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By Dusyanta Dasa<\/strong><\/p>\n Because the project of Cow Protection does not work as it should in Iskcon each year the subject of violence in the dairy industry is brought up. The idea and conclusion of Cow protection is to supply the members of Iskcon cow protected milk for spiritual sustenance, milk is described as a miracle food and helps to bring the mode of goodness to our gates of our bodies. It\u2019s very important to illuminate the nine gates of the body by the mode of goodness to be able to progress in spiritual life as explained by Srila Prabhupada in Bhagavad-gita As It Is Chapter 14 Text 11. In the mode of goodness one can see things in the right position, one can hear things in the right position, and one can taste things in the right position. <\/p>\n Cows milk from protected cows brings so many facilities to the devotee it’s practically immeasurable, and the concept of cow protection within the Iskcon definition brings so much benefit to cows and devotees but Iskcon has not been able to take advantage of those benefits for the members of Iskcon. The idea of cow protection has many levels of understandings and applications to communities of devotees. The whole simple living ethos is based on cow protection, farming the land with minimum violence and self \u2013sufficient goals in the context of the mode of goodness lifestyle.<\/p>\n The whole subject of violence within the dairy industry was the basis for spawning the alternate diet of vegans. Rather than embracing the positive instructions of cow protection by following the universal aspects of the definitions and goals of cow protection an alternative diet was sought. Bearing in mind the rather narrow criteria of considering violence in the dairy industry as an exclusive situation that is not applicable to any other type of farming, food production and horticultural enterprise the Iskcon conclusions are debated practically on a yearly basis.<\/p>\n Because Iskcon\u2019s policy on executing the system of cow protection was so badly applied to the members of Iskcon there is no hope of supplying the members of Iskcon with cow protected milk. So devotees thought through this system and came up with the alternate diet of vegans thinking this diet includes no violence or less violence and is a preferable diet to the mode of goodness food, milk. Within this decision many scriptural criteria were not taken into consideration and the ethos of non-violence not really understood in practical terms. To counteract violence in the dairy industry we can follow at least two principles of action. We can boycott supporting the capitalistic principle of milk production from non protected cows or positively we can practice cow protection as it is intended. If we follow cow protection properly then every devotee world wide should be able to access that milk by choice rather than not by default.<\/p>\n In other words if Iskcon follows the proper criteria for cow protection all devotees would have the choice to access minimum-violent cow protected milk as authorized by the Vedic injunctions. Cow protection in its most efficacious form is the central basis for all devotees to solve all the economic problems of life but Iskcon has not been able to demonstrate that model to date. All the cow protection projects in Iskcon fail to achieve that model and symbiotic relationship with devotees in the community dynamic that solves all the economic problems of life and facilitates the mode of goodness in spade fuls.<\/p>\n Another really important principle that has been falsely introduced into our cow protection projects is the \u201cnon violent\u201d verbiage. Because the cow protection projects have not been able to live up to the expectations that cow protection promises then the marketing of cow protection has had to present itself by the concept of \u201cnon-violence\u201d so as to make out it is something it most certainly is not. There is no concept as non violence in any agricultural, horticultural and food production activity. That concept is not only not supported by scriptural references but is a speculative concept in a capitalistic marketing ploy to sell milk as a commodity rather than to supply milk for devotees\u2019 consumption.<\/p>\n With reference to Srila Prabhupada\u2019s Srimad Bhagavatam Canto 3 Chapter 29 Text 15 entitled Explanation of Devotional Service as spoken by Lord Kapiladeva to His mother. Here we find the genuine answer to the debate to the mysterious non violent application to agricultural products, food. In the actual Text 15 the word used to describe the type of violence a devotee is allowed to make whilst performing devotional activities is \u201cnatihimsrena\u201d not \u201cahimsa\u201d. This means \u201cminimum violence\u201d not \u201cno violence\u201d. And in the purport there is a great explanation all about eating food within this framework of violence.<\/p>\n One particular line is an answer to a posed question;<\/p>\n \u201cYou ask us not to eat meat, but you are eating vegetables. Do you think that is not violence?\u201d<\/p>\n Srila Prabhupada writes;The answer is that eating vegetables is violence, and vegetarians (and therefore Vegans) are also committing violence against other living entities because vegetables also have life.<\/p>\n Of course Srila Prabhupada further clarifies this matter but does not change this principle that \u201ceating vegetables is violence\u201d. So for Agriculture and any type of food production there is the inherent principle of violence and by being a vegan or vegetarian does not take you out of this principle. Ahimsa in agriculture is a myth and the best a devotee and Iskcon can claim genuinely is to minimize that violence. The debate about becoming non violent by adopting veganism is inappropriate and actually adds to the violence of the dairy industry because they don\u2019t positively support cow protection and cow protected lifestyles. Vegans just support the capitalistic principles of food production through synthetic fertilizers where as cow protection practiced properly is a holistic self contained principle where all fertilizer comes from the cows themselves. <\/p>\n Devotees only choice in the matter of violence in agriculture is to perfect the principle of cow protection so they have all their dairy products from minimum violent sources. Just by eating any bhoga produced from capitalistic and organic origins means supporting violence in the extreme. The only true way of escaping violence is to produce all our own food by way of cow protection where tractors are not used, chemical pesticides are not used, chemical herbicides are not used, dead animal based organic fertilizers are not used and abuse and exploitation don\u2019t exist. Otherwise being vegan or vegetarian means violence. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The whole subject of violence within the dairy industry was the basis for spawning the alternate diet of vegans. Rather than embracing the positive instructions of cow protection by following the universal aspects of the definitions and goals of cow protection an alternative diet was sought. Bearing in mind the rather narrow criteria of considering violence in the dairy industry as an exclusive situation that is not applicable to any other type of farming, food production and horticultural enterprise the Iskcon conclusions are debated practically on a yearly basis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cow-protection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12510\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"http:\/\/dandavats.com\/wp-content\/uploads4\/2014-04-12_12-16-45.jpg\"\/)
By Dusyanta Dasa<\/strong><\/p>\n