The Niramish State of Mind

Original Hindi article on Niramish Hindi Blog by Shri Hansraj 'Sugya'

Translation By Shilpa Mehta

NON-VIOLENCE: The Appropriate and Proper Measure for Peace 

In the whole universe, the basis of happiness and joy for any living being is peace. Peace is achievable only through non-violence. Most of the violence in this world occurs for satisfying the dietary requirements. Saatvik food is the route to compassion towards our fellow beings. Minor violence does occur in vegetarian food too, yet vegetarianism is the minimization of inevitable and unavoidable violence. This in itself is an endeavour towards non-violence. Those who do not feel hurt while hurting and killing beings for taste and unhesitatingly eat meat etc., slowly get accustomed to accepting killing as a normal routine. When the source of food is violent, it necessarily effects the thought process of the person and diminishes one's sensitivities. 

The acceptance of killing as "normal" for eating one's food makes one accustomed to "killing" and leads to a violent state of awareness. This is leading to more and more violence, hatred, and crimes in today's world. Mercy to fellow living beings naturally nurtures one's finer instincts and makes one more compassionate to fellow humans too. Vegetarianism enhances values and is a guardian to humanity.

Religious and Philosophical Notions and Intents :

Almost all reliogions and social systems have always reverred "life". Still, the Indian culture is the one which has propogated the concepts of "अहिंसा परमो धर्मः" (non-violence is the supreme religious principle) or “दया धर्म का मूल है” (mercy is the root of all religion).

Whatever be the religion one belongs to, none of the revered sacred texts and none of the messengers advocate violence or cruelty. The magnificent palaces of super human messages and religions stand proudly on the strong foundations of non-violence, compassion, love and moral values. All lessons are targeted at non-violence and the first step to non-violence is vegetarianism.

Civilization and Culture :

Advocating and praising vegetarianism is not an indication of pride or ego of purity. vegetarian diet is in itself clean and non-violent. The Indian culture and consciousness has always revolved around purity of not just food, but the whole lifestyle. Vegetarianism is the foundation to all good things in life. Man is basically a herbivore. Though body can manage on non-vegetarian food (man is biologically classified into omnivorous beings) yet civilization demands migrating from a wild lifestyle to a civilized one. Vegetarianism is the carrier of peace, and the height of culture.. 

Environment :

We as a society need to preserve our natural resources and optimize their utilization. All organisms are a part of a very delicate balance in nature. Human interference upsets this delicate balance. We have the intelligence to enable us to optimally utilize the natural resource while not depleting them blindly. When we rear millions of animals for food every year, the ratio of the food we get to the food we could have produced on the same are of land is alarmingly frightening. Millions of square meters of evergreen forests are cut down to provide grasslands for grazing of animals for meat. We are cutting down the evergreens which are like the lungs of mother earth, to satisfy our taste buds.

While the same area of land could have produced much much more amount of vegetarian food in a year, the same ends up producing only very little meat in comparison in the same period of time. If everyone switches over to vegetarianism, many starving millions could be helped. Long back when humanity was living in separate unconnected islands, there was not sufficient availability of vegetarian food in some areas, but grassland area was sufficient to feed many herbivorous animals. But today the situation is not the same. There is no compulsion to eat meat to survive. So it would be much more logical to switch over to vegetarianism.

Balanced Diet :

The myth of "modernism" is misleading many into believing that vegetarian food does not have sufficient proteins in it to make for a balanced diet. But if one stops to consult a doctor or a dietitian this myth evaporates like a snow flake in sunshine. It has been proved that vegetarian food has all the necessary ingredients for a healthy life. In fact it is non-vegetarian food which leads to many diseases through various toxins and infections. Moreover, fiber and many a vitamins are completely missing in non-vegetarian sources. Vegetarian food is the primary source of energy and a first class source of all balanced diet. It also enhances our immune system.

Health Concerns :

Vegetarian diet contains a good amount of fiber. Fiber helps the digestive tract to stay clean and healthy, and capable of smooth working and absorbing what the body requires. It has neither excess dangerous cholesterol, not advanced protein produced in advanced beings bodies. This advanced protein from non-vegetarian food makes the human consumer more prone to many diseases like Alzheimer's, Gallstones, diabetes type 2, osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, liver problems, kidney problems, obesity...... and many more. WHY DO YOU THINK DOCTORS FORBID PATIENTS FROM NON-VEGETARIAN FOOD in many many illnesses??

WISHING EVERYONE ALL THE BEST