When likings are relative to species, what’s wrong with a hog’s attraction to stool?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
The question is that different species will have different likes according to their specific situation. So, if a hog likes to, now that is its liking, and we humans have different liking, different species can have different liking.
So, if it’s all relative, so what’s the problem with something relative like this? See, this question comes from an implicit acceptance of a philosophy which can be called as metaphysical relativism. Relativism means basically everything is relative. Metaphysical relativism means there is no absolute truth.
Everything is relative. So, now, at a philosophical level, although metaphysical relativism seems quite appealing. That works for you, you believe that.
Everything is relative. But then, metaphysical relativism says everything is relative. There is nothing absolute.
This is also a view. Isn’t it? You may say, No, there is nothing absolute. But then, is the statement that there is nothing absolute, an absolute statement? Or is that also relative? So, you know that, we may say the belief in an absolute truth is a relative statement.
Or it’s a relative belief. But the rejection that there is no absolute truth, it is also a relative statement in the sense that it is a statement made by some people. So, metaphysical relativism is ridden with self-contradiction.
It’s like somebody saying, I don’t, I can’t speak even one word of English. He has already spoken 7 words. So, like that, there is no absolute truth is already a statement of absolute truth.
Because this is a statement you are saying is absolute. It applies to everyone else. Also.
So, the point is that, applying this principle of metaphysical relativism to the situation, the question of Hogg’s. Beyond this material world, there is a spiritual world. There is absolute reality.
And, in the spiritual world, what happens based on that, there are absolute standards of what is desirable, what is undesirable. And, reflective to that, there are certain things which are desirable, which are undesirable. So, the point of this example, when we say that a hog is eating a stool, see how abominable it is.
The point of this example is not to condemn a hog for eating what is naturally its own food. That is not the point. It’s not that, you know, when Prabhupada says, see how abominable life of hog is eating a stool.
Prabhupada never said, you know, that we should stop all hogs from eating stool. No one takes it on a date like that. So, yes.
So, yes, naturally that is their prescribed food and that’s what they’re going to eat. But, from the point of view of a soul who is eternal, a soul who can delight eternally in pure love for Krishna, can have sublime taste. The contemplation that material nature can distort its taste so greatly that that which is normally considered abominable, the soul can accept even that.
So, often this particular thing is also told in the relationship with Indra. Now, once Indra was cursed and Indra became a hog. And when Brahma came and wanted to tell him, now you can come back to Indra, he said, no, I’m happy.
I’ve got a she-hog. I’ve got piglets. And everyday we eat fresh stool.
We’re happy. So, the purpose of the story is to show how Indra, who was enjoying celestial delights, but when he got into a hog’s body and he got so attached to that pleasure that he’s not ready to give it up. So, the point of this is that, you know, just because of habituation, we may get attached to something which is trivial, something which is really not worthy of us.
And across that, we may give up something which is far more glorious. So, yes, a hog will eat a stool and that’s his natural food. But the point is, a soul who has the capacity to delight eternally in pure love for Krishna has now become reduced to such a situation where he has to eat such food and survive and feel joy in that.
So, this is the level of degradation the soul has undergone and this degradation is reversible. So, there is a purification that can get elevated and come to a far purer and far greater level of enjoyment. So, we’re not condemning the hog itself.
The point is, to give it as an example, to illustrate the degradation to which the soul has fallen and how the soul should reinstate itself in a higher spiritual position.