| Discourses On Gita By Acharya Vinoba Bhave |
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| Discourses On Gita |
| ANOTHER SUPPLEMENT : PROGRAMME FOR THE SEEKER |
| The name most dear to the people of
India is "Gopal-Krishna." The young and the old, every one
knows and loves Krishna, the cow-herd, with the flute at His lips,
in the midst of his cows. The great benefit of learning to cherish
the cow was that people gave up meat-eating. Cow's milk came to be
valued, and meat-eating fell off in importance.
17. Still, it is not as if perfect purity in food has been attained. We should now make efforts for further progress. The Bengalis eat fish and so many people are surprised at this. But it is not right that we should condemn them for this. Bengal produces only rice and that does not provide enough nutrition for the body. We shall have to conduct experiments to find out what vegetable substitutes can be found for fish. For this purpose men of heroic sacrifice will be born. It is such people who lead society forward. The Sun keeps burning and that is way, wherever we go, we are able to maintain our normal temperature and remain alive.When in a society shining suns of vairagya, desirelessness, appear and, breaking the bonds of environment with the power of faith, fly without wings into the sky of ideal then we ordinary people acquire the little vairagya that is useful in the world. I often think, on such occasions, of how much tapas the rishis had to perform to stop meat-eating and how many lives had to be sacrificed! 18. By now our society has to this extent attained purity in food. This treasure which our ancestors have earned through endless sacrifice, let us not lose it. Do not let go this achievement of Indian culture. It is not enough that we somehow manage to exist. That is easy. Even the animals do so. Then, are we like the animals? No, there is a difference. |
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