I dont know how many people have heard about this but at the Hare Krishna Temple in Watford UK a cow was killed by the RSPCA. I dont know that much about it... I did see Gangotri though, a while back... Didnt seem ill to me except she couldnt walk... But then again i wont have been able to see her well. Whats everyones veiws about it? this is the link to their site : http://www.justiceforgangotri.org/
It depends on why the cow was killed. If it was incurably ill and suffering, it was probably the kindest thing. I couldn't actually find any info on that on the site you posted.
http://www.justiceforgangotri.org/2007/12/21/are-we-men-or-beasts/ This is the main bit about what actually happened i think. There is an eyewitness account as well on the site but thats a video and i havent seen it.
Theres more in the newsletter but thats a pdf. http://krishnatemple.com/others/newsletters/dec_2007.pdf
OK - it says the cow was suffering and had infected sores. It would not have recovered from this, so probably putting it down was the kindest course. Of course, it could have just been left to suffer - in which case it might well have experienced a slow and painful end. Once again here we see a clash of cultures. The average western person would not probably see much wrong in putting down a sick cow, and would in fact think it was an act of compassion.
I can understand how people may think it is "putting it out of its misery", but when you look at it from the perspective of Hindu religion- the action is equivalent to murder. I mean the cow has the right to live like any other living being. Who are we to say that it needs to die because it is suffering? If cow could understand they were going to kill it, it would have probably run away.
Oh you don't mean to say I control the cosmos, i am sorry, I do not want the job, I will leave it to my God. There is the lord only, I am merely His servant.
Yes. whether we realize it or not, we are simply his puppets. All our actions are his, whether we hate Him, love Him, not recognize His existence, it is He who wishes to place all such thoughts and actions into us. We are not our own, but His. Maya is my mother. He is the father. This creation is His house.
And since everything is the dance of God, there is nothing out of place in the euthanising of a sick cow. Mercy-killing is not against Hinduism at all, since it cannot be considered himsa. And anyway, who died? If everything is the dance of God, who died and who killed them and who witnessed that and protested it?
Then if everything is the dance of God, a doctor can kill a patient to get rid of his suffering? ha! if you can't kill a human being for the same reasons, you can kill a cow? why? because it doesn't know how to object? Ha! things are not that easy to ignore. Bhaskar, although we may disagree with a condition or the type of life one is given due to one's karma, it does not give one the right to interfere with one's opportunity to experience the fruits of one's actions. The only one who can interfere is God, not you , not me, even if we have the power to do so. Helping people is different, helping the cow be a little comfortable, helping the patient in the hospital be a little pain free, this is something we can do, but life is not something to take.
But Jedi, if a doctor treats a patient and saves them from a life threatening condition, surely that too is interference? The only way around that would be to say that both the disease and the doctor's cure were the karma of the patient. I think the same applies with mercy killing of animals. It was the karma of the cow to be born in a country where vetinary medicine is available, and part of that is termination of the incurably suffering. I'd better say that myself, I am in favour of 'assisted suicide' for those who are extremely ill and don't want to go on. This is illegal in the UK so every year we have a number of cases where people go to Switzerland where it is legal. Just as side note - my gt.grandmother was a midwife, and told my mother that back in the 1920's euthanasia of deformed or sub-normal babies was carried on sureptitiously by many doctors.
There are cases where the best treatment plan fails to keep the patient alive, that is karma. There is no guarantee that the medication will be successful. If you are saying that it is patient's good karma that he/she has found a doctor who knows how to fix the problem and gets the problem fixed, then yes... that is part of the patient's karma, but when you turn the situation around, if the patient doesn't find the doctor who is fit to fix the problem then the patient dies, then that too is his/her karma. We can say that prarabdha karma to be experienced in this life has ended for that individual in both cases. But if the patient thinks that he can escape the pain by ending the life early and kills himself, he still has some karma left over. When you end the life of a certain individual abruptly then you prevent them from going through the necessary physical suffering/happiness. It is wrong to kill a person after he becomes rich and now has the power to enjoy all the comforts of a happy life. Similarly, it is also equally wrong to kill a person when that person has the chance of losing bad prarabdha karma acquired in the past. By interfering like that, the killers are sinners.
If everything is karma, then again nobody kills nobody - it is the person's karma to die at the hands of the doctor or veterinarian. Nobody can ever die or be killed until they have experienced everything thy were meant to experience in that particular body. And when they have experienced that which was to be experienced, lived out the prarabdha, there is nothing anyone can do to keep them alive.
"The entire Vietnam war was in reality the consequence of meat eating" acbs iskcon has a different conception of reality
ditto, from accounts i have read, this cow was very sick and now has gone onto the Happy Grazing Grounds
Karma simply is the result of past actions. it is based on one's actions. Doctor has to suffer the karmic reaction of having to take another's life, just as the doctor will enjoy the result of saving another's life.
