Is it true that one should not steal the chicken and eat it, but one's own chicken can be eaten?

[Shri K. Siddhartha (S/o Kadari Ravinder Reddy) asked:- In Quran, it is told that one can eat chicken after growing it with own food, but, shall not steal the chicken from the neighbor. Is this not justice of God?]

Swami replied:­- You should use any item belonging to you and shall not steal any item from the neighbour. This is not limited to chicken only. Here, the sin is in killing the chicken, whether it belongs to you or to your neighbour. Since parents have grown their own children with their own food, can the parents eat their children? The punishment for killing chicken is that the chicken will be born as the killer and the killer will be born as the chicken in the next birth. Then only, the killer will understand the seriousness of the sin. The killer must imagine himself in the place of the chicken to understand this pain in cutting the throat. If anybody wants to understand the suffering of the victim in any sin, he should place himself in the place of the victim. This sin is the highest among all sins. The ethical scripture says that non-violence is the highest justice (Ahiṃsā paramo dharmaḥ). Violence is the highest sin. If you do violence to a bad bird or animal or human being, it is justice. If you do violence to a good person or innocent bird or animal, it is injustice. God is very much pleased with justice and is very much furious with injustice. WHO says that non-vegetarian food is the source of several dangerous diseases.

The Veda says that food must be from plants (Oṣadhībhyo'nnam) because plants are living having no awareness to undergo pain. Zoological beings like birds, animals etc., are living beings with awareness that undergo pain. Respiration is only the mechanical inert process that is common to all living beings. Respiration is only mechanical life, whereas the nervous system is life with awareness. Even the biggest botanical banyan tree made of millions of cells has no nervous system, whereas a unicellular zoological organism has a nervous spot that generates awareness! You will understand the pain of torture in death if a demon starts eating you. Will you not argue with the demon to your climax intelligence to save your life from the demon? Then, the demon will say that this is the food chain process (higher animal killing a lower animal). You yourself argued about this process when you were killing the chicken. Why don’t you apply the same logic to the answer given by the demon?

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