​Why is cow protection recommended in one religion and cow killing in another religion?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
so say in some yeah in some traditions say for example in the Vaishnava tradition cows are considered sacred whereas in say in some other religions you know cows are commonly killed and sometimes killing of animals is considered sacred also it’s a part of some certain celebrations there are conflicts like this so how do we resolve this so actually there are in every religion there are there is an esoteric aspect and there is an exoteric aspect esoteric is internal exoteric is external and in the exoteric aspect there will always there will be differences just like say if you are driving now in India you know we have to drive from a particular side when we are driving in America we drive from a different side so even now whenever I go to a car I always go towards the wrong side I go towards the driver’s side because that is the other side in India so now these are details the principle is whether we are driving on the right side or the left side the principle is you want to have orderly movement of traffic on the roads so which side a person is driving that is a detail the principle is we want to have orderly movement so somebody can see the difference and say oh these two are opposite here is going on left here is going on right but that’s fine the purpose is to have orderly movement so the esoteric aspect the exoteric aspects even in this world can be different while having the same common internal purpose or common purpose so sometimes in some schools say a particular way of teaching may be more emphasized interactive learning may be more emphasized in other schools maybe didactic learning is more emphasized so now the purpose is the same to teach the student so the methods can be different so like that in different religions there are esoteric aspects and there are exoteric aspects so the esoteric aspects remain the same the exoteric are different with respect to specific practice of of say cow protection or cow killing see in the bhakti tradition there is a revelation of God in a particular manifestation there is a revelation of God as Krishna and Krishna is Gopal so there is a whole cultural context in which the sanctity of cows is emphasized so naturally therefore cow protection is given great emphasis now in other religious traditions that cultural context may not be there and even if we look even at the Quran if we consider say the Quran first of all we have to look at the context it is spoken at a place which is largely a desert and in a desert grains are often not available so eating flesh eating non-veg that is necessary for existence in many places especially in those times so even within the Quran also there are many Muslims not many in terms of majority but many in terms of a significant number many Muslims also who are vegetarians and there is a vegetarianism in Islam there is a whole book I think I have a copy of the book also but the point is there are Muslim scholars who have clearly stated that meat eating is not essential for Islam firstly it is not essential for Islam and secondly it is also that there are sections in the Quran where Mohammed seems to say that if you have an option settle in places where you can get grains where you can have stable agriculture and subsist on grains it’s not a mandate it’s a recommendation not something that you have to do but if you can do that it’s good so we have to see that that message was revealed in a particular context. Now as far as killing of animals is concerned there is there is Bakri and other occasions where animals are killed. Now if you see originally how it is described in those traditions in that tradition they actually they have to cut the animal and cut the animal in a painless way in a particular way they cut a particular slit a particular vein of the animal, the animal dies quickly and only when the animal is killed in that way is that meat considered to be Halal Halal means that which is eatable otherwise even that meat is considered to be Haram so in that sense when animals are slaughtered in slaughterhouses and then their flesh is brought that is actually even from the Islamic point of view Haram that is not the kind of animals killing that is recommended in the Quran and over the centuries there has been a lot of politicalization also so for example in India there is a lot of communal tension between Hindus and Muslims and it is although there has always been some history of conflict but I think it was especially in the British period that this conflict was used to weaken both it was highlighted so for example now many Muslims in India believe that killing goats or killing animals is a part of our sacred duty and it is you know we have to this is a part of our religious rituals we have to kill a goat or kill certain animals and sometimes they do it for cows also but if that is their sacred duty why is that not being done in Indonesia or Malaysia there are countries where cattle is not there only so much almost everybody there is Muslim and if every Muslim had to kill a goat they would have to have as many goats as there are Muslims they don’t have that many goats in the Middle East itself is it that in the Middle East is it that all Muslims actually perform Bakri where they all kill animals like that they don’t specifically in the way that it is done so the popularization of this festival in India was often done by politically motivated forces to aggravate the tension between Hindus and Muslims so you see people’s irrational emotions few things trigger them as much as the propaganda that your religion is under threat as soon as religion is under threat people just become irrational whatever it takes you do that unfortunately when it comes to cow protection that can also be made into an irrationally sentimentally charged cause when that happens people can become fanatical so what is called cow vigilantism in India that has happened where some people are attacking others and even killing others in the name of cow protection this is not the Vedic tradition the Vedic tradition is primarily a tradition of education to educate people about the importance of cow protection they may not see it in terms of spiritually but even from economic perspective cows are very valuable resources so instead of education a force is done now there is also some investigation that has revealed that actually it was not even Hindus it is not serious Hindu practitioners who actually killed those attacked those people who were dealing with cows it was just some antisocial elements who hijacked the cause so in any cause the leaders of that cause have to be very careful about what is their emphasis so cow protection is important for us to follow the Vedic tradition and if you look at the broad principle in other traditions also there is the understanding that we should minimize violence we should live in harmony with nature but the extent of emphasis may be less or more depending on the context in which that particular tradition is being practiced and if the conflicting aspects of those traditions have been highlighted that is often because of factors other than the religion those that are inherent to the religion there are other political factors, social factors that cause the highlight of the conflicts there will be differences but we can have differences without differences degenerating into divisiveness Bhagavad Gita offers us three modes of material nature there are different people in different modes and they will be elevated differently so if we have an inclusive understanding we can have diversity without divisiveness there can be diversity different people practice different things but there can be divisiveness that happens when we see the overall purpose and we focus on the esoteric aspects not the exoteric so people who are practicing their religions traditions, they can be elevated from where they are to one step higher to one step higher and if religion becomes a tool for other things for political power or other things like that then the conflicts become aggravated does that answer your question?