Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 9. THE COSMOS IS A DANCE OF OPPOSITES
Secondly, you want to know my view on cow slaughter.
I am against all kinds of slaughter, so the question of my favoring cow slaughter does not arise.
But whether I am for or against it, cow slaughter is not going to stop. The conditions of our life are
such that the cow will continue to be killed. I am against meat-eating, but it is not going to make
a difference. Under the present conditions meat-eating cannot go. We are not yet in a position to
provide the entire population of the world with an adequate amount of vegetarian food. Let alone
the world, even a single country cannot afford to be vegetarian at the moment. It will simply die of
starvation if it decides to go vegetarian. Unless we have enough food grains and vegetables and
milk to feed the whole world, non-vegetarianism will continue to predominate. There is no way out
at the moment. It is a necessary evil. So is cow slaughter.
It is ironic that people who are anxious to ban cow slaughter are doing nothing to create the
necessary conditions to make the society vegetarian. So cow slaughter is not going to end because
of these people. If it ends someday, it will end because of the efforts of those who are not at all
anxious to do away with cow slaughter. Slogan-mongering and agitation are not going to end it, nor
is it going to end through legislation. Though we have the largest number of cows, they ate the most
uncared for; they ate as good as dead and useless. On the other hand, beef-eating countries have
the best kinds of cows, healthy and strong. While a single cow in the West yields forty to fifty kilos
of milk pet day, it would be too much for an Indian cow to give half a kilo. We have only skeletons in
the name of cows, and we make such a hulla-baloo about them.
The production of vegetarian food, of nutritive and health-giving vegetarian food, is the first
imperative if you want to abolish cow slaughter. Supporters of vegetarianism have yet to meet
the argument of the non-vegetarians that the world is much too short of vegetarian food to provide
nutrition and health to mankind. There is logic in their argument.
It is very interesting that both cow and mon key ate vegetarians. Man inherits his body and soul
from vegetarian sources. It is another thing that a monkey sometimes swallows a few ants, but by
and large he is a vegetarian. The cow is wholly vegetarian; it will eat meat only when it is forced
to. Under the circumstances it is strange how man has turned non-vegetarian, because his whole
physical and psychic system is derived from vegetarian sources. The structure of his stomach is
such as only vegetarian animals have, and so is his mental makeup. Obviously man must have
been forced by circumstances to become non vegetarian. And even today he cannot do with, out
animal food.
It seems to me that cow slaughter will continue in spite of all our good intentions to stop it. In my
view, it will only stop when we make provisions for adequate synthetic food for all. And then people
have to be persuaded to take to synthetic food on a large scale. Synthetic food is the only alternative
to non-vegetarianism. The day man accepts living on scientific food, meat-eating will disappear, not
before.
So I am not interested in the agitation for banning cow slaughter by law; it is absurd and stupid. It
is a sheer waste of time and energy. I am interested in something else: I want science to put its
energy into the creation of synthetic food so that man is freed from meat-eating. There is no other
way except this. Food derived from the earth will not do; food will have to be produced in factories
in the form of pills. The population of the world today ranges between three and a half to four billion,
Krishna: The Man and His Philosophy 173 Osho