, Prakriti has gone totally wrong. Prakriti has filled up the cow’s udders with extra milk for the benefit of mankind.

Even the greatest poets will be belittled by such imaginative heights. Prakriti decided that man is my favorite kid. So, for the sake of man, let me bless the cow with extra milk. Otherwise, how will man survive? Man is such a little baby that he needs to have milk even if he is eighty years of age. Even at age eighty, what you are doing is - milk, milk, milk! And that is so symbolically powerful. The fact is even at the age of eighty, most of us are like three months old. Therefore, we need milk. Mental age is not more than three months, you need milk!

Otherwise, is it not so absurd? You are eighty years old and you are consuming a baby's diet - milk. What kind..?

We could have laughed over it. It's just that it is very violent. We cannot laugh over it. Man is such a little baby that it must steal the food of actual babies. We are such babies that we must steal the food of actual babies.

Q: Perfect, thank you so much!

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