Words from the Master

Yes…

Swamiji, what would you say about eating vegetarian food and eating non-vegetarian food?

(Swamiji laughs!)

First, don’t go around telling others not to eat non-veg food. In departments unknown, it is better not to involve yourself and get into trouble! You see: Certain issues cannot be resolved by logical reasoning. If we tell people not to eat non-veg food, they will ask you that like animals, plants also have life and why are we eating plants? What will you tell them? There is no end to this subject.

This much I can tell you: I am a pure vegetarian. I eat vegetarian food because it is conducive to my body, that’s all. There have been many Enlightened Masters who ate non-veg food. Of course, when Enlightened Masters do certain things, we cannot pass judgment on them because their actions cannot be interpreted by our common dictionary. We will be misconstruing and missing the whole thing.

Just one thing: Don’t categorize people based on their eating habits and don’t force people to give up eating non-vegetarian food.

A small story:

At the time the television was introduced in India, a new television was bought in a certain House of mendicants.
All except one of them used to watch the programs on the television.
This man who never watched the television used to go to the President of the house and complain about how the others were watching television for hours together.
After a few times of complaining, the President told him, “You too watch television from tomorrow.”
The man was shocked and asked why he said that.

The President replied, “You are not happy abstaining from watching and hence you are grumbling about them doing it. You have the desire to watch but you don’t watch it because you want to feel solid inside yourself. But this suppression is causing you to complain against them.”

You see: If you are not completely happy abstaining from eating non-veg food, you will compel others to become vegetarians. When you are doing something totally, you will never force another person to do it. Only when you are doing it with a doubt or half-heartedly, you will pull other people also into it. This is the scale to see if you are in something totally or not. When you are total, you are enough unto yourself with no regrets and so you will not trouble anyone else. You will allow them to have their freedom.

In fact, I would go on to say that those who eat non-veg food for one hour a day and forget about it, are better off than those who eat vegetarian food and think about non-veg 24 hours a day!

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Guaranteed Solutions.