How can I deal with a beef-eating colleague?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
How do we deal with befeaters? One of my colleagues has one. Firstly, we should never impose our moral standards on other people and demean other people based on our moral standards. Now, what I mean by this is, we may say it’s not our moral standards, it’s scripture’s moral standards.
That’s fine. But they have not accepted scripture as authority the way we have accepted. So, even if they are Hindus also, they are just normal Hindus, they may not really be serious followers.
So, in general, when we are dealing with people at an individual level, we should always be courteous. We should always be polite. We shouldn’t demean people, disrespect people because they are following certain things which are different from our moral standards.
So, everybody deserves respect for wherever they are. Having said that, we have to find out what is it that would make sense to them. Sometimes religious concerns may not make sense.
That person is from another religious tradition. The sanctity of the cow as explained in our tradition may not make sense. Sometimes emotional concerns would make sense.
Prabhupada says we take milk from our mother, we take milk from the cow. Cow is like a mother. I know one devotee in England.
When he read this first time, he was just so cholted by that. Just that one he read that, he stopped eating milk. And soon after that he stopped eating meat also.
Now that may make sense to some people. For some it may not make sense. So, some people may say okay we take milk from goat also.
Why not protect goats? People can give different reasons. So, we have to find out what is it that makes sense. So, in today’s world, you know it has said, one thinker said that when it comes to money, everyone belongs to the same religion.
So, everybody is interested in money. So, we can present the value of the cow purely in economic terms. Unfortunately, today the idea of cow protection has become politicalized.
And some radical elements commit violence in the name of cow protection. And then that leads to terrible anti-publicity, publicity against the cows. But it is not even politicalized or radicalized at all.
Even purely from economic grounds, a cow if we know how to tap its value, then cow not only gives milk, the various other products that cow gives, they are also very valuable to the economy. From the economic point of view also, avoiding the eating of cow flesh, it makes enormous sense. Now if we see among, now most of the cows, most of animals which are bred today, they are bred primarily for the purpose of slaughter.
So, there are factory farms where the animals are bred. So, among all forms of meat which pollutes the environment, which contributes to greenhouse gases, which contributes to climate change and global warming, it is beef that has the maximum ecological footprint. So, if beef eating, even if people didn’t become vegetarians, if they stop eating beef, a substantial amount of ecological problems will be decreased.
From the ecological point of view also we can go. From the economic point of view, I read an article in Uttar Pradesh, there are some Muslims, there is a whole community of Muslims who take care of cows. And they take care not because of any religious reasons, simply economic reasons.
They have learned how to use cow dung, how to use cow urine, how to use the products of a cow and they are making money out of that. So, we have to, when we have to communicate to people, especially the most people in today’s world, if they are not educated, if they are not national, it’s interesting that in India even now people think it is modern and progressive to become a, to be a, to eat flesh, to become a non-vegetarian. In the west actually it is considered progressive to be a vegan.
You know, if somebody is eating non-veg, you know, you have no eco-sensitivity. You are so primitive. So, actually, you know, where the west is, where the west was maybe 50 years ago, India is there right now and we think that to be progressive.
But if you just present to people, you know, how many prominent people all over the world, prominent movie stars, prominent sports players, prominent politicians, prominent authors, they have turned towards vegetarianism. Not because of their religious reasons but simply because of ethical reasons, economic reasons, ecological reasons. So, if you present reasons objectively that way and especially present about beef, how it is harmful, then that can encourage people to at least change that.
They can give up meat, that is the best. Bring the country of meat, this is your beef. That itself can help the ecology.
On my website there is an article called help. How your food can help the world. So, help is acronym H-E-L-P.
That by what we eat, we can promote our own health. Beef among all forms of meat, beef is among the forms of meat that is very damaging to health. Health, H is health, E is ecology, environment, L is livestock.
So, so many animals, they suffer in inhuman conditions, terrible conditions in their factory farms and P is poverty. The amount of land that is used to feed, the amount of land, most of you know this, the amount of land that is required to feed one vegetarian is actually far less than the amount of land that is used to feed non-vegetarian. Because then what happens is, then only at first the animals have to be fed.
You feed this much hay or like food to animal and this much flesh comes out of it. So, poverty also can be alleviated by shifting towards vegetarian diet. Mahatma Gandhi said that the most violent weapon in the world, the most destructive weapon in the world is the kitchen fork.
It is the kitchen fork. We believe that that causes far far more violence and destruction than the bombs that terrorists explode or even the weapons of mass destruction. So, if you just raise, rather than being moralistic and judgmental, oh you are so following ITV, just rationally explain to people, raise their level of awareness, then many people will take the step forward and move away from beef eating.