Non-Violence
61
That is the Egoism of Saving Lives
People here believe that it is because of their efforts that
they save lives. Let me tell you what our people are like. At home
they swear abuses at their mothers, while on the outside they try
to save an insect’s life. What kind of people are these anyway?
These people should be deposited in the ocean! What
would people of such negative intellect do there when every life in
the ocean is either prey or predator? The smaller fish are prey to
the bigger fish, which in turn are prey to even bigger ones. Such is
the oceanic food chain. Now how would they use their intellect in
such an environment? Whom will they save?
People believe they are saving lives by promoting
vegetarianism, but in the process they feel hatred for butchers. If
you asked a butcher why he chose such an ignoble profession, he
would say that his profession was his heritage and wonder why
you belittled it. He would brand you as lacking intelligence.
People who eat meat do not use their ego to claim to do
the killing. Those who make false claims about saving lives, on the
other hand, are the most egotistical of all. They brag and flaunt
their ability to save lives by saying, ‘we are saving cows and goats’.
If you are really saving lives then why not save your ninety-five-
year-old father’s? Can anyone do that?
Question: No, no one can do that.
Dadashri: It is not under anyone’s control; so then why
do they boast about saving lives? Not even the butcher has the
independent power to take a life; moreover there is no human
being who has any such power. The butcher who brags about the
number of animals he has slaughtered is guilty of egoism. Likewise
the person, who states that he has saved so many cows, is also
guilty of egoism. What then is the reality? According to nature,
neither the one taking lives, nor the one saving lives, w ill attain
liberation because they are both guilty of egoism (doer-ship). This