Why Vegetarianism::

Why do we need a Vegetarian Society?
Vegetarianism is growing and becoming more mainstream, but vegetarians are still only a small proportion of the population. The quality and range of vegetarian food has improved enormously over the years, but it’s not enough. We have helped make life easier for millions of vegetarians, but we’re not satisfied. Photographic film and many prescription drugs still contain gelatine. Most wines and beers still don’t say whether or not they were produced using animal products. Your relatives probably still think it’s a phase you’re going through and the dictionaries aren’t sure whether or not vegetarians eat fish.

Why Hindus Don't Eat Meat?
Besides being an expression of compassion for animals, vegetarianism is followed for ecological and health rationales

Reasons

In the past fifty years, millions of meat-eaters -- Hindus and non-Hindus -- have made the personal decision to stop eating the flesh of other creatures. There are five major motivations for such a decision:

1. The Dharmic Law Reason
Ahinsa, the law of noninjury, is the Hindu's first duty in fulfilling religious obligations to God and God's creation as defined by Vedic scripture.

2. The Karmic Consequences Reason
All of our actions, including our choice of food, have Karmic consequences. By involving oneself in the cycle of inflicting injury, pain and death, even indirectly by eating other creatures, one must in the future experience in equal measure the suffering caused.

3. The Spiritual Reason
Food is the source of the body's chemistry, and what we ingest affects our consciousnes, emotions and experiential patterns. If one wants to live in higher consciousness, in peace and happiness and love for all creatures, then he cannot eat meat, fish, shellfish, fowl or eggs. By ingesting the grosser chemistries of animal foods, one introduces into the body and mind anger, jealousy, anxiety, suspicion and a terrible fear of death, all of which are locked into the the flesh of the butchered creatures. For these reasons, vegetarians live in higher consciousness and meat-eaters abide in lower consciousness.

4. The Health Reason
Medical studies prove that a vegetarian diet is easier to digest, provides a wider ranger of nutrients and imposes fewer burdens and impurities on the body. Vegetarians are less susceptible to all the major diseases that afflict contemporary humanity, and thus live longer, healthier, more productive lives. They have fewer physical complaints, less frequent visits to the doctor, fewer dental problems and smaller medical bills. Their immune system is stronger, their bodies are purer, more refined and skin more beautiful.

5. The Ecological Reason
Planet Earth is suffereing. In large measure, the escalating loss of species, destruction of ancient rainforests to create pasture lands for live stock, loss of topsoils and the consequent increase of water impurities and air pollution have all been traced to the single fact of meat in the human diet. No decision that we can make as individuals or as a race can have such a dramatic effect on the improvement of our planetary ecology as the decision not to eat meat.

While most major world religions are traceable to one particular founder, Hinduism has its beginnings in such remote antiquity that it cannot be traced to any one individual. Its roots, however, are firmly planted in the ancient Vedic texts.

Interestingly enough, the word "Hindu" is not actually found anywhere in Vedic scriptures. The term "Hindu" is vague, and even a misnomer. The term was introduced by Muslims from neighboring countries who referred to people living across the River Sindhu, a people who actually held a vast array of religious beliefs. There is no one "Hindu religion."

The original Vedic system is actually quite different from contemporary Hinduism. Both the old and the new, however, converge harmoniously in regard to vegetarianism.

Here are some quotes from the Vedas:

"You must not use your God-given body for killing God's creatures, whether they are human, animal or whatever." (Yajur Veda, 12.32)

"By not killing any living being, one becomes fit for salvation." (Manusmriti, 6.60)

"The purchaser of flesh performs himsa (violence) by his wealth; he who eats flesh does so by enjoying its taste; the killer does himsa by actually tying and killing the animal. Thus, there are three forms of killing. He who brings flesh or sends for it, he who cuts of the limbs of an animal, and he who purchases, sells, or cooks flesh and eats it-all of these are to be considered meat-eaters." (Mahabharata, Anu. 115:40)
Vegetarianism and Nonviolence

In the Manusmriti, it is stated that one should refrain from eating all kinds of meat, for such eating involves killing and leads to karmic bondage (bandha).

Elsewhere in the Vedas, the last of the great Vedic Kings, Maharaja Pariksit, is quoted as saying that "only the animal killer cannot relish the message of the Absolute Truth." Therefore, the Vedas inform us to obtain spiritual knowledge, one must begin with being vegetarian.

Animals and Spirituality

Long before Saint Francis was declared the patron saint of the animals, the sages of ancient India had already recognized spirituality in all living species. Vedic texts even describe incarnations of God in various animal forms.

Some of the more popular are the boar, the tortoise, the fish, and the horse-there is even a half man/half lion incarnation! ( Vedic literature does not promote polytheism, rather, the Vedas affirm that it is the same one God who appears in various forms).

The Vedic viewpoint even acknowledges the ability of ordinary animals to achieve exalted states of spirituality! This is so because of the viewpoint that spirituality is not limited to the human form and that ultimately the external body is a temporary housing for the eternal spiritual soul.

The Vedas say that the living soul transmigrates, from body to body, from species to species, until it finally reaches the human form, equipped with reason and the ability to inquire into the Absolute Truth. Exercising that human prerogative, one can end the cycle of repeated birth and death and attain the kingdom of God.

Here, then, is a religious tradition that emphasizes not only vegetarianism but also the spiritual equality of all living beings.