vegetarian's you also eat another life form?

[Raghy]

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Sri.PVIyer Sir, Greetings. Sorry, this post may be a bit graphic. Sri. KRS Sir, if you like to delete this, just go ahead; I don't mind.

...To give you an example, there may be a human with lot of nerve problems , underdeveloped in intelligence as well.

Sir, the condition explained by you is just a 'cognitive impairement'. Cognitive impairement deals with the person's capacity to process the informations passed through the nervous system due to lack of seritonin. That is a different subject of discussion. Such persons feel pain just as anyone else does, because pain pathway is not the same as cognitive pathway. Let us eliminate that doubt at the start itself, please.

We have central nervous system(CNS) and systemic nervous system(SNS). CNS controls all the actions and snd signals to SNS for musculo-skeletal systems to function. Pain sensation gets conveyed by the SNS to CNS; processed by the CNS and SNS take directions from CNS.

CNS consists of spinal cord and brain. In other words, any living thing with a spine would feel pain. All the multicellular animals, including fish (except sponge) would feel pain, due to the spinal cord and brain.

Central nervous system - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pain gets transmitted by the nerve endings to the dorsal horn of the spinal cord. There are many dorsal horns in the spinal cord. Transmission of pain to the brain is known as 'affrent'; brain's reaction path is known as 'efferent'. - File:Spinal cord tracts - English.svg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The spinal cord is further divided for the human beings as cervical, thorasic, lumber and sacral portions. There are many segments in the spinal cord ( 7 in cervical, 12 in thorasic, 5 in lumber, 5 in sacrum). Each segment controls a portion of the body. The upward 'affrent' system is connected. If the portion of spinal cord at L3 gets anaesthesised (or made numb), feeling from thigh downwards would be absent.

More about spinal cord here - Spinal cord - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pain pathway -

pain gets transmitted from the SNS to CNS through nerve endings. Yes, there are decision centres and distribution points. Obviously, decision centre is the brain; distribution centres are the dorsal horns of the spinal cord.

More about pain can be read here - The WorldWide Anaesthetist Pain Page

So, what kind of a pain would an animal (or human being) suffer when the head gets chopped off or when the throat gets slit?

If I am a goat, I may not feel much of a pain at the incision/chopped off site, since the nerve endings are either completely gone or in the case of incision, only slight. Initially, due to bleeding, I go through hypovalemic shock. My heart works overtime to keep the pumping; my brain shuts of blood supply to outer limbs in a hurry; outer limbs starve of exygen goes into convulsions; I keep loosing blood; due to the lack of oxygen, all the cells in the outer limbs start burning before they die; one by one all the organs and the systems gets shut down; by this time, if I am lucky, due to the extreme pain transmission information overload, the system collapses and I faint ( at the extreme pain situations, we faint); Then slowly blood supply to brain stops; brain ceases to function; only then the heart stops pumping.

A stunned animal gets knocked out; so may not experience most of the above said stages. They do suffer less, in my opinion.

Babies, kids, children, adults or animals irrespectively feel the same kind of pain. Pain threshold may differ from person to person.

 

[pviyer]

Sri.PVIyer Sir, Greetings. Sorry, this post may be a bit graphic. Sri. KRS Sir, if you like to delete this, just go ahead; I don't mind.



Sir, the condition explained by you is just a 'cognitive impairement'. Cognitive impairement deals with the person's capacity to process the informations passed through the nervous system due to lack of seritonin. That is a different subject of discussion. Such persons feel pain just as anyone else does, because pain pathway is not the same as cognitive pathway. Let us eliminate that doubt at the start itself, please.

We have central nervous system(CNS) and systemic nervous system(SNS). CNS controls all the actions and snd signals to SNS for musculo-skeletal systems to function. Pain sensation gets conveyed by the SNS to CNS; processed by the CNS and SNS take directions from CNS.

CNS consists of spinal cord and brain. In other words, any living thing with a spine would feel pain. All the multicellular animals, including fish (except sponge) would feel pain, due to the spinal cord and brain.

Central nervous system - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pain gets transmitted by the nerve endings to the dorsal horn of the spinal cord. There are many dorsal horns in the spinal cord. Transmission of pain to the brain is known as 'affrent'; brain's reaction path is known as 'efferent'. - File:Spinal cord tracts - English.svg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The spinal cord is further divided for the human beings as cervical, thorasic, lumber and sacral portions. There are many segments in the spinal cord ( 7 in cervical, 12 in thorasic, 5 in lumber, 5 in sacrum). Each segment controls a portion of the body. The upward 'affrent' system is connected. If the portion of spinal cord at L3 gets anaesthesised (or made numb), feeling from thigh downwards would be absent.

More about spinal cord here - Spinal cord - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pain pathway -

pain gets transmitted from the SNS to CNS through nerve endings. Yes, there are decision centres and distribution points. Obviously, decision centre is the brain; distribution centres are the dorsal horns of the spinal cord.

More about pain can be read here - The WorldWide Anaesthetist Pain Page

So, what kind of a pain would an animal (or human being) suffer when the head gets chopped off or when the throat gets slit?

If I am a goat, I may not feel much of a pain at the incision/chopped off site, since the nerve endings are either completely gone or in the case of incision, only slight. Initially, due to bleeding, I go through hypovalemic shock. My heart works overtime to keep the pumping; my brain shuts of blood supply to outer limbs in a hurry; outer limbs starve of exygen goes into convulsions; I keep loosing blood; due to the lack of oxygen, all the cells in the outer limbs start burning before they die; one by one all the organs and the systems gets shut down; by this time, if I am lucky, due to the extreme pain transmission information overload, the system collapses and I faint ( at the extreme pain situations, we faint); Then slowly blood supply to brain stops; brain ceases to function; only then the heart stops pumping.

A stunned animal gets knocked out; so may not experience most of the above said stages. They do suffer less, in my opinion.

Babies, kids, children, adults or animals irrespectively feel the same kind of pain. Pain threshold may differ from person to person.

You have brought a nice fact on the link between spinal chord and pain. If I am not wrong scientists have been able to make this assertion on the following basis
1. Humans who respond to pain show similar relationship with spinal chord.
2. Humans have been able to communicate the fact that they have pain in a certain area.
3. Animals have also been able to indicate some kind of response which indicates that they suffer from pain, though they cannot tell us. Similar experiments done on their spinal chord indicates that there is a dependancy there.

These 3 facts are a sufficient explanation for practicing vegetarianism in respect to creatures with spinal chord. However there is a section which will still argue that even here animals suffer less pain, and therefore by the law of nature, the action of eating an animal may be excused even if vegetarianism may be considered an ideal. They may further say, that even if these animals can feel pain, they dont have sufficient intelligence or awareness about themselves. So then a pertinent point is do we have proof to identify that degree of pain varies according to sophistication of spinal chord.

The problem then comes when we look at animals/plants without spinal chord. Do we know the mechanism by which they could possibly feel pain. Are we to accept the argument that no spinal chord, no pain, so okay to eat?
Even they have some kind of decision centres. This argument is also applicable to human embryos before they develop a spinal chord. If what you are saying is right, then before development of spinal chord, a human embryo can be killed?

Is it possible that the very structure and purpose for different kind of body parts can vary across the animal/plant kingdom especially when their anatomy because very different from humans?

 

[KRS]

Dear Professor Nara Ji,

I cited that paper not to prove anything. It was interesting in the sense of reading about the origins of vegetarianism in Buddhism as well as the different interpretations of what Buddha said and the current day dietary practices of both Mahayana and Therevada branches.

Regards,
KRS

Dear Shri KRS, I have no idea how far this web site is authentic, but a quick look seems to support what I stated, see for instance:

"This rule technically applies only to monastics, but it can be used as a reasonable guide by devout lay people."
​

Cheers!

 

[KRS]

Dear Sri Sangom Ji,

Do we know that the eating of meat was prevalent among all hindus at the time of Buddha?

Since Buddha rebelled against Hinduism at that time, do you think he allowed for eating meat at that time as against the habits of Brahmins who, by that time have become vegetarians?

Just a wild speculation.

Regards,
KRS

Dear Shri Nara, Shri KRS,

From whatever I have read Buddha was against cruelty to anyone, anything, including animals and preached it also. But he was aware that meat eating was very common even among the Brahmans. (Just one instance: the priest who is allotted the duty of laying the bricks for the atirātram sacrifice, is prohibited from eating meat of any 'bird' commencing from a certain number of days before the piling, till the atirātram is over. It still allows, technically, eating of non-bird meat!)

So, Buddha said to his monks not to refuse whatever food was given to them by the public and eat it.

Buddha's last meal was from a devout follower but a very poor person. Hence one opinion is that such a disciple could not have given any meat to Buddha, which the disciple knew, his guru was against. The Pali wording being as confusing as Sanskrit, it is now said that most probably it must have been a mushroom which caused fatal allergies in Buddha; in support of this, it is pointed out that such allergies do happen to some people even if they eat approved mushrooms. Recently one young girl who ate a piece of bread (probably stale stuff kept by the shop-keeper) got such fatal allergy and has survived because of expert and timely medical attention for several days in hospital. The girl's father humorously remarked to me that this could be the costliest slice of bread in the world!!

 

[sangom]

Dear Sri Sangom Ji,

Do we know that the eating of meat was prevalent among all hindus at the time of Buddha?

Since Buddha rebelled against Hinduism at that time, do you think he allowed for eating meat at that time as against the habits of Brahmins who, by that time have become vegetarians?

Just a wild speculation.

Regards,
KRS

Dear Shri KRS,

Many of our Dharmasastras, some of which at least are later than Buddha's time according to experts, give the impression that meat eating was allowed for brahmins and compulsory for satisfying the manes. Hence, prima facie there is no reason to believe that Buddha wanted to do everything opposite to what the godly, vegetarian, Brahmans of those days (that seems to be what you would like to establish) and thus allowed meat eating.

On the contrary it was most probably after Ashoka that vegetarianism picked up its roots among the vedic priests, primarily because cruelty to animals in the name of yajnas was frowned upon and put down by the ruler. Hence we get the ingenious "kali varjya" list!! Pushyamitra Sunga did revive the poorva mimamsa culture but by that time probably the idea of vegetarianism and higher castes had become so deep-rooted in the minds of ordinary people, for Brahmans to take to their old ways once again.

 

[KRS]

Dear Sri sangom Ji,

Thanks for the elaboration.

Regards,
KRS

 

[KRS]

Dear Sri Haridasa Siva Ji,

All Abrahamic religions encourage meat eating, especially Islam.

However they do not prohibit vegetarianism. My wording could have been better.I should have said, 'there are religions that do not promote pure vegetarianism'. Thanks for the question.

Regards,
KRS

That is interesting. Can you please name those religions? Thanks.

 

[nachi naga]

anything which as life,must experiance pain & pleasure,without me getting scientific about it.plants have life-period.so,they too suffer when we eat them.who are we as humans to measure pain of another life forms?lants are divine.vegetables are divine.grains are divine.we are divine.ultimately to fill our belly,we will eat anything to satisfy hunger.we can even control our sex organs but never stomach organ.

 

[Raghy]

Sri.PVIyer sir, Greetings.

Are we to accept the argument that no spinal chord, no pain, so okay to eat?

Sir, I have been only discussing about pain transmission, connection to spinal cord etc. I am not advocating anything for or against eating non-vegetarian food. Such decisions are personal choices. For all you know, I could be typing this while munching on roast lamb meat. so, I decline to go into making any suggestions, please.

This argument is also applicable to human embryos before they develop a spinal chord. If what you are saying is right, then before development of spinal chord, a human embryo can be killed?

Any embryo, human or animal, is formed after a huge struggle. Millions of chromosomes gets released compete to engage the engage the egg; just one succeed. When there are somany methods to take precautions to stop this from happening, I don't see a point in the termination of embryo. well, an embryo seems to develop a spinal cord by the time the pregnancy is suspected; that is be fore the next mensuration cycle itself.

The vertebrate nervous system develops from the neural plate—a thickened dorsal portion of the ectoderm—which forms a tube, as described earlier. From the very start the tube is wider anteriorly, the end that gives rise to the brain. The posterior part of the neural tube, which gives rise to the spinal cord, is narrower and stretches as the embryo lengthens. Stretching involves the head to only a very minor degree.


The brain and spinal cord

Constrictions soon appear in the brain region of the neural tube, subdividing it into three parts, or brain vesicles, which undergo further transformations in the course of development. The most anterior of the primary brain vesicles, called the prosencephalon, gives rise to parts of the brain<script src="http://adserver.adtechus.com/addyn/3.0/5308.1/1371284/0/170/ADTECH;target=_blank;grp=361;key=false;kvqsegs=D;kvtopicid=25677;kvchannel=SCIENCE;misc=1301881466877"></script> and the eye rudiments. The latter appear in a very early stage of development as lateral protrusions from the wall of the neural tube, which are constricted off from the remainder of the brain rudiment as the optic vesicles.

Source - animal development :: The brain and spinal cord -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia

(The above link has the detailed information about the animal embryo development. More informationcan be obtained from there).

Human embryo development .... http://www.visembryo.com/baby/

(As can be seen, the spinal cord starts within 20 days).

Cheers!

 

[pviyer]

Sri.PVIyer sir, Greetings.



Sir, I have been only discussing about pain transmission, connection to spinal cord etc. I am not advocating anything for or against eating non-vegetarian food. Such decisions are personal choices. For all you know, I could be typing this while munching on roast lamb meat. so, I decline to go into making any suggestions, please.



Any embryo, human or animal, is formed after a huge struggle. Millions of chromosomes gets released compete to engage the engage the egg; just one succeed. When there are somany methods to take precautions to stop this from happening, I don't see a point in the termination of embryo. well, an embryo seems to develop a spinal cord by the time the pregnancy is suspected; that is be fore the next mensuration cycle itself.




Source - animal development :: The brain and spinal cord -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia

(The above link has the detailed information about the animal embryo development. More informationcan be obtained from there).

Human embryo development .... http://www.visembryo.com/baby/

(As can be seen, the spinal cord starts within 20 days).

Cheers!

To me the anatomy of plants and lower life forms still remain a puzzle.

However, Thank you quite some useful information here.

 

[nachi naga]

swami akshara and disciple - upanishad.

View points of animals
Animals or plants do not have a sense of exclusiveness or individual view points. They function by simple impulsive mechanism and cannot interpret situations intelligently. The impulsive mechanism of a tiger does not allow itself to change its eating habits from meat to mushrooms. The elephants can never turn to meat eating for extra protein. Their lives are pretty much choice less and changeless too.


Disciple : My life has been pretty choice less too. I eat only
that which comes to my plate. Does it make me less intelligent?
Master : But the food that lands in your plate can excite or
exhaust you and you have a choice to complain or compliment !
Disciple : Ah yes ! I forgot that part. I do a lot of cribbing at times !
Master : That's when your personal view point is showing !

 

[renuka]

Dear all,
Its a known fact that there is some pain inflicted on plants when we eat them also..and also we consume life bacteria when we eat yogurt some of which die in our GI system.
Thats why I have adopted this system to lessen inflicting pain on even plants and other creatures.

1)I am pure vegetarian and dont eat even cakes that contain eggs.

2)many argue that farm eggs are not fertilized so technically its not living..well thats right but have you seen the conditions these hens go thru to lay egss..they cant even stand only seated all their life in cramped up cages.
So its not worth eating these too.

3) when i pray i dont use flowers or any garlands much to the suprise to most Hindus cos the flower looks better on the plant..flowers are the "children" of the plants..let them be there..we can offer God the flower of our heart.

4)I dont use mango leaves at house entrance cos I dont want to pluck leaves for nothing at all.

5)Dont wear silk sarees..cos that contributes to death of silk worms..so its only non silk sarees for me and dont wear leather too.

6)told my parents that when i got married..not to cut kill 2 banana trees to decorate the enterance let it be without anything..we Hindus tend to kill banana trees too easily i feel.

7)Use only cosmetics certified againts animal testing.

This are a few points i practise to minimize life loss..and you know what as a doctor who uses medication which is imported from india in my day to day practise you will be suprised that most capsules from India are beef gelatin capsules..
Only some western countries make vege caps..

 

[CLN]

Excellent Renuka ji,

How I wish that most of us too can be as deterministic as you are!

 

[nachi naga]

i second cln's post about renu.she is awesome doc.

 

[pannvalan]

I wish to share some of my views here.

1. It is true all plants and animals have life, as we human beings do have.

2. In the Nature itself, there is a balancing mechanism - one species eating another for food or to overcome hunger. Thus, it is very clear that hunger is common to every form of life and it is the basic survival instinct. Not all can withstand hunger, without drinking or eating anything, simply by inhaling air.

3. Every plant, animal, bird or any other species has also senses. May be, their perceptions may vary. Similarly, intelligence is also found in varying levels - we don't have any tool to measure and compare them - in different species.

4. Mankind, we think, is superior to all other species, while it is not so.

Finally, we vegetarians have to make a compromise.

1. I will not will kill any moving species like bird, animal, insect, fish etc.
2. I will not make any other living creatures bleed (supposing they have blood).
3. I will not harm or kill any other creature which can cry, yell or scream.

I am ultimately left with only plants which do not
(a) have the ability to move from one place to another (to escape?),
(b) bleed if I cut them and
(c) cry if I cut, maim or kill them.

Therefore, I eat them.

Regarding the photograph of a soul in the video, if you observe very keenly you will notice these things.

A male's soul looks like a replica or reflection of his body and it is incorrect. Similarly, a female's soul appearing as her reflection/shadow is also unbelievable and unacceptable. Because, 'Soul' is formless and genderless.

I do not think we have as yet discovered an instrument like GDV camera to capture the true image of a soul, as is being shown in the video.

Finally, what I suggest is, "Oh, Vegetarians, please do possess any feeling of guilt, when you cut some plants or its parts like leaves, flowers and fruits to satisfy your hunger. But, do not cause any unnecessary harm to them, for any other purpose, to the extent possible".

This is my clear message.

P.S: Even in 1960s, Annamalai University conducted a field study in many centres and have provided empirical evidence that plants when exposed to sweet, harmonious music/sounds, yield much more than the plants of the same species that were not exposed to such music/harmonious sounds. Banana trees and Mango trees were some of the plants subjected to this trial/experiment.

 

[nachi naga]

pannvalan

Because, 'Soul' is formless and genderless....

athma or popularly known as soul,is not subjective to reside at ONE place in a body.from head to foot,athma resides.that athma has a body consisting of various organs is the sathyam.athma maybe sagunam as we are and athma maybe nirgunam as the original truth.thank you shri pannvalan,about the three important points,for being a vegetarian,but plants cry too,and bleed too,maybe not red in color sir.