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Part 1: A Call for Compassion: The Imperative of Non-Violence Thank you, Christine, for your thoughtful presentation. Good evening, everyone. To our webcast audience, a special happy birthday to those celebrating today. This blessing comes from the Śrī Svāmī Madhavānanda Āśram in Alexandria, Washington D.C. Tonight’s theme is peace within through ahiṃsā. We have just heard a beautiful talk from Christine Gutleben—a fitting name meaning "good life"—about the Humane Society's work. It is very inspiring. First, we must understand religion. Is it merely a personal choice, or does it define boundaries—warning us not to sin, lest we face consequences? Christianity, about 2,000 years old, is rooted in the older tradition of Judaism. But before that, we find the most ancient, universal principle: Sanātana Dharma. This is not a man-made religion but a universal law, revealed through incarnations. The principle of love for all creatures is universal. Our guide, Bhagavān Śrīdīp Nārāyaṇa Mahāprabhujī, said: "Love each and every entity, if not more, then at least that much as much as you love thyself." Nearly five thousand, or even seven thousand, years ago, during the time of the Mahābhārata, the great hero Bhīṣma fought in the war. At the end of his life, as he lay on his deathbed, Yudhiṣṭhira came to him for wisdom. Bhīṣma revealed the supreme principle: "Ahiṃsā paramo dharma." Non-violence is the highest duty. You have no right to take a life if you cannot give one. There is no compromise in this wisdom, in this love, in this mercy. Whether an animal is free in a field or imprisoned in a cage before being killed, the sin is the same. In the 10th Commandment, it is written: "Thou shalt not kill." It does not specify; killing is killing, whether of a human or an animal. Much research and the words of Jesus's disciples indicate that Jesus was a vegetarian. There is only one instance in the scriptures where a goat was offered, but that was not His will; He was not happy about it. The Old Testament also instructs not to eat creatures that have eyes and legs. In Hinduism, the ancient scriptures describe creation over countless billions of years. It is said that among 8.4 million life forms, Jīva Jīva Bhakṣate—life eats life. How then can we be liberated from this sin? Therefore, the Creator made one being—the human—and gave us intellect, buddhi, to think: "Thou shalt not kill." Humans should not eat humans or animals. For humanity, there is food: grains, vegetables, and fruit. People came to Jesus for healing, and it is written that He said: "You people are ill because you don’t eat what you should eat, and you are eating what you should not eat. Do not eat the animals; eat the grains which grow in the field." Fruits, nuts, and honey—these are the words of Jesus. But humans have weak willpower and thoughtlessly order meat. No religion should accept this. Let us consider Islam. Prophet Muhammad was a strict vegetarian. A story is told that once he was served a dish of pumpkin (or squash) and mutton. Muḥammad Ṣāḥib pushed the meat aside and ate only the vegetable. When asked why, he said: "You should not kill and eat them. The goats, with their legs, in the next life will step on you." Ahiṃsā is paramount. Humans have a heart for feeling and a mind for thinking. Whatever you do will return to you and fill your heart. If I take a chicken into my garden, feed it, and give it water, it is no longer just an animal—it is my child. A chick or a kitten is beautiful; it follows you. Can you imagine then catching it and chopping off its head? The greatest sin is to cut the neck of a living creature. God will not forgive you. There is no borderline, no compromise here. The result of such eating is the suffering we see in the world. Consider this image: a man stands by a beautiful blue lake, fishing. He throws a hook baited with a worm. An innocent creature is trapped by this trick. The fish swallows it, and the man pulls the hook from its throat. Imagine having something stuck in your own throat. The fish feels the same pain. It is not a question of human versus animal, nor merely of death, but of that agony. That fish dies every half-second from the pain. It suffers, its mouth opening as if to say, "What have I done to you? Please, cruel one, put me back." Every action has a reaction. Who knows? In the next life, you may be that fish, for karma returns without fail. An experiment was conducted in the Soviet Union around 1970-1973. A rabbit had three babies. After a few days, the babies were taken to separate locations, hundreds of kilometers apart. When one baby was killed, the mother's heartbeat raced; she was sad, nervous, and scared. The same reaction occurred when the second was killed. When they finally killed the mother, the sole surviving baby became nervous and refused to drink. This shows that animals, too, feel deep love and attachment for their children. Our grandmaster, Devapurījī, was once walking through the desert toward his ashram. A man coming from the opposite direction, carrying a large basket, hid it in a bush when he saw the saint approaching from afar. Devapurījī greeted him and asked, "What did you hide there in the bush?" The man replied, "Lord, nothing." "Why do you lie?" said Devapurījī. "I know everything. You killed innocent birds. I even know how many are inside. Why did you commit this sin?" The man said, "I am poor, just trying to feed my children, my family." Devapurījī responded, "You think of your children, but did you think of the children of these birds? In the nest, little babies wait with their pink mouths open, expecting their mother to return and feed them. You did not think of those children. Bring the basket here." The man brought the large basket filled with dead birds, big and small. Devapurījī kicked the basket, and all the birds came back to life and flew away. Devapurījī said to them, "Quickly go home; your children are waiting," and they flew off in all directions. We see a similar beautiful spirit in Holy Saint Francis of Assisi. His heart was with the animals; there was no killing. He could talk to them, and they approached him freely. The time has come to awaken people. I would rather starve to death than put the meat of a killed animal in my mouth. If you can do the same, you become a great worker and lover of animals. They are beautiful beings—like ponies with lovely hair and strong bodies. These horses, they love you. Part 2: The Cry of the Voiceless Who is breeding them? They are put into trucks, trolleys, tractors, large trucks, or trains and then sold. You sell them like your tomatoes. You sell them like your apples. But your horse is not your apple, my dear. The horse comes near you, loves you. He or she holds your hair like this, and then—not even with a gun—with the pressure of a nail, an air gun, the nail goes into the forehead of the horse, and he just falls down. You think he died? No. You think he doesn’t feel pain? No, he feels the pain. He did not die. It is not easy, my dear. Life leaves the body immediately when the prāṇa, the life energy, departs. It is like someone is pulling the skin. When you are alive after witnessing all this, it is said, "Oh man, you look nearly like a god. You have intellect, you have heart, you have understanding." How could you do this to this poor animal? I saw one video. They were transporting animals from Europe to somewhere in the Middle East by a large ship. Because they do not have cool rooms so big, it is better to transfer living animals so they do not have to preserve the meat in cool rooms. Then, when they arrive at the port, they unload them from the ship with a crane. The crane comes with a chain; they hook it into their horns and place them on a conveyor belt, which runs and brings them to the slaughterhouse. Or they catch one leg, and the entire large cow is carried by the crane on a rail going to where it will be killed. One bull tried, and from there he fell down; he broke his back leg. An animal can walk on three legs, but if the back leg is broken, the animal cannot. He was falling down, they were beating him; falling down, they were beating him. I saw this video, I am telling you. Now he cannot walk. He stands up, and his leg is broken. Again he falls. They used a stick with electricity. Again, he falls down half a meter. Half a meter this side. It was only five meters; he had to be there. Very cruel. They saw an iron rod, a big iron rod used for concrete. They pulled it into the anus of the bull so that he would feel pain and move further. Finally, the animal was as if crying. You will never see the tears, but you could see the tears; his tongue was hanging, fanning. He was coming out of the list, and he was completely exhausted—a beautiful, strong black bull. And that man, hired to move him a little, turned his head to the other side because it was heavy. He took his index finger, pulled at the eye of the bull, and scratched him there so he would move. The person who made the video said he could not help. The last thing he could do: he had a mineral water bottle. He poured a little water into the mouth of the... Oh man, is that your meal? Yes. Yathā annam tathā manaḥ, yathā manaḥ tathā vāṇī, yathā vāṇī tathā karma, yathā karma tathā phalam. As is your food, so will be your mind and energy, your body. Therefore, it is its survey power to sukhinaḥ. All should be happy—all, all creatures. In Hinduism, it is strictly said: thou shalt not kill. Ahiṃsā paramo dharma. In yoga, in Rājayoga, yama and niyama. First, what comes? Ahiṃsā, non-violence. And Mahātmā Gandhi preached ahiṃsā, non-violence, his entire life. Physical, emotional, mental, intellectual, social—no torturing anyone. Another thing: if an earthquake will take place, we do not know. But animals know—dogs know, cats know, cows know. They become very nervous, but we humans, we sleep. And when it begins to move, it is, "Oh God, what is that?" And it falls on you; the animals are already gone. So it means that some days before, the animal comes to know that it will be killed, that it will be a victim. What happens when someone tells you, in five days you will get a life sentence, you will be hanged or electrocuted? It means you have to die in five days. What will be your psychic condition? Will you think of your wife or husband? Will you think of your money? Will you think of your house? No. Only one thought: how to survive. The greatest fear we have is the pain from dying at that time in our body. All the gland systems, the glands begin to produce hormones full of fear and anxiety. And this fear is spread throughout the whole body. An animal is killed, and it had to go through this, unfortunately. But the fear remains in the flesh. And those who will consume this flesh, that fear will go into their gland systems and body, with the food and that nutrition. And that is why now the world is consuming more and more meat, and they are all afraid of religions. They are all afraid of many things and to know their Self. They run away from their life on the surface. And unfortunately, many who work for the religions also cannot support people to instruct them to be vegetarian. Do not tell me you have a choice. Either I love the animals, or I do not love the animals. Therefore, you have studied many, many things, many religions, but I am a religion myself. I am not a religious person, but I am a religion through and through. So, I tell you, do not do it. Now it is up to you, whether you do it or not. So, I do not give the choice. Here is this, and here is this. What is your choice? No. If you eat this, you will have stomach pain. If you eat this, you will have a headache. If you eat this, you will have diarrhoea. And if you eat this, you will be tainted. So what do you want? Ahiṃsā paramo dharma. Thou shalt not kill. Every creature is afraid of death. And be sure that you have to go through this whole process in the next life. So theory is not practice, and without practice there is no experience, and without experience there is no realization, and without that realization you cannot come to this light of wisdom to know. I had something different in my mind to speak, but today, because our dear Christine brought a nice message and her heart was full of love, how she spoke for the protection of the animals. And I wish her, especially, and her organization a great success, but they should put inside the prime choice. We suggest vegetarian. Thank you. I am with you. I am in your organization. I am there. I do not criticize. I just give a suggestion. But what does the animal mean? The animal becomes your brother. I have many horses in my ashram. They are such loving horses. Now, there are quite a few, and it is difficult to take care of them, and some people would like to buy them for riding. But I am so attached to them, I cannot sell them. They are like my children, my disciples. And I have 600 cows now, 600. And now, just now, yesterday, I got a telephone call about 60 cows will be... Very soon, giving birth to the calves. And these calves, they are so beautiful. Their ears, big and beautiful, big eyes—oh, you just would like to embrace them, so beautiful. My heart would not allow me that after feeding them, giving them milk, taking care of them, and now, okay, we can slaughter them? That means my own children, my own brothers and sisters. Have a holy heart, what you call Jesus’s heart, is a holy heart. That heart humans have, and humans should have that mercy of God in the heart. Then the animals will bless you. So it is wrong to say, "My chickens are in the field and happy, giving eggs. My cows are in the mountain grazing. They are not tortured now, so we can kill our cow." No. Nowadays, even it means I stopped. And nowadays, people are talking about this, even about milk? We humans became so greedy. Mahatma Gandhi said, "Mother Earth has enough for everyone’s need, but not for their greed." What do you need? A handful of rice and a glass of water, that is all. Oh man, eating is just to survive, to meditate, and to realize God and love all creatures. A handful of rice, a glass of water, that is enough for your surviving. No, I want to have five million dollars now. I want to have a hundred millions now. My target for companies are with two billions. Can you eat two billions? Then you have five billions, and the doctor tells you, "Sir, you have diabetes, you are a heart patient, this and that. You should not eat this, you should not eat this, you should not eat this. Only eat this and this." What are you going to do with your five billions? Donate the five billions for all the cows, and the goats, and cats, and dogs, which are just running somewhere and have nothing, or give it to poor people and poor children. Since money came, human became crazy. And that is what, again, I want to tell you what Jesus said, because he has spoken a lot about Christianity, and you have forgotten about Hindus. So next time you must talk about Hinduism. Thank you very much. And it is what I want to tell, forgotten: money. When the people were gambling with the gold outside of the temples, with the golden calf of the bull, they thought this gold is everything. And Jesus said, "Do not believe in this wrong god. Believe in me. What I am telling, I am the way to the Father." Who said this? To whom? He said to his disciples. This is a guru ākhyā. The master is telling the disciples. The whole Bible, what we call, is a gospel. Gospel means the master taught to the disciples. We call the gospel as Upaniṣad. Up means near. Śiṣya means the disciple. The disciple sitting near the master and listening to wisdom. So the Jīja said to his disciples, "Do not believe in these wrong gods," meaning the gold and money. "Believe in me. I am the way to the Father." Believe the Gurudev. The Gurudev is the way to God. But that we forgot. Such things we put out, like stones from the rice before cooking. And so, you know, Christianity was based on a simple and poor life. In the beginning of the last centuries, let us say about two or three centuries, humans tried to get more and more business. Otherwise, Christians were very simple and lived a very poor life. Even it is said, suffering means not torturing others, not taking from others away. Whatever you have, just live with this simple life, hard life. Jesus did not say you should have gun factories, you should have this factory and that. Look to Jesus on the cross, just looking like a Gandhijī, who had only one lungi, and Jesus had also this one lungi or dhoti. Let Jesus be our idol, that where we can meditate and think and learn from his life to love all—love your... Next means not your husband and wife or your neighbor. This neighbor, after you, all creatures, love them. Then you will be the divine. It is not easy, my dear, to come to the God consciousness or to the heaven or to be there. Therefore, there is no compromise in quality. There is no compromise in the knowledge, no compromises. The truth remains ever truth. Evidence will never die, and therefore Mahātmā Gandhījī said, "The peace begins from your own heart, and the charity begins from your own home." First milestone, first step you should make, and therefore Gurujī said that Mahāprabhujī was telling, "If you are five meters far from me, I am also five meters far from you. Learn to make the steps towards others, then they will come." And so, let us make a step towards the protection of the animals. Animals are our brothers and sisters, and we love them very, very much, and we should protect them, and we should look after them, and let them die naturally, not that you kill, and do not kill, especially because you want to eat them. Love them. Feed them, do not eat them. Sorry if some of my words were too strong, but the reality, the truth, is very hard to digest. We can digest anything, but we cannot digest the truth. On the day when we will digest the truth, then we will be the greatest on this. And truth is that, for example, now we are all happy, and some telephone call comes and tells, unfortunately, your father died in an accident. Where is our happiness gone? Immediately we are sad. You got the truth, the knowledge. Before, you did not have the knowledge about that. But now you got the message, you could not digest this. Evidence will never die, and therefore it is. There was a story the rabbi told me, and I would like to tell you the story. When we have the multi-religious dialogues, then many, many friends come. And one rabbi, his name is Sotendorf, a Brian from Holland. And the story was like this. You see, very nicely, here is sitting, I think, one rabbi brother, no? Yes, the two religions on this planet who do not do the missionary are Judaism and Hinduism, am I right or wrong, sir? Thank you, because they respect others and let them believe as they believe, help them to believe. And what we have? Many common, many, many stories, same like we have. In our Purāṇas and Upaniṣads, there also we had beautiful dialogues. In New Delhi, with the chief rabbi of Israel, and also in this winter, there was in Israel a dialogue between Hinduism and Judaism. The stories like this are always very beautiful stories, and laughing and this and that, a joy should be there too. So one religious teacher came to the school. They were children about five to six years or seven years. And one, this religious teacher said to kids, "Today I have some surprise. Yes, I have five dollars in my pocket. I want to give you this five dollars." One child got up and said, "Yes, please." "Say no, no..." Man, still not. I have one question. Who will answer this question will get the correct answer, will get the five dollars. Yes, sir, can you tell me where is God? So, in my father, in my mother, you know, once in my cat. "Children love animals," once said in church or in the temple. He said, "No." And one child got up and said, "Sir, unfortunately, I have no five dollars in my pocket, but I can do something for you which is worth about five dollars, sir. Can you?" Answer us, "Where is no God? What are your parents doing?" He said, "My parents are doing yoga in their life, so there is no God." Everywhere is God. So, anyhow, the question was this about love, inner peace for the outer peace, ahiṃsā paramo dharma, non-violence. It is the highest, and all religions begin with non-violence. Slowly, slowly, we try to modify, like yoga. Now in America, there are so many kinds of yoga, you cannot imagine: this yoga and that yoga and yoga and... Their life, and many, many, finally, there is only one. That yoga, there are so many religions, but in reality, there is only religion, that is one, that the truth, but different way how you go. So, for a... Human is very important to understand and give the love and have mercy in the heart. Sorry. So with this, I wish you all the best. God bless you, and let us open our heart to all creatures. Sarve bhavantu sukhinaḥ, sarve santu nirāmayāḥ. Happy all creatures. No one should be unhappy. No one should suffer. No one should have pain. And in the prayers about peace: peace on the earth, peace in the water, peace in the vegetation, peace in the herbs. Peace in the atmosphere, peace in the cosmic consciousness, and peace within me. Peace, peace, peace. What a great prayer for the entire universe and everything, all kinds of creation and elements, that will open the door to God consciousness. For today, that is enough. Wish you all the best, and therefore turn your life to the vegetarian. Our adoration and salutation, our respect and love to all holy incarnations on this. Our respect and adoration to all the religions, and our faith and dedication to all the holy books of this globe. God may bless us with positive thoughts and with great wisdom. Peace, peace.