If someone’s religion allows meat-eating then is their eating meat a sin?

Transcript

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so if somebody is eating meat and they think it is approved in their religion so is it sin or is it not sin we can have one of the principles in the Vedic in the Bhagavatam in general is that morality is not just categorical it is contextual that means morally this is right, this is wrong these are not simply rigid categories they are categories but there are contexts also speaking lies is wrong but then a mad mob is chasing a friend of ours and that person comes to our house, please save me and that person we get them to hide in our basement or somewhere and a mob knocks on our door, is he here should I speak the truth if I speak the truth he will be killed so in this case speaking truth will be causing harm so I should not speak the truth at that time so what is right and what is wrong it is not just categorical it is also contextual so why I am giving this point is that sin, what is sinful and what is not sinful is also not just categorical it is also contextual so for example it is said that in the Tamil even in Vedic path also those who worship goddess they eat meat, they offer a goat and then they eat meat and that is considered a part of their worship now are they sinning if you use sin in the absolute sense yes that killing will have its consequences but in the real sense they are envious to eat meat so accordingly what is happening that they are worshipping the goddess while eating meat as a part of the worship of the goddess they are regulating the eating of the meat accordingly so then from the level where they are they are elevated so they would have eaten meat blatantly and done no piety now at least they are doing some piety and eating meat in a regulated way so in that sense you could say that from where they are they are steps forward now whether they are going to go all the way to transcendence well unlikely so similarly if in somebody’s religion meat eating is allowed or that is what they think and they are eating meat well if overall they are living piously at least more piously than otherwise then that is good for them now just like in our tradition also if somebody is practicing tamasic religion at least they are rising from tamasic to rajoguna from the mode of ignorance to the mode of passion if they can practice and rise towards transcendence that is much better but if they can’t then at least they are elevated from where they are and that is also appreciated so na buddhi bhedam janaiyata jnanam karmayatam jnanam jyoshe sarva-karmani vidwanikta samachar don’t disturb the minds of ignorant people just engage them so that they can be elevated from where they are that is 3.26 in the Gita so we don’t have to become judgmental with people about you are eating meat so therefore you are bad no, if they are practicing according to their faith that is good and there are many Christians for example who practice vegetarianism and advocate vegetarianism if you see even in the Indian tradition it is that when buddhism started spreading buddhism actually started creating the ethos of vegetarianism because buddhists said you should not eat meat and then even in the hindu sacrifices where sometimes there is animal yajna so as a response to that they said there is no need to do animal yajna what you can do is you can create a great replica of an animal and just put that in ahuti so the vedas do have sections because the vedas are for all levels of people there are sections in tamo guna also so there it is said that you do animal sacrifice in the ramayana, in the mahabharata, in the bhagavatam sometimes animal sacrifice is talked about and live animals are killed and there is no evidence that each time an animal is killed the soul immediately gets in human form that is ideally meant to happen but is it that all of them are doing it that way we don’t know but that is a part of sacrifice but then eventually when the overall society started becoming vegetarian because of the influence of buddhism then when people started coming back to the vedic fold also the acharyas said that, shankaracharya, madhacharya, ramanacharya actually the principle is that you have to offer something to the fire so when people are meat eaters and they consider meat to be very valuable then in the yajna you offer an animal but if you can offer grains or you can offer an animal image made of something else that will also do and they would code appropriate verses for that so we could say scripture is omniform omniform means within scripture there are many forms of practices given for people at different levels so it is the acharyas who select the right forms which are best for elevating people at that particular level so as vegetarianism is becoming more widespread in today’s world so we are also seeing that there are many christians who write books about vegetarianism in christianity I have seen a couple of books which talk about vegetarianism in islam also so that ethos will also spread so basically we don’t have to when people are practicing a particular religion coming from a particular context then we don’t have to necessarily always judge them from an absolute standard of morality we can say that yes meat eating is not good for one’s spiritual elevation but in their particular situation if that religious process is elevating them upwards then we appreciate that