Explaining cow care to the contemporary world

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Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.

Summary

In a rapidly changing world, traditional practices like cow care often face misunderstandings. This blog explores how to effectively communicate the values of compassion, sustainability, and animal welfare to a contemporary audience without falling into the trap of mere condemnation.

Understanding Over Condemnation

• Look Beyond the Surface: Instead of writing off modern society as degraded for its habits, spiritual practitioners must aim to comprehend the underlying mindsets and cultural shifts shaping today’s world.
• Effective Communication Modalities: Public perception is largely shaped by “outsider-outsider” communication. Fostering social awareness helps build bridges rather than alienate people through rigid cultural divides.
• Navigating Cultural Shifts: While pre-modern societies relied purely on religious authority, modern and post-modern societies prioritize scientific proof and personal, experiential benefits.

Aligning with Modern Values

• The Rise of Sattva-Guna: Contemporary movements like veganism, environmentalism, mindfulness, and yoga show a rising desire for cleaner, more conscious living.
• The Power of Experience: Presenting cow care through modern avenues—such as “bovine therapy” or mindful animal connection—helps bridge traditional wisdom with current psychological and wellness needs.
• Universalizing Compassion: Framing cow care as an extension of deep reverence for all life helps connect with audiences who value animal welfare broadly (including pets and street animals) rather than seeing it as a sectarian custom.

Full Transcription

Thank you very much Jai Gopi Janavallabhagiri Vardhari Jai Gopi Janavallabhagiri Vardhari Yamunati Ravanachari Yamunati Ravanachari Jai Radha Madhava Kunja Bihari Jai Radha Madhava Kunja Bihari Jai Radha Madhava Kunja Bihari Jai Radha Madhava Kunja Bihari Jai Radha Madhava Kunja Bihari Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Jaya Jaya Prabhupada Prabhupada Prabhupada Jaya Jaya Prabhupada Jaya Jaya Prabhupada Nithay Gohar Hari bol Hari bol Hari bol Nithay Gaur Haribol Shri Arinaam Sankirtan Ki Jai Jai Om Vishnupad Paramahamsa Parivrajikacharya Stotr Shri Shri Madhya’s Divine Grace Abhay Charanarvindam Divyadanta Swamishna Prabhupada Ki Anantakoti Vaishnavindaki Pranthana Hashrimad Bhagavatam Ki Jai Kitai Gaur Premanandai Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya Om Namo Bhagvate Vasudevaya Om Namo Bhagvate Vāsudevāya. Kuntrāśrī Bhāgavatam, Canto 1, Chapter 17, Text 3. gāṁ ca dharma-duḥkhaṁ dīnāṁ bhruṣāṁ śūdra-padāhatām vivatsāṁ āśruva-danāṁ śāmāṁ yava-saṁicchatim gāṁ ca dharma-duḥkhaṁ dīnāṁ bhruṣāṁ śūdra-padāhatām vivatsāṁ āśruva-danāṁ śāmāṁ yava-saṁicchatim gāṁ ca dharma-duḥkhaṁ dīnāṁ bhruṣāṁ śūdra-padāhatām vivatsāṁ āśruva-danāṁ śāmāṁ yava-saṁicchatim gāṁ ca dharma-duḥkhaṁ dīnāṁ bhruṣāṁ śūdra-padāhatām vivatsāṁ āśruva-danāṁ śāmāṁ yava-saṁicchatim gāṁ ca dharma-duḥkhaṁ dīnāṁ bhruṣāṁ śūdra-padāhatām vivatsāṁ āśruva-danāṁ gāṁ ca dharma-duḥkhaṁ dīnāṁ bhruṣāṁ śūdra-padāhatām vivatsāṁ āśruva-danāṁ śāmāṁ yava-saṁicchatim word for word translations gāṁ, the cow ca, also dharma-duḥkhaṁ beneficial because one can draw religion from her oh it’s not visible dīnāṁ now rendered poor bhruṣaṁ distressed śūdra lower caste padāhatām beaten on the legs vivatsāṁ without any calf āśruva-danāṁ with tears in her eyes śāmāṁ very weak yava-saṁ grass icchatim as if desiring to have some grass to eat translation purport by his divine grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swamishla Prabhupāda translation although the cow is beneficial because one can draw religious principles from her she was now rendered poor and calf-less her legs were being beaten by a śūdra there were tears in her eyes and she was distressed and weak she was hankering after some grass in the field purport the next symptom of the age of Kali is the distressed condition of the cow milking the cow means drawing the principles of religion in liquid form the great rishis and munnis would live only on milk Śrī Śukadeva Goswami would go to a householder while he was milking a cow and he would simply take a little quantity of it for subsistence even fifty years ago no one would deprive a sādhu of a quart or two of milk and every householder would give milk like water for a sanātanist a follower of vedic principles it is the duty of every householder to have cows and bulls as household paraphernalia not only for drinking milk but also for deriving religious principles the sanātanist worships cows on religious principles and respects brāhmaṇas the cow’s milk is required for the sacrificial fire and by performing sacrifices the householder can be happy the cow’s calf not only is beautiful to look at but also gives satisfaction to the cow and so she delivers as much milk as possible but in the Kali Yuga the cows are separated from the cow as early as possible for purposes which may not be mentioned in these pages of Śrīmad Bhāgavatam the cow stands with tears in her eyes the śūdra milkman draws milk from the cow artificially and when there is no milk the cow is sent to be slaughtered these greatly sinful acts are responsible for all the troubles in present society people do not know what they are doing in the name of economic development the influence of Kali will keep them in the darkness of ignorance despite all endeavours for peace and prosperity they must try to see the cows and the bulls happy in all respects foolish people do not know how one earns happiness by making the cows and bulls happy but it is a fact by the law of nature let us take let us take it from the authority of Śrīmad Bhāgavatam and adopt the principles for the total happiness of humanity śrīmate bhaktivedanta svāmi iti nāmine namaste saraswati deve gauravāni prachārine nirviśeṣa śuñjavādi pāśyātya deśa tārine vāñchā kalpatarūbhyas ca kṛpāsindhubhya eva ca patitānāṁ pāvanibhyo vaiṣṇavibhyo namo namah śrī kṛṣṇa caitanya prabhu nityānanda śrī advaita gadādhara śrī vāsādi gaura bhakta vṛnda hare kṛṣṇa hare kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa hare hare hare rāma hare rāma rāma rāma hare hare hare kṛṣṇa so today morning one of the most heart-wrenching or distressing sections in the Bhāgavatam of the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam for the devotee is going on over here it is we are in the 17th chapter of the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam the first canto has 19 chapters and we will see that basically here we are coming towards the description of the glories of Parīkṣit Mahārāja especially in how he confronted Kali this is the 17th chapter the whole purpose of the first canto in one sense is to set the scene it is to describe how the Bhāgavatam was narrated and suppose we are told here there is a discussion between two people would you like to hear it? nowadays podcasts are there where two people discuss so we want to hear who is the person who is who are the people among whom the discussion is happening we want to know that before we decide to invest our time in the discussion so in the Bhāgavatam the glory of the student is established in the first canto the glory of the speaker will come out eventually when the speaker starts speaking but from chapters 7 till 19 actually essentially the back story of Parīkṣit Mahārāja is given the back story means what happened in his life before how did he come to the level of hearing the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam that is what is described and when that is described the purpose of this is to illustrate how great a person was hearing this discussion therefore he may be inspired to hear it so here how Parīkṣit Mahārāja confronted Kali that is described so in general when the glory of some incident is to be described if you want to describe how powerful say if there is a movie which wants to describe how powerful a hero is so to describe how powerful the hero is quite often what is required is to describe how deadly the villain is how dark and degraded and deadly the villain is and when that is described then when the hero comes to the rescue then we start appreciating oh this is something special so here chapters 16 and 17 especially they are describing how Kali is a dark deadly person and what is the reason for describing this so that Parīkṣit Mahārāja’s great strength in curbing such a Kali will now be subsequently described so in this section what is described is how Kali is brutally exalting a cow and a bull and that is very painful Prabhupāda indicated that pain by saying that when the calf is separated from the cow for purposes that we will not describe in the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam that purpose of course is slaughtering a calf and Prabhupāda doesn’t want to mention it over here so he says for purposes you don’t want to spoil the pages of Śrīmad Bhāgavatam with that so this is the setting in which Parīkṣit Mahārāja’s glory is going to be described so today I will in the purport Prabhupāda explains how how the cow is the source of religious principle of Dharmadhugām and how we need to protect the cow it was very common in the past as he says every householder would have a cow and a bull and they would take care of it not just for milk but also for Dharma, for Dugdha and Dharma both so this was the traditional understanding of cow care two purposes was there is the practical financial utility and purpose that is it provided milk but just by taking care of cows one would develop virtue one would actually grow in one’s morality and spirituality so these two were important now we will discuss today broadly on this topic with this background the topic I will discuss is is explaining cow culture explaining cow care to the contemporary world because the problem is that whenever we try to explain anything traditional in the contemporary world explaining cow care in the contemporary world contemporary means in the world that exists today why is it such a challenge it is a challenge because most people who have grown up today they have no idea that in the past everybody would have cows in their houses and even if you study about history we study mostly about the invasion and the independent struggle not so much about cow care so how do we go about explaining this I will talk about four broad points which will be the overall summary of the class I will talk first about how the need to go beyond we need to go beyond condemnation to comprehension oh modern culture is so terrible killing cows and doing this and doing that that’s ok that is true but we need to go beyond condemnation to comprehension why is this happening what are people thinking today when they are doing this if you don’t understand this then we will simply be condemning and not really connecting with people not really helping anyone and second point I will discuss is where cow care harmonises with contemporary culture so what we are doing today can be explained and third will be where it goes against goes against where cow culture goes against cow care goes against contemporary culture and the last point I will discuss is basically explaining effectively what is required for that in today’s world so it’s very easy, the first point I mentioned is it’s very easy to condemn oh people are so degraded today society is so degraded today and yes there is that can be done but it’s not it’s helpful to a limited degree to understand this let’s try to understand the point of communication see broadly speaking we can say when we are a part of a spiritual movement when we are a part of a tradition then there are two broad categories of people there are insiders insiders are those who are practising bhakti and then there are outsiders so outsiders are those who are not practising bhakti, who are not interested in practising bhakti who may not even have any knowledge of bhakti now we could say that let’s put it this way so when we talk about communication there can be four modalities of communication one will be insider insider insider communication means that this is for example the bhagavatam class that is going on right now this is primarily those who are practising bhakti they are sharing the bhakti wisdom with others then there is insider outsider communication this is what we can call as outreach so we may go to devotees homes, they may call their friends and they may call their relatives and there can be some kind of programmes like that then these two are what are happening quite well in our movement but there are two more modes of communication there is outsider outsider communication this is largely what determines our public perception or our reputation what do I mean by this say for example if somebody comes to Mumbai say some visitor comes to Mumbai and they want to know go to the various places in Mumbai and they hear that oh in one of the beautiful places in Mumbai is the ISKCON temple then they will ask people should I go to ISKCON temple and they will ask their friends, they will ask their tour guides they will ask their relatives and what do people say at that time oh those people are very pushy they will force you to chant they will ask you to do this, they will ask you to do that and if people see this so in the west at least in India we are, Krishna Consciousness is a part of the lived culture in the west it is not in the west at least now in the last 15-20 years because of the spread of Krishna Consciousness at least something is known about Krishna but about 15 years ago there was a book written about 50 ridiculous things you have heard, something like that title and about 7% of the people they said the most ridiculous thing I have heard in my life is a Hare Krishna person coming to me and telling me that a blueish boy, blueish black boy is God they said this is the most ridiculous thing that was their idea, they have no idea so in the west when somebody sees us distributing books or giving or dancing on the streets what are they going to do they will probably google us they will go to Wikipedia and we may say oh Wikipedia is all written by mundane scholars or mundane people, we don’t care well we may not care but that’s how people’s perceptions are going to be shaped so this is something which is quite important if we want to reach out to people who are not yet ready to become insiders, generally when there is inside or outside communication the purpose of this at one level the purpose of this communication is to bring them over here that when we do outreach the purpose is to help them become devotees there will be many people who are inquisitive but they may not want to become devotees how are they going to perceive us and for that purpose at least for some people this outsider to insider communication is also important what this means is this is what brings social awareness what are people thinking today what are the issues in people’s minds why do they think the way they do so to the extent we understand this to that extent we can actually connect with contemporary people otherwise what is going to happen is we can say among the outsiders among the outsiders say there is a large number of people who are outsiders now among these a small number of people may be interested in becoming insiders and our communication will reach to them but those who are not interested in becoming insiders if we are simply condemning them you know all today people eat cow flesh and people kill us and they don’t have any understanding and say you know what world are you living in what are you talking about it’s like if I am condemned for values that I don’t even know about what is going to happen by that is alienation alienation means we will have some outsiders who will be coming here and a large number of outsiders will be going away so this is the typical characteristic of a cult a cult is where there is a rigid and radical differentiation between insiders and outsiders we are good they are all bad we are wise they are foolish we are virtuous they are vicious now this is not our philosophy there are three modes of material nature and different people are in different modes so the point is that if we want to reach out to people to some extent so I talked about this communication insider, outsider communication if you want to do it effectively insider, outsider so sometimes the insider will have to position oneself like an outsider that means okay why do people think like this what is the language that they use so when we do this then we will be able to actually connect with people and in this purport itself there is an example of this it is not that the insider becomes an outsider we don’t want that it’s not that a devotee stops practising bhakti rather a devotee understands why do people think the way they think why do people act the way they act so in this purport Prabhupada has used a word Sanatanist now this is not a common word that Prabhupada uses Sanatanist so basically this is like an improvised word Prabhupada has created a follower of Sanatan Dharma it’s interesting Prabhupada uses it in the first canto after that he practically doesn’t use it in later cantos it’s very rare to see Prabhupada using it Prabhupada has used it in some of his back to Godhead magazines, articles also which he published before 1944 now why is that because social awareness to the western mind this sounds very similar to a very negative word and it is Satanist what is a Satanist is a worshipper of the Satan Satan or Shaitan is the opposite of God is the embodiment of evil and as a reaction to radical Christianity you people worship God we are the opposite of you so not only do we become atheists we worship the person who is the opposite of God so there is a large cult of Satanist, more than several million people are a part of this so when Prabhupada became aware that oh this word sounds like that Prabhupada stopped using it this is social awareness, like I use the word cult Prabhupada used the word cult quite often in his books but we don’t use it now because at that time cult simply referred to a group eventually Prabhupada learnt his English in 1930s but by 1960s there was a lot of, especially in America there was a lot of apprehension about cults brainwashing people and indoctrinating them and completely cutting people away from the world and when that word got a negative connotation, now we as a movement have more or less retired that word’s usage from our vocabulary so that’s social awareness so this is the first point similarly, with respect to cow care, we live in a world today where cow care often seems like a Hindu religious idiosyncrasy it’s strange Hindu people do, in fact, there is a I’m now going to the second point the first point was if we want to actually connect with people connection requires that we stop condemnation and start comprehension condemnation means insiders are saying how terrible the outsiders are comprehension is ok, why are these people like this we try to understand that so now, the second point I discuss is where the cow care it harmonises with contemporary values that’s the first point now to understand this when we go to the point 2 the key thing to understand here is that even in the what we call as the world today see, there are different phases in the history of the world, so we can say there was pre-modern and from pre-modern people moved towards modern and to a large extent much of India is in this stage now we are moving towards modernisation so modernisation means there is urbanisation, there is industrialisation there is of course now most of the world has gone beyond industrialisation per se, we have the information technology but beyond the modern is what is called as post-modern so I won’t go into the specific ages too much, so in pre-modern times, people focused primarily on religion religion as their source of authority that means oh, if the Vedas say this, this is right if the Bible says this, this is to be accepted in the modern times people focused on science is this scientific? if it is scientific, I’ll accept it if it’s not, I won’t accept it so this is the source of authority now in the post-modern times the primary source of authority is experience how does this feel for me? how does this affect me? and much of the western world if you say I am modern people say oh, which stone age are you living in? modernity was several decades ago we have gone far beyond modern so the western world is largely gone towards the post-modern ethos so now why are we discussing this? in today’s world many Indians, may they go in traditional go up in traditional families where people are still vegetarian and then when they grow up they think I want to become cool I want to become modern and therefore, in this sense what happens is, if you consider pre, then modern and post-modern so pre-modern post-modern, modern so what happens is, here people often go from veg to non-veg they think it is cool to eat meat I’m becoming modern, I’m becoming fashionable I’m giving up old-fashioned taboos but in the west actually, when people are going from modern to post-modern they are becoming vegetarian more specifically, they are becoming vegan in large numbers and in the western world actually, to abstain from meat they say, I want cruelty-free food use the word karma-free food or cruelty-free food, and they think so, this was considered cool but now, this is considered cool, this particular journey so what has happened is social values change now, what is happening is that Prabhupada, when he is explaining is, he is saying, we should accept the authority of the Srimad Bhagavatam that cows are the source of great dharma, of virtue, of prosperity now, all this is true but this assumes that people are ready to accept the authority of the Srimad Bhagavatam so, just to summarise this point there is age and there is authority so, which authority is accepted by which age we consider so, pre-modern, who is the authority? religion so, Prabhupada is primarily drawing from that authority and, now, it’s not that this authority is no longer important, it’s not that sacred texts are no longer important today, they contain timeless wisdom and they need to be accepted eventually by thoughtful seekers but, the overall social ethos today is not where these texts are the source of authority for majority people, therefore if we try to make our case using these texts we will not be able to connect at all, or if we use the we use the ethical standards of this text of these texts and evaluate contemporary people and call them degraded all that will happen is, people will just think you are so indoctrinated I don’t care for you so, what happens is pre-modern times, religion was the authority in modern times science and rationality that is the authority but, in post-modern times well, science has its importance but, it is not that important its primary authority is one’s own experience so, one example of this is the popularity of yoga now, slowly in the last maybe 10 years or so many scientific studies are being done about the benefits the physical benefits primarily of the practise of yoga but, yoga practise went far beyond and millions of people practise yoga, according to some surveys 1 out of every 4th person in America has had some contact with yoga and 1 out of 10 people in America consider themselves serious yoga practitioners now, how did this happen? it is not that these people they read the Vedas and we should practise yoga no, that is not religious authority there were not many scientific studies validating the benefits of yoga but, what happened was they found experience hey, this helps me become fitter this helps me become healthier this improves my looks and health and fitness and it also helps me calm my mind at least to some extent, so people took it up so, it was based on experience so, similarly for us, if we want to connect with people today in today’s world, in this post-modern ethos, actually there is a great opportunity to connect with people and to explain cow care in a way that goes beyond condemnation so, broadly we could say in today’s world there are if you consider sattva rising we may say today’s world is filled with materialism and degradation well, true but not necessarily entirely true because even in today’s world, there are various areas in which sattva guna is rising so, as I mentioned one of them is yoga we may say that people are doing yoga for material purposes and that is not the purpose of yoga, true but, at least people if they want to be healthier instead of putting chemicals into their body if they are adopting yogic practises that is sattvic so, the ends may not be sattvic right now, but at least the means are literally sattvic, so yoga practise is one thing, then another thing is environmentalism a lot of awareness about how we are affecting our environment how indiscriminate industrialisation is likely to cause devastating and possibly irreversible consequences on the fragile ecosystem and the biosphere that we live in so, that’s environmentalism third is mindfulness where people are looking for mental health but even people who are non-spiritual, many of them are quite hesitant about taking pills are there some other means and mindfulness has become huge I was in Silicon Valley in San Jose and I was invited to speak in salesforce, so it’s one of the top companies, fortune 500 so they have an entire floor dedicated for mindfulness meditation so people during their office hours not an entire floor, one section of a floor where people when they are feeling too stressed or they are not able to focus during their office hours they can come to the meditation room and they can just do some mindfulness and their companies have paid seminars where they invite speakers to come and speak and the last is what I mentioned, veganism so these four are areas where there is a rise in sattva and now cow care if it is presented properly actually there are a lot of people who can appreciate it so veganism now the reasons why veganism is spreading are multiple reasons, one of them is there is a great myth that there will be a protein deficiency and you cannot be healthy you cannot be physically strong but what has been found is vegetarian food is much healthier for people and beyond that there is the aspect, the health is you could say secondary but the primary is the violence, as more and more people are becoming aware of how violent meat is then people are becoming more and more aware and they become alert, no I don’t want to be a part of this and then of course there is again environmentalism this is where the two gel which is there or they overlap, intersectionality is the word sometimes used for this that people who are aware of the environment they know that meat is far more costly for the environment in terms of food and air, in terms of water and pollution and things like that so I won’t go into this my point is this that there is a significant opportunity even for people who have no religious inclinations for them to also start appreciating cow care so there is a form of, these four things as I said, there is intersection of these, one opportunity that is being tapped in the western world and slowly I think it will happen in India also is that when people are depressed there is a form of non-intrusive non-invasive therapy that is called as equine therapy equine therapy means that a person is told you go to a go to a stable and take care of horses and just spending time with the horses, brush them, not ride them but just brush them, spend time with them and they found that just doing this actually brings down people’s depression the idea is when there is depression you feel I just don’t want to do anything at all sometimes in spiritual life we say desires are bad, give up desires well, not exactly yes we want to give up desires so that we rise there is sattva guna sattva rajas and tamas their goodness passion ignorance and then there is shuddha sattva above this so the purpose is not so much to give up desires as to raise consciousness upwards and this means we take up higher desires if people simply give up desires, oh this is materialistic, this is temporary this is all, simply give up desires, what happens is no desires is a singular most important characteristic of depression a person who is depressed they have no desire even to get out of the bed, what is the point of getting out of the bed, what is the point of living of course they will get out of the bed to eat food and watch TV and play video games but beyond that why do anything else so just demonising desires can be damaging for people so what happens is when somebody is depressed they go to a stable, they take care of horses and they see I can make a difference, this horse is reciprocating with me and what happens is they start feeling better they feel that if I try to connect with humans maybe humans will betray me but animals won’t betray me like that so taking this same point now devotees are pioneering what is called as bovine therapy bovine equine is the adjective for horses bovine is the adjective for cows or another way it is called is cow cuddling so cow care sounds, go seva sounds very old fashioned but cow cuddling oh that’s very cool, I want to go and cuddle cows but essentially what are you doing you are actually doing the same thing taking care of cows and although this research is in the nascent stage but a lot of people have reported that they feel so uplifted by being with cows so this is a way where we can tap the contemporary ethos and where we can actually present cow care, we don’t have to present it oh you should take care of cows because Krishna loves cows so Krishna loves cows, they are just your religious sectarian god, why should I care, well yes, we want them to care but how it happens you know when we want to connect with people, connection there is you could say there is one circle there is another circle so this is their felt needs and then there are ultimate needs so the ultimate need for every soul is to ultimately connect with the divine love Krishna and attain Krishna that is the ultimate need so we could say here the ultimate need is Krishna Prema love for Krishna now immediate need may be pleasure, may be relief may be just stress management you could say stress relief depression depression relief or something like that so is there some place where these two can intersect so connecting people means understanding what their immediate needs are and seeing where the immediate and the ultimate can connect, can overlap so this is where bovine therapy or cow cuddling, this if presented appropriately can fall in this category, is the overlapping of these two diagrams now going further I’ll move to the third point now the second point was where to overlap where cow care overlaps with contemporary culture or it harmonises, now where it goes against contemporary culture several areas but I’ll go briefly over them somehow the way things have been propagated in the west is that a lot of Vedic values yogic values, lot of Indic values have been adopted but it is like you know I will use whatever word you can Indic, Vedic, yogic values Indic values in the west have been adopted but if you see the credit is not given to Vedic wisdom or Vedic culture the credit is given often to for example in this particular case it is given to Buddhism, so it’s interesting in the west most people think that yoga comes from Buddhism they don’t say yoga comes from Hinduism and even the value of Ahimsa, the value of non-violence which is quite central to the ethos of veganism, they say that comes from Buddhism and that doesn’t come from Hinduism and to make things worse sometimes we as devotees we say Bhagavad Gita is literal, Krishna actually told you to fight a war oh then Krishna is a violent god how can you talk about Ahimsa if your central text is teaching Ahimsa well no, the Gita is not teaching Ahimsa, in that particular context the call for action for Arjuna was to fight but the Gita’s universal message is not to fight a war it is to harmonise with the divine will, so the point I am making is that somehow the way things have been presented or things have been comprehended is that the value of caring for animals it arises from the value of non-violence or at least not just non-violence as reverence for all life and Panditah Samdarshinah so that is very much a Vedic value and just because the Gita tells Arjuna that you have to kill the opposing army does not mean the Gita is licencing indiscriminate killing or the Gita is licencing meat-eating, not at all so the point is that these values are not seen as coming from the Vedic context and so that’s why the credit is not given India is a culture, India is a land where, you know, people worship strange-shaped gods there are snake charmers, of course now India is a place of software engineers or India is a place of Bollywood that’s what, but it’s more it’s not exactly seen positively too much so what do we do? here what happens is, if we say oh, our tradition it also talks about about about reverence for all life and we care for cows but this doesn’t work, why? because people especially in the West are quite you could say the default attitude is scepticism not cynicism, but scepticism that is, if I tell you something the first thing is, how could this be wrong? is this really right? so we could say, this is a key difference between the West and the East if we consider there’s authority and subordinate so in the East, if we have authority and subordinate the first attitude, the default attitude is faith yeah, okay, this person is in the position of authority they must be knowing something I have faith in them but in the West, the first attitude is doubt if an authority is saying this they must have some agenda they want to hold on to their power and this value system that they are talking about is simply to control us the default attitude is doubt so what happens is today, if we say we care for cows well for a sceptical mind are you caring for cows because you are a virtuous person who cares for animals or is it you are caring for cows because your religion tells you to do so and if your religion tells you to do so that only shows how religious you are that doesn’t show how virtuous you are there’s a difference between the two things that cow care, what is the source of it, is it your religion or is it your virtue now we may say religion is the source of virtue well that is true but that doesn’t work so well just last month’s shamanantar when we had taken about 30 western people, new people not devotees, so outsiders we can say taken them on a tour of India and one of the things that they expressed everywhere is the pitiable condition of dogs and they said there was one woman she had come, she is actually a part of a dog rescue team in some part of America she just sent some pictures of how the dogs were lying on the streets and she said sending those pictures on her and within one hour she collected 400 dollars to donate to the animal shelter to take care of dogs over here so the point is your philosophy teaches you to teach all living beings equally but you care for cows but you don’t care for dogs and what does that show? that shows, it’s not that you are concerned about animals, you are concerned about your religion and that only shows what a religious person you are and religion is often associated with extremism or sentimentalism and you will say, yeah, it’s just your religion that is why nowadays, again I said, cow cuddling is much more cooler than gosewa so goshala is a word goshala is a word which can appeal to traditional audiences but the word that appeals to contemporary audiences is animal shelter animal shelters are big and a lot of people give a lot of funds for this so the point again is that it’s for each one of us to recognise who we are speaking to now India’s population is so large that there are a large number of people who are in the traditional audience also who are ready to become insiders and most of what I spoke today will be completely irrelevant for them what is the shastra in all this why are you not talking about Parikshit Maharaj and Shukde Goswami and the past time, well yeah we can talk about that, but who is the audience so if the audience is those who are traditional and as I said there are a large number of people like that now how many will remain after one or two generations that is something which is open to question I was in Florida and I was giving a talk to some Hindu kids not devotee kids, some devotee kids were also there, so I asked them how many of you have heard of Narasimha Narasimha and one of them raised hands and he was looking very proud wasn’t he for the former Prime Minister of India so he was actually proud of his general knowledge about India but he had no idea about Narasimha as God as the avatar of Vishnu so maybe one or two generations later this audience who are outsiders ready to become insiders who are ready to accept traditional authorities will be not there at all so at that time, the need for contemporary outreach will become even more but the key point is, if we can learn to present things in a way that is intelligible, it is appealing who is the audience I am speaking to this is the last point that how do we present cow care, it is understand the audience so who are we speaking to when we understand whom we are speaking to then actually we can connect with those people like I said in the pre-modern, for the pre-modern and the modern audiences so the sources of authority, if we quote those sources of authority, we can connect with people so for example, if somebody is a traditional audience, we quote a lot of Sanskrit shlokas oh this person is so scholarly this is such an important point for modern audiences we quote a lot of scientific references we can quote about how milk is so studies show that milk is healthy how cow products are of so much benefit economically, this, that, that we can talk about scientific studies we can quote but for a post-modern audience if you quote too many scriptural verses, that actually backfires rather than saying that oh, there is rather than saying that oh, this person knows so much scriptural or so much scriptural backing is there for this point, they say can’t you think for yourself are you just like a like a robot through which somebody else is speaking you have no thoughtfulness, you are just towing the party line, so for a post-modern audience, there has to be analysis with tangible benefits the experiential benefits and this is where things can actually reach a large number of people the same things, which are actually, same values like Prabhupada would say, old wine in a new bottle the idea is that we need to understand the contemporary mind and present accordingly Prabhupada says in a letter that he wrote to the Bhaktivedanta Institute, that we need to learn the art of approaching intelligent people and accept different perspectives and present Krishna consciousness, so Prabhupada is not saying, you teach them, he says we need to learn the art of how to reach out to them not that we have to say that every perspective is true but why people have different perspectives, if you understand that, then we will be able to connect with people and communicate this value so today, cows are unfortunately subjected to so much persecution and pain and death but that can change, that will change but it is for us to make sure that we communicate in such a way that people feel inspired to bring about that change we can bring about that change with our own finite resources but if we can inspire others then they can bring about this change at a far bigger scale and to a far greater effect so to summarise I discussed four points today that the first point that I talked about was the broad topic was explaining cow care in the contemporary world so we talked about four modalities we talked about how to do outsider-outsider communication that is the primary thing insider-insider is like scriptural education directly insider-outsider is for the outreach but outsider-outsider will determine our reputation and for that some amount of outsider-insider communication to be aware of how people think so rather than condemnation we focus on comprehension what’s happening, why do people think and act the way they do and then the second point I talked about was where cow care and contemporary ethos they overlap that is the overlap part we discussed so this is that veganism is one of the four things where veganism, environmentalism, mindfulness and yoga are four areas where sattva is rising and if presented properly the idea of cow care like I talked about bovine therapy, cow cuddling is appealing and it is growing just like equine therapy is growing then where the two don’t overlap that we talked about is especially the primacy is is it given on religion or is it given on virtue that are you taking care of cows because your religion tells you to do it or because you are a good person who is concerned about it well it might be both but what is the primary emphasis so if you present cow care more as a part of the ethos of reverence for all life then not just because it’s our religion that tells us to do it then it’s possible for us to also tap into this broader ethos and the last point I discussed was about how it is important for us to understand our audience so for a traditional audience we use traditional sources for a contemporary audience we may need to use something that is intelligible to them and that is how we can have effective outreach thank you very much. Hare Krishna are there any questions or comments thank you Prabhu for wonderful explanation about cow care I just wanted to understand this principle like of course in India we take care of cows mostly because it is connected to Krishna and it is part of religion when it comes to dogs so there is an inherent you can say some distance we want to keep it that also because what we have been taught to get away with that thought just like you gave that example of that lady so that is very difficult when I find myself to connect with the dogs it becomes very difficult so then in that connection the people generally they identify this is a hypocrisy in the sense you take care of cows and you don’t take care of dogs.

Of course we have as a living entity we take care of that aspect but to like the way we take care of dogs that I don’t think so yeah see the way we take care of cows through the Vedic values that we learn there is some distance from the dogs so what do we do about it or how can we can we care for dogs the way we care for cows well there is this ongoing discussion for which we don’t really have a clear resolution there is the spiritual and there is the cultural so the cultural is one way to the spiritual but is it the only way to the spiritual so for example there is another culture so say in this culture let’s not talk about cows and dogs right now let’s talk about something else let’s talk about a particular culture in which a particular food item is like this parathas food is a part of culture there is another culture where pizzas are what I like so does a person have to if they want to become spiritual can they become spiritual from their culture or do they have to come here and they have to go here and become spiritual I mean does somebody likes pizzas that’s what they grew up eating that’s what is the delicacy for them so do they have to develop a taste for parathas and then they grow spiritually well broadly speaking we say not necessary we also say it’s not necessary when somebody who has taken parathas has to start taking pizzas, this can also happen that’s not necessary so the idea is with respect to some aspects of culture so when Prabhupada had this discussion with Allen Ginsberg when I started Western Outreach his own Radhanath Maharaj told me that every devotee who is going in the west should read that conversation between Prabhupada and Allen Ginsberg, there is a brief conversation in Hare Krishna Explosion but actually it’s much more detailed in the Veda base so there Allen says that three things he says you appear very Indian and you won’t spread in the west and he says because of the food the dress and the third thing he talks about is something like the language so and Prabhupada actually is very proud, he says whatever food you want you can offer and you can wear any dress and you can grow in bhakti and language he says, Prabhupada says any names of God you can chant so the point is that Prabhupada is very inclusive, now some people say that was for PR purposes well Prabhupada didn’t say that I was speaking this for PR purposes, for public relationships only so now there are two broad approaches that from whatever culture one has one can rise towards spirituality so as I said whatever food one takes care of whatever dress one wears our dress should not increase our bodily consciousness so basically a person should dress modestly now what does modest dress mean, may be different in different cultures but basically the idea is that dress should not be increasing our bodily consciousness, it should help us to and our dress should not increase others bodily consciousness also, that is also there, the idea is that similarly with respect to language it’s only when I started going to the west that I realised how difficult of an obstacle language is for people now the Mahamantra is not a problem but right our names itself as I said Shamanthru and I were going together we went west, now just either of them could, these people were there for 30 days, they just couldn’t pronounce our names, so eventually they are telling us, we refer to you as the short monk and the tall monk that’s how they were referring to us finally one of the women, last day we were living she said Chai Tanya how did you get my name finally, I just thought of Tanya taking chai so it’s very difficult for people to sometimes connect with certain aspects of our culture so now having said this this is the spiritual level, this is the cultural level so now cows where do they fall, is it cultural or spiritual, that’s a difficult question we can say that it is clearly spiritual because Krishna loves cows that is definitely true, nobody is denying that but does that mean that a person who is born here has to love cows in order to love Krishna well we say yes well really then does a person who has to love Krishna has to love flute also does a person who has to love Krishna has to start wearing peacock feather or love peacocks then we say no cows have to be taken care of because that’s a part of our culture true, agreed, no doubt about it because it’s not just that these are not ornaments like peacock feather or flute, it’s like an ornament but cow care is a part of our value so we could say that cow care is not just the Indian culture, it is also spiritual culture and that’s why it has to be taken care of and that’s why anybody who wants to love Krishna has to some extent at least develop care for cows they may not dedicate their life to that but some amount of attention has to be developed now the other way if we consider should that now caring for dogs is a huge part of western culture and we could go into various reasons for that one of the things is that western culture is extremely lonely and dogs and cats are, Radheshyam wrote a book called Your Best Friend so when he was presenting that book to the west the first thing that several western so what do we do well if we want to do western outreach or if we want to reach our western audiences we may have to overcome some of our inhibitions does that mean that we will have we as a movement will start establishing dog care centres, no we don’t have to do that, but that aversion towards dogs that is there that can be avoided and dogs can also, dogs are known to have therapy purposes, people who have they give fits, they are therapy dogs they help people, I know one senior Prabhupada disciple who constantly has a dog with him and not because he loves that dog of course he is affectionate towards the dog but the idea is that he gets some fits and his dogs are trained that whenever they sense a person getting a fit then that dog goes behind that person and cushions the fall and then when the dog starts barking that dog has a special kind of belt around its neck and whenever that dog starts barking barking people around you I see in it they immediately call 911, they call the ambulance he says this dog has saved my life twice if its so, the dogs have multiple purposes so if we just connect with people who are connected with dogs and understand why they appreciate them so much, then some of our instinctive if not aversion, apathy that is there, that can decrease is that something which everyone has to do not necessarily but especially again as it depends on the audience if you are trying to reach out to certain people if we have certain centres which are meant to reach out to certain people and in those centres if most of the people over there have apathy towards dogs then that is going to be a problem so I would say that this is developed by connection as an outsider insider, that kind of communication why are people so much in love with dogs well if you try to understand that what a dog means for people’s life there is one car bumper sticker I saw, the more I get to know people, the more I love my dog because people are untrustworthy people betray, but my dog is always with me, that is an unfortunate state of affairs today we don’t want that state of affairs, we would much rather that people develop more principles more sattva, and people become more trustworthy, but before that change happens, in the process what are people going to do so if we understand then I think it’s possible to to overcome that distancing that we may want to keep from dogs, now does that mean that sometimes there can be too much distancing, there can be too much closeness also like people sleep with their dog have their dog on their bed and there is one devotee who is a psychotherapist and he found it, he is earning money but is a little competitive and then he specialised there is a field called dog therapy now there is yoga and there is something called doga doga is a specialised form of yoga which you do with your dog and this devotee said I am not a yoga teacher, I am a doga teacher because there is a niche he is actually earning a lot through that and he said by that I don’t have to worry much about the competition and I can focus on my bhakti so I would say that if you connect with people who are in that particular area, we can comprehend much more thank you can you speak, I will repeat the question what kind of karmic reaction are given when we are involved in selling meat what kind of karmic reaction is involved when we are involved in selling meat, the first thing is Krishna says karma is complex and we are not a super soul, so we don’t know exactly in what context a person is doing that and context means broadly Mahabharata says if you want to understand whether action is right or wrong so karma if you want to understand what is right and wrong, there is the content of the action what is the action being done then before the content comes the intent why is the action being done and after the content comes the consequence what is the result of the action so all these three are to be considered when determining what is what is the right or wrong action from the content point of view any action in which we cause pain to others that is negative karma and there will be a consequence of that so now there will be a karmic reaction for that now what is the intent now somebody may do it because it’s just their livelihood and they never thought about it much before that’s what our family was doing, that’s what the job I got, I am doing that ok that’s one way of looking at it now if we compare that with what Narada Muni told Bhrigari, Bhrigari actually half killed animals and he delighted in the pain that he was inflicting on that and he said that’s terrible, please kill them fully, he didn’t tell them stop killing he says kill them fully, why because don’t let your intent be to enjoy their pain pain is being caused but don’t enjoy that pain so we consider the consequence consequences if a person is in a particular profession but nowadays even at least with respect to meat this slaughterhouses there is at least some awareness of the kind of regulations that are there, in the west this is because of the influence of veganism this is becoming more and more aware, so if animals are killed or they could be killed in extremely painful ways they could be killed in painless ways painless ways means they could be given some anaesthesia or some painkiller before they are slaughtered or they could be killed with blunt weapons or blunt instruments where the killing takes a lot of time they could be killed with sharper weapons where the killing is instantaneous so there are ethical considerations over there, now we may say this whole industry is barbaric, that is true but within that also there can be attempts to lessen the pain so in general the principle is when we cause pain there is a reaction and the reaction is we will get pain if we are causing pain so now somebody may say that I am not actually killing the animal, I am simply selling the meat, well yes, true so it’s not that a person is directly killing the animal but we have to understand that karma is a chain, now why would somebody kill animals if there was nobody selling the animals selling the meat, so it’s everybody who is involved in that is implicated the degree of the implication that will depend on factors you know is a person selling meat is that their only thing that they are selling, is that one of the thing that they are selling is it something they are selling but they want to stop selling it in future, is it something they are selling and they want to expand it in future is it so we have to consider all these factors and rather than simply saying this will give you terrible karma, you are doing this and you have to stop it, well that’s one way of communicating but help people understand and then help people deal with the situation what can one do can one move towards some other profession what will be required for moving towards some other profession when one considers that then we are not just condemning but we are actually assisting people in raising their consciousness thank you very much.