What's wrong with Cow's Milk? || Acharya Prashant (2019)

Acharya Prashant

‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant? Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...   Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books? Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...   Read 3 handpicked wisdom articles, just for you: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articl...  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~  Video Information: Interview Session, 04.11.19, Bengaluru, India  Context: ~ Why should one turn vegan?  ~ What is the relationship between veganism and spirituality? ~ How veganism is related to compassion? ~ Why veganism is necessary for today's generation? ~ What is the relation between veganism and climate change? ~ How could veganism change the world?    Music Credits: Milind Date ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Transcript

00:00So in recent past there is a huge popularity in A2 milk.

00:06So it's just a milk which lacks beta casein protein or in other words it can be the milk

00:13from a pure cow without any genetic modification.

00:17So in a more Indian term it is the milk of a desi cow.

00:21So there have been lot of forefront spiritual leaders who have been promoting this.

00:28So I just wanted to know your take on what A2 milk is all about and why it is same as

00:35the other milk.

00:36You are asking me that the milk of the desi cow, the desi guy, that is being promoted

00:44a lot in the religious circles and even in the, you know, downtown cultural circles.

00:56You are talking specifically about India?

00:59Specific to India?

01:00Specific to India, okay.

01:05It's quite funny actually, you see, we worship the cow and we torture it no end and people

01:21talk about milk of a desi cow, ghee of a desi cow.

01:28They do not even know what they are doing to the creature they call as mother.

01:38Is this the kind of behavior?

01:45You meet out to your mother, milk her, put a noose around her neck, leash her to a pole

01:58or something or to a nail and then keep milking her, artificially inseminate her and then

02:14leave her to her fate.

02:18Once she becomes old and infertile and dry.

02:33In the name of worshipping the cow, we have done great injustice to the cow.

02:41Again, you know, people need to be presented with facts and figures.

02:46People need to know that the dairy industry and the meat industry are inseparable.

02:52People think and there are millions of such people in India.

02:59People think of meat eating as some kind of a lowly activity.

03:04It is even a taboo to many, but they think of milk, drinking milk as something holy.

03:15So the fellow will say, I don't even touch eggs.

03:20I survive only on milk.

03:23As if milk is any less cruel a product than eggs or meat, the direct and symbiotic relationship

03:44between the milk industry, milk products industry and the meat industry is not at

03:53all clear to people.

03:56Not at all.

03:57There will be people who will be prepared to lay down their lives if they are asked

04:05to eat meat.

04:06They will say, we are prepared to get killed, but we will not take meat.

04:12I respect that sentiment.

04:14But these are the very same people who have no scruples, no qualms about gulping down

04:25liters after liters of milk and lassi and kheer and ghee and paneer and cheese.

04:34I'm not blaming them.

04:35I'm just saying they are not informed.

04:38They do not know where all the meat comes from.

04:43They do not even know that India is a big exporter, close to being the largest exporter

04:50of meat.

04:51Where is that meat coming from?

04:54People do not bother to know what happens to the cow once it stops yielding milk.

05:04I do not mean to say that the only injustice meted out to the cow is the one after it becomes

05:12old.

05:13Even when the cow is young, people need to go and check out what her life cycle is like

05:31and for the sake of somebody who can't survive without cattle milk.

05:38It's quite stupid, you know, there is no animal in the entire universe that needs to have

05:46milk of any creature other than its own mother.

05:53Man is the only one who wants to drink cow milk, buffalo milk, goat milk, yak milk, camel

06:05milk.

06:06Camel milk is for the camel offspring, is it not?

06:15Buffalo's milk is for the calf.

06:19So what kind of ingredients is the buffalo milk likely to have?

06:30The ones that are suitable only to the buffalo calf.

06:35Remember, those ingredients are suitable only to the calf, the little calf.

06:45What will those ingredients do?

06:47They will quickly turn the little calf into a full grown bull.

06:56Is that what you want to become?

06:58A bull with a huge body and very little brains?

07:05That's what milk will do to you.

07:07Milk has nothing for you, the milk that a human being needs is adequately provided only

07:14by his or her mother and once the mother stops breastfeeding, that is it.

07:23Now the human child needs no more milk.

07:28But it's such an obsession and if you think deeply about it, it's a very perverse obsession

07:43trying to have the milk of a female of another species.

07:54There is nothing holy at all about selectively using only the milk of the desi cow, nothing

08:05at all.

08:07It is as bad as going for any other kind of milk and going for any kind of milk is as

08:16bad as meat consumption.

08:18It has to be squarely understood.

08:20I know what I am saying would shock many, even offend many, but it's all right, facts

08:26need to be demonstrated, somebody needs to speak things out.

08:32So my next question is, so there are a lot of religious people, when we meet them during

08:41outreaches, so irrespective of the religion actually, so few people say God has put animals

08:48here to eat, so few people say, like say a few people say, it's been written all over

08:58our holy books, our Lord used to consume milk himself.

09:01So this kind of questions are another quite common among the religious crowd, so which

09:08I do feel is irrelevant at this particular time of time, but still it is being well written

09:14and well established as per their understanding in the respective religious books.

09:20So what is your take and why should we not quote everything from such religious books

09:25in this particular era?

09:27All this is not because of man's respect for religion.

09:32People who make such claims are inherently full of great disrespect for religion.

09:38They use religion just to pursue their own limited, petty, ugly self-interest and they

09:49are vile enough to mask their self-interest with the holy name of religion.

10:07When you say that your prophets or avatars have been shown as consuming milk, then why

10:22do you selectively talk only of their milk consumption?

10:28The prophets, the gurus, the avatars have also been shown to be doing a lot of other

10:35things.

10:36Why don't you emulate them in totality then?

10:42Shri Krishna would lift the Govardhan Parbat on his little finger.

10:48Why don't you emulate that as well?

10:52But when it would come to that, then you would not talk.

11:00Shri Krishna was the one from whom the holy Bhagavad Gita comes.

11:06Do you have any relationship with the Bhagavad Gita?

11:08No.

11:09About the Bhagavad Gita, you would be silent.

11:12About milk consumption, you are very loud, very vociferous.

11:16You say no, I want to drink milk.

11:21Those were things of his times.

11:25He was born in the clan of milkmen.

11:33Just as he was not wearing shirts and pants at that time, similarly he was consuming milk.

11:45There is nothing timeless, there is nothing eternal about milk consumption.

11:50It was a thing of that particular era, that particular age.

11:57Why don't you wear the same dress that Shri Krishna used to wear?

12:01Why don't you ride the same vehicles that Shri Krishna used to ride?

12:06Why don't you say that all cars should be abolished because Shri Krishna was not riding

12:11cars?

12:13You have to understand that the message of the holy Gita is eternal, applicable yesterday,

12:20applicable today and would always be useful in the future.

12:28But not everything is timeless.

12:31Are you getting it?

12:37Similarly people talk of Jesus or Prophet Muhammad that they have been depicted as having

12:50meat.

12:52A few things I repeat belong to times and conditions of the particular centuries and

13:01the particular places where the holy men operated.

13:08They would obviously speak the language of their times, eat the food of their times,

13:16wear the dresses of their times, use the transportation of their times.

13:23These are not significant things.

13:24What is significant is their central message of understanding, realization, love and compassion.

13:35Instead of focusing on their central message of realization and compassion, we for our

13:42own ugly self-interest start using even the holiest of men to just give pleasure to ourselves.

13:58People will say, oh, but Jesus was a meat-eater.

14:01Anything else that you remember about Jesus?

14:06But you remember this much that he used to have meat.

14:10So that entitles me as well to have meat.

14:14And nothing else do you remember from his life, right?

14:16So don't you see that it is not out of respect for Jesus, but out of your unending greed

14:27and lack of self-control and total lack of love and compassion that you do what you do

14:38and you are unnecessarily taking the name of the great and holy men.

14:46So Guruji, it is factual whatever you said, but why does most of the spiritual and religious

14:51leaders shy away from spreading this message?

14:59If somebody doesn't want to speak the truth, then you know who that person is.

15:06Because if you are in the business of pandering to the masses, pleasing people, then you cannot

15:16afford to displease them, let alone offend them.

15:26A shopkeeper is surely not in the business of telling the truth.

15:33The shopkeeper's business is to sell his goods.

15:37And that's what most Gurus of today are.

15:42They have to sell their goods.

15:47Many of them have online stores as well, actually, literally.

15:54So when that's what you want to do, how can you afford to antagonize

16:02a big chunk of population?

16:07And you would never, never do that if you are especially looking to target the Western

16:12audience as a Guru.

16:17Because the Western world is all meat-eating world, meat-eating, but full of dollars.

16:24Meat dollars, meaty dollars, very meaty dollars.

16:31And Gurus love to fly abroad and collect those dollars.

16:35How will you tell the meaty dollar that meat is bad?

16:40So they will either keep mum on it or would even indirectly support it.

16:46Someone would say, you know, meat-eating is not alright, but you can have, you know, some

16:52chicken you can have, some fish you can have.

16:56What kind of lowly advice is this?

17:03Shameful.

17:06So many of them actually use milk in their religious practices.

17:15And not little bit of milk, but very, very vulgar demonstration of consumption of thousands

17:27of liters of milk.

17:31So they'll take milk and put it in a pond and say this pond is all full of milk or they'll

17:37encourage even their followers to bring lakhs of liters of milk on some holy day and put

17:45it over a deity and they'll say, you know, this is a great pious thing happening in front

17:52of your eyes.

17:53See, so much milk is being poured over the deity.

17:57These are not Gurus at all.

17:59So the question itself is misplaced.

18:00When you say why are Gurus not talking of the meat industry, why are Gurus not talking

18:06of, they cannot.

18:09Just as a politician cannot talk against the people.

18:14A politician can talk against another politician, correct?

18:19But can a politician talk against the electorate?

18:24He cannot do that.

18:26All politicians abuse each other.

18:29But does any of them ever raise a finger at the public?

18:33They cannot do that.

18:35Their entire business is based on pleasing people.

18:42So same with the Gurus.

18:44So my next question is, a lot of social justice movements in the past, say take example of

18:50our freedom struggle.

18:52So a lot of them involved a non-violent civil disobedience, say Satyagraha.

18:57So should vegan movement should be following the footsteps of having more of a non-violent

19:04form of civil disobedience?

19:06What exactly do you mean by that?

19:08So like, I want to know your personal take on what civil disobedience.

19:15What do you mean by civil disobedience?

19:17What do you visualize?

19:18Civil disobedience is breaking a certain part of the law, say a very simple example can

19:25be trespassing into a private property and exposing an animal being cruelly killed or

19:31exposing the industry.

19:33I think it's your moral and spiritual responsibility to do that.

19:39And in the age of sting operations, I don't know how you can even call it illegal.

19:47And if it is illegal, have the resources and entire battery of lawyers to defend you, fine.

19:55So my next question is on climate change.

19:58So we all know that we have been in a terrible state of climate change, where we have been

20:03witnessing mass extensions, high temperatures, floods, which have been very frequent.

20:11To the core of it, animal agriculture industry is one of the main sources, say, but the population

20:19which is dependent on this particular industry is a rural poor background.

20:24So if we have to convince them to switch to a more greener side, so how would we as

20:30a movement will be able to execute it?

20:32You are talking of the supply side.

20:34You are saying you want to convince the supply side to stop supplying when there still is

20:40a massive demand.

20:41You will not succeed.

20:44Action has to be taken firstly on the demand side and only then on the supply side.

20:52You see a few things need to be understood.

21:02Why did this entire huge spike and spike after spike in meat consumption come first after

21:12all?

21:13Because it became fashionable and there was a lot of propaganda around it, correct?

21:22People just followed.

21:30You too will need to propagate.

21:34You too will need to publicize.

21:37When I say you, I do not mean you as separate from me.

21:41I am with you.

21:48There have to be cultural steps, there have to be legal steps, there has to be action

22:01in the financial domain and there has to be information.

22:19The meat eater must not be able to hold a place of pride in popular culture.

22:35You need to have celebrities coming out and endorsing veganism, at least vegetarianism.

22:54You need to show the good guy in popular media, in the movies as a vegan guy.

23:02It is very important.

23:04I am talking of practical steps.

23:09You need to have songs.

23:11You need to penetrate the mind of the audience through popular culture.

23:23And on the harder side, you have to realize that every meat eater is actually being subsidized,

23:35greatly subsidized by every non-meat eater.

23:40This is injustice.

23:41This is direct stealing of money, pinching of money from the pocket of the vegetarian

23:49or the vegan to subsidize the meat eater.

23:54When you eat meat, when you eat chicken, you are actually not paying for the environmental

24:06damage that your plate of meat has caused.

24:13You are not paying for the climate change.

24:17You are not paying for the biodiversity depletion.

24:23You are not paying for the loss of tropical jungles, green cover, nothing.

24:29None of that has been factored in into the price of your tandoori chicken, but the cost

24:40is enormous.

24:41Somebody is bearing that cost.

24:42Who is bearing that cost?

24:44Whole population.

24:47Whole population, meaning just to help you have your chicken, everybody else is paying

24:54the price.

24:55So, if you are paying rupees 200 or 300 for your plate of chicken, its actual price should

25:06be maybe 800 or 1000 and it is gross injustice that the thing is being offered to you as

25:16a subsidy.

25:17So, there has to be taxation.

25:21There has to be clear commensurate just taxation.

25:34Two things I talked of, culture and fiscal measures.

25:43Then there has to be education.

25:44People have to know.

25:45People have to know what milk is.

25:49People have to know what meat is.

25:51People have to know the entire cycle.

25:56People talk so much about the right to information and everybody is so curious these days.

26:01People want to gossip.

26:02People want to say, no, we want to know everything.

26:04First of all, don't you want to know what is going into your body?

26:11First of all, don't you want to know what is going into your body?

26:14So, that has to be made known.

26:18Secondly, it has to be made known that agriculture as such is not the absolutely holy profession

26:37it is made out to be.

26:42Very few people know that probably around two-thirds of all agriculture, rather three-fourths

26:52of all agriculture is just to support meat-eating.

26:55Now, you will wonder what am I saying?

27:01You will wonder, right?

27:02People think of farmers as some kind of pursuers of a most noble profession.

27:11They say, you know, you should be a farmer, especially in India.

27:18Everybody is talking about poor farmers and this and that.

27:21Everybody is talking of upholding farming and I support that.

27:25Any person who is in need needs to be supported, but the field of farming, the entire industry

27:34of farming, the entire sector of agriculture, it has to be seen in perspective.

27:39We must know the facts.

27:41Truth has to be exposed.

27:48Out of every four kilograms of grain that comes out from the farmer's field, three kilograms

27:56goes towards feeding animals so that they can be slaughtered and the meat-eaters can

28:03have their meat.

28:06That's the reality of agriculture.

28:12On one hand, we talk so much about preserving forests and if forests go, then the habitat

28:20of so many species just disappears.

28:23You need not physically eliminate those species, you just need to cut the forests down and

28:30those species are gone.

28:31Now, why are the forests disappearing at such a huge rate?

28:36Do you know even as we are talking, how many acres of forest has been cleared off in the

28:42last one hour itself?

28:44Can you even imagine?

28:45Now, go find out, you'll be startled.

28:50Even as we are discussing this, at an unimaginable pace, trees are being felled, unimaginable

28:58pace.

28:59Why are those trees being felled?

29:02So that there can be more agriculture.

29:05That agriculture goes towards feeding the ever-increasing population because we cannot

29:09live without kids.

29:11Further, we cannot live without our chicken wings and chicken burgers and mutton this

29:19and beef that.

29:21We do not even know that to get one kilogram of chicken or mutton or beef, you require

29:29probably 20, 30 or 40 kilograms of grains.

29:32So most of the grains that is being raised in the farmer's fields is for the purposes

29:38of meat.

29:42That is something people must know.

29:46You cannot just blindly keep on talking of agriculture as something so holy and pious

29:54and natural.

29:58Are you getting it?

30:02Then the kids, the kids, the kids, reach out to them.

30:11It has to be a holy war.

30:13You have to, pardon me my language, invade schools.

30:20It's a battle for the mind.

30:27The kid must grow up knowing fully well that it's monstrous to kill an animal to eat it.

30:37Are you getting it?

30:40And that would require a change in the entire value system of the kid.

30:46Veganism cannot succeed if you just keep talking of animals.

30:53You keep saying, oh, it is bad to look at animals as a commodity.

30:58It is bad to exploit animals.

31:01If man is exploiting man, why will man refrain from exploiting animals?

31:06So veganism has to be holistic, comprehensive.

31:12You may not like it to hear it this way, but veganism has to be basically a spiritual movement.

31:21Veganism has to be a movement of compassion.

31:24When compassion comes, you will not be compassionate towards merely the animals.

31:29When compassion rises in you, then you will be compassionate towards everything, everybody

31:35and yourself.

31:37First of all, you will cease to be cruel towards yourself, which most people are.

31:44So veganism needs to broaden its scope.

31:50You say, oh, it's bad to treat animals that way, this way.

31:54One should not use leather.

31:56But what if somebody has been conditioned to draw pleasure from tormenting the other?

32:03And there are many such people.

32:05There are cuisines around the world where animals are eaten alive.

32:12You like to have an octopus, a living octopus on your plate and then you take the octopus

32:21and you take it in.

32:22There are people.

32:24You have to address the entire value system.

32:28You have to ask man, who are you?

32:30What is it that you want and how will you get it by slaughtering somebody else?

32:35And what if it is proven that that which you really want is being hindered, impeded, obstructed

32:41by your food habits and your food habits are merely your food habits.

32:47Your food habit is your life habit.

32:49The way you eat is the way you live.

32:54If you are horrible with your food, then surely your life too is horrible.

33:00This has to be drawn home.

33:05So a lot of work needs to be done.

33:08For veganism to succeed, you would actually require a new man.

33:14It's a big battle and it's worth fighting.

33:18It's worth fighting.

33:19Guruji, next question is, we are organizing an animal rights match, so coming weekend

33:27on 10th of November.

33:29So I just wanted to ask you, why should the masses, so whether vegan or not, why should

33:34they join in this movement?

33:35So you have any word for them?

33:36We have already spoken enough of that.

33:38I mean, if you are not joining the vegan movement, I don't know how you are eligible

33:47to call yourself educated.

33:50I don't know how you are eligible to call yourself even human.

33:55Yeah, so Guruji, that's all with my questions.

34:10Street activism is wonderful.

34:13My advice is do not forget that you have to be educators first.

34:19It is a battle for man's mind, not to capture it, but to cleanse it.

34:33It is not just the future of planet.

34:36The future of entire mankind depends on the success of this vegan movement.

34:42If veganism fails, man is gone.

34:50But unfortunately, man will be the last to go.

34:52Before man goes, he would have put everything else in the graveyard or reduced everything

35:00else to ashes.

35:05Having presided over the entire demolition, having cremated everybody else, he will be

35:20the last to depart and probably pretty soon so.

35:28So let's work.

Category

Transcript

Recommended