Hare Krishna dear devotees,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All Glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudeva.
As devotees of Krishna, we have a special interest in protecting cows because Krishna is a cowherd boy. It seems amazing. How could God be a cowherd boy? But sometimes truth is stranger than fiction... Krishna likes cows very much. Therefore, because Krishna is very friendly towards the cows, killing cows is more sinful than killing other animals.
In olden days, the food used to be cooked using the cow-dung cakes ; then later on wood was used as fuel, the gas came into existence few years back and lately we have the micro (My Crow) wave - an obvious indication of the advancement of Kali yuga.
The cow itself are scarce today; what to mention of cow-dung cakes. In Dec 2004, we were in India and we required cow-dung cakes for some ceremony. It cost us Rs 5,000 for a sack of the same!!! . It's not the money I am talking about but the cow-dung cakes which are in scarcity and that's why the cost is so high.
In his letter to Rupanuga, Dec 7 1975, HDG Srila Prabhupada writes:
"In your country the dog is protected and the cow is killed. The dog is passing stool and urine in the street and the cow is all pure, stool, urine and milk but they are taken to the slaughter house and killed for food. What kind of civilization is this?"
Few days back, a lady had come to my house and I offered her water to drink. At some point in our conversation when there came a discussion about cows, I said that cow has to be respected as good as our mother and she replied saying that some people drink the urine of cow as well but nobody will do the same with that of their mother. I thought that her argument is foolish enough not worthy of a reply and I ended the conversation by saying that we drink the milk of our mother but when she gets old we don't send her to some slaughter house whereas we drink the milk of cow and still in the end we kill her. She had no answer.
We have to remember that Krishna came as a cowherd boy and of all the animals, the cow is very dear to Him. All the animals are dear to the Lord but the cow has a special place. In the Vishnu Purana 1.19.65, its mentioned:
namo brahmaṇya-devāya go-brāhmaṇa-hitāya ca
jagad-dhitāya kṛṣṇāya govindāya namo namaḥ
I offer my respectful obeisances to the Supreme Absolute Truth, Krsna, who is the well-wisher of the cows and the brahmanas as well as the living entities in general. I offer my repeated obeisances to Govinda, who is the pleasure reservoir for all the senses.
The Cow is our Mother:
When our mother is no longer able to feed us in our infanthood, it's the cows milk to our rescue. So, as per scriptures, cow is also our mother. We drink the milk but never think that how the milk is produced. Milk is produced from the blood of the cow, however she is happy to give her blood transformed in a peaceful, non-violent way in the form of milk.
We wish to maintain the cow only as long as they give milk. The moment she becomes old and invalid, and is of no use to us anymore, we send her to the slaughterhouse. How compassionate we are to this helpless creature ? There was only one personality of Kali who was harming the cow 5000 years back, but now every nation has so many government authorised slaughterhouses where cows are killed in the most organised and sophisticated manner.
Some Facts:
1) It was found from research that to grow one pound of wheat requires only 60 pounds of water, whereas production of a pound of meat requires anywhere from 2,500 to 6,000 pounds of water!!!
2) In 1973,It was revealed that one large chicken slaughtering plant in America was found to be using 100 million gallons of water daily. The same volume would supply a city of 25,000 people!!!!!
3) It is quite clear that a living cow yields society more food than a dead one - in the form of a continuing supply of milk, cheese, butter, yogurt and other high-protein foods.
Your humble servant,
Nayana Priya devi dasi
Abu Dhabi.
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