Can a devotee scientist do animal testing for professional research?
Thank you, Hare Krishna so if someone as a profession has to do animal testing if they are in a particular field of scientific research then what should they do, what is the spiritual perspective on that answer Sri Prabhupada in the 10th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita says that so intelligence means to see things in proper perspective means to understand what is more important and what is less important so if we consider what is the purpose of our life we are souls and we want to raise our consciousness towards Krishna ultimately to attain Krishna there are certain activities which can further the growth of our spiritual consciousness and certain activities which can impede that growth so the direct devotional activities are what further the growth of our consciousness and for practicing the direct devotional activities we need to have the body and for maintaining the body for having a reasonable respectable means of livelihood, we have to do different things at different times according to time, place, circumstances, according to culture so we could say that there is something which helps our consciousness to rise something which is required for us to maintain ourselves in the world and there are some things which cause our consciousness to go down so the four regulative principles that we have are related with activities which are causing the lowering of our consciousness that's why we abstain from them now if we consider somebody who eats meat regularly can they chant Hare Krishna? obviously they can so that means these three the activities that further the spiritual consciousness the activities that are required for bodily maintenance and the activities that increase materialistic consciousness even if somebody is doing these opposite activities also, still they can do these activities but the raising of the consciousness will be slower it is like we are lighting a fire but we are also putting water on it it will take a long time to get lit and stay lit it's not that bad because the potency of the of bhakti yoga is not exactly countered by say anti-devotional sinful activities but it is it doesn't become manifest that quickly so but the point is that even if somebody is drinking or meat eating or whatever, a person can still encourage to practice bhakti and if we make their bhakti practice conditional to their giving up those activities then any people will never take up bhakti what we can say is that yes, for them to become a committed bhakti practitioner, a sadhaka where they want to aspire for initiation they may have to give up these activities but even if somebody is not able to give up these activities, it's important that we tell them don't give up this make sure that you continue devotional activities, whatever else you are doing if we consider somebody who is in the profession involved in some activities that are related with these activities which are related with say the breaking of the four rugged principles then they have to see what is, how much is their connection and how much can they distance themselves from it so suppose somebody is a hotel manager and in that hotel basically all the four rugs are broken so is that person involved in sinful activity well ok, you could say yes that person is not taking it themselves, they are not drinking themselves, but they may have to serve it to others they may have to be able to create systems and oversee things by which that is served properly to the people now if a devotee could avoid that, that is good but if that is the job that a devotee gets and that the job pays well and that enables the devotee to do these activities the positive devotional activities without much distraction or disruption then best to focus on that so bodily maintenance, a devotee would prefer not to get the bodily maintenance through directly these activities these four activities but in extreme situations if somebody has to do that what to do at that time there is nothing that can be the important thing is that if it is done for bodily maintenance, it is different from when it is done for sensual pleasure so if we now consider animal testing so I would say devotional activities anti-devotional activities and professional activities, these are three words you could use so now if the professional can be harmonized with the devotional, that is the best say somebody makes a business of makes a professional business of printing and distributing spiritual books that is professional they are earning a good amount through that and that is devotional also because they are sharing spiritual knowledge with it, through that that may not always be possible but the professional can be can be devotional the professional can be anti-devotional and the professional can be just non-devotional, doesn't deal anything with it in the case of animal testing, in today's world allopathy is the main way by which most people are being treated and as a part of allopathy the process of development of medicine requires the testing of animals be it by by whatever specific means the animals are tested so we have to recognize that as Krishna says in the 18th chapter sarvarambhahi doshyena dumena agnirvavruta sahajam karma kaunteya sadoshyam apinatyajet in 18.47 he says that sahadharma kaunteya karma kaunteya that means dharma once karma is born and that means we have to do certain prescribed duties by our particular activity but sarvarambhahi doshyena dumena agnirvavruta and every action is covered by fault, just as smoke is covered by a mosque so just as smoke has to be expertly handled by which it can be stoked and or it can be swept away by which it goes in the distance a person can recover similarly when we are trying to practice bhakti that just as the person has to become sober somehow or the other we too need to give up our material attachments for anti-devotional activities but as far as the professional activities are concerned what we are doing is important but why we are doing it is also important so sometimes some people may be involved in animal testing but they are not really tasting animal flesh over there and they are not killing animals lovingly over there there is just no other way to pursue the research that they can pursue then we have to acknowledge the potentially difficult situation and do whatever needs to be done in that situation so the inability to give up some anti-devotional activities at a professional level should not be used to discourage people so I don't think there is any black and white answer whether somebody should do this or not but it's definitely they are not doing it for gratification so they cannot be just lumped into those who are breaking the real principle of meat-eating.