Let me speak on this one subject. If you were at our movie on Tuesday, it was about a vegetarian diet and how it is scientifically proven that the vegetarian diet, which is the yoga diet, is the diet for humans. In that movie there is a point made that contradicts the teachings of the Vedas, being followers of the Vedas, we don’t accept that part of the movie. The other night was short and we did not go into the explanation of this.
It is the idea of dairy products. In the movie and many nutritionists and food authorities teach that dairy products are not good for humans. They have their reasons for saying this, different experimentations and whatever. The Vedas, which are the absolute knowledge, say that milk is the good food for humans, dairy, or let’s say milk, from which come dairy products. The cow in Vedic teaching is considered one of our mothers.
In the Vedas it says that actually everybody has seven mothers. Of course the birth mother, and then the wife of the spiritual master, the wife of the king, the wife of the brahman, in the Vedic system brahmans are the priests, the nurse, mother-earth and the cow. These are our seven mothers, so the cow is included.
Therefore people may be confused if they hear information in this movie or wherever and then they read our Scriptures, “Wait a minute, something is wrong.” But let me elaborate a little bit.
The milk referred to in the Vedas is quite different than the milk of today. I would admit I am not totally familiar with the dairy industry in Kazakhstan. However I am very familiar with the dairy industry in America, and this is where this movie was made and indeed it is a very, very contaminated industry. The milk that comes from that industry is very contaminated. They inject the cows with hormones and chemicals to produce more milk. They keep them in totally tortured conditions, and have to give them antibiotics continuously to keep them alive. You see, so all of that is in the milk, the cows are filled with stress, fear, anxiety and all that goes into the milk.
The way it is supposed to be – the cow is one of our mothers, you take care of the cow like you do your mother. The cow was not a milk factory, it was a member of the family and they were taken care of her very well. They ate fresh green grass, which was chemical-free, drank clear pure water from the streams, and were milked by hand by the farmer who knew them very well. There was a personal relationship between the farmer and the cow. You see, so the milk was filled with happiness, it was mother’s milk. Now the milk is filled with fear and stress, a completely different substance.
I was raised on a farm and we had milk cows. Actually my father had one milk cow, we got a personal use cow and they knew each other very well. The cow would be off in the forest somewhere or in the pasture and my dad walked out and called the cow (calls). I don’t know where she came from… her name was Dally: here comes Dally. It was about six thirty in the morning and she just came and walked into the bar and stood right in the stable. Dad would pat her on the back and give her a little food so she had something to eat while she was there. Then he would milk her and she just let the milk down so to speak. So she was happy, he was happy. Then the milk comes over and she goes back. It was completely different and Dally lived to be about 15 – 16 or 17 years old – the average life span for a cow.
Dairy cows today live for a maximum of three years and then their old worn out three-year-old body is used in the meat industry. You see, they never eat grass, they usually feed them corn and things that cows are not supposed to eat. So anyway this is the idea and there is so much karma involved in this whole thing. Mistreating and killing cows is the heaviest karma outside of the humans. But people don’t know these things; they don’t care.