Cow Protection and Agriculture | SB 01.17.15 | 15 Feb 2004 | Nairobi | Srila Gopal Krishna Goswami

Om namo bhagavate vasudevaya! Om namo bhagavate vasudevaya! Om namo bahgawathee vaasudevaaye! Om namoh Bhagwathi Vasudevayee... Anagas viha bhuteshu yagas kinnarankusha arthasmi bhujam sakshat amarthyasya api sangadam. So Maharaj Parikshit is the speaker of this verse, and Maharaj Parikshit over here is addressing the innocent bull and cow in the previous verses of this chapter, we have seen that King Parikshit, King Parikshit was actually the emperor of the whole planet. Today you have so many countries, isn't it? And within each country there are so many leaders. But at one— in the Vedic days there was only one principal ruler for the whole world, and then there were junior kings who owed their allegiance to the supreme king. So Parikṣit Mahājāja considered himself to be a representative of the Lord. And Parikṣit Mahājāja was from a great family. He was known as Parikṣit. Because he was constantly meditating on the Lord. When he was in the womb of his mother, there was a brahmāstra released by Asvatthama in the hopes that the child in the womb of Uttara would get killed. Uttara is the name of his mother. And The Lord responded to Uttara's prayers as she saw the Brahmastra heading towards her womb, and the Lord who is in everyone's heart as the Paramatma, we discussed this last night, He just expanded Himself and protected the child and the mother's womb. For a fraction of a second, Prasada Maharaj had the opportunity to see the form of the Lord. And ever since that moment, he was constantly meditating on that form. And even when he came out of his mother's womb, he would be comparing every face that he saw to the face of what he saw in the mother's womb. He wanted to see if this looks like what I saw in my mother's womb. So Parikshit means examiner, and he was constantly examining everyone's face to see how it looked. So King Parikshit was an idol king. An idol king considers the entire population to be his jurisdiction. Now today, if I was to ask you, what is Kenya's population? What is Kenya's population? Is it 20 million? 60 million? 30 million. Okay. If I was to ask you, "What's the population of Kenya?" You'd say, "30 million." Because in our population figures, we only include the human beings, but we don't include the animals. No one ever does a census how many animals there are in Kenya, do they? No one does a census of how many animals there are in India because The animals are not considered worthy of protection. And amongst the animals, the most sacred are the cow and the bull. So according to the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the word prajā, prajā means population, so the word prajā implies both the human beings and the animals. The animals are nothing but the less intelligent children of God. Just like in a household, if a father has many children, one child may be smarter than the other. Sometimes you may have a situation where one child is handicapped. We can't go to the parents and say, "Okay, let's kill this handicapped child." So similarly, animals are the less intelligent children of God, and they are also worthy of protection. And amongst the animals, the most sacred are the cow and the bull. So Parikṣit Mahārāja was traveling in his kingdom, just like you see they had a America, President Bush, he goes to different countries around the world. So Prasadam Radha was travelling around on this planet, and as he was travelling, wherever he would go, he would be received very, very warmly. Today, whenever somebody goes, somebody may welcome him warmly, but there is somebody welcoming him with red flags also. When President Bush came to India, He got a warm welcome from the government, but there were the communists who were demonstrating with red flags. Recently, the Chinese President went to America. So the government gave him a warm welcome, but the Chinese refugees gave him a red flag welcome. So in any polls, no President wins by 100% majority. The President may get majority, landslide, but it's never 100%. But in King Parikshit's days, wherever he went, there was absolutely no opposition. He was being welcomed by people very, very warmly, and they would then sing praises of his ancestors, etc. So this was because King Parikshit was a worthy king. The Vedic system is spiritual monarchy, not just monarchy, but spiritual monarchy. Spiritual monarchy means the head of state considers himself to be a representative of the Lord, and he protects the citizens, he cares for the citizens, and he is a guardian for the citizens. Today we have heads of state, but they don't care at all for the citizens. They may give some nice slogan at election time, but they don't mean it, and the real goal is just to exploit the people. Is that right? That's all over the world. So, the cheaters and the cheated. But King Parikṣit, as he was traveling, he saw— that a personality, a sudra disguised as a king, was actually harming cow and a bull. The cow and the bull are the most important of the animals created by God. The cow represents the mother, the bull represents the father. Father. The cow is meant to be protected. The cow gives us milk, which is the most perfect food, and one can actually live just on milk. We have evidence that in the past, the great sages would live just off milk. Śrīkadeva Swāmī would travel to the homes of different householders. A sannyāsi may visit different household homes, but the purpose is to purify them. So Śrīkadeva Swāmī would travel to different household homes, and he would stay in each house only as long as it took time to milk. The cow. He would just live off milk. That's all. So there are so many sages who in the past have lived off milk. I remember a few years ago in America, the milk industry had an advertising campaign encouraging people to drink more milk. They were advertising the milk and saying, "Milk, the most complete food." So when they want to sell milk, they praise milk. And what's the source of the milk? It's the cow. But unfortunately, when the cow cannot give milk, it ends up in the slaughterhouse. So the cow milk is the most healthiest of all foods that one can consume. Even the material scientists acknowledge that. And the cow gives us that milk. And what does the cow take in return? Just grass. You feed grass to the cow and the output is milk. Just see God's creation. All that the cow asks for is simple grass. It doesn't ask for samosas, kachoris, and all that. You know, you may have a big wish list of a diet. The cow, simple grass., and in turn it gives you milk. Not only does it give you milk, even the by-products of the cow have immense value. Urine, cow's urine is healthy for the body. Cow's urine consumes— cow urine is a cure to so many diseases. Many of our ISKCON leaders also take fresh cow's urine. It's very, very healthy for the body. Recently I saw a doctor in November or December, that doctor specialized in cow's urine medicines. He said that they were making 95 different medicines from cow's urine, 95 different types of medicines for different diseases. Just from cow's urine. It's amazing, isn't it? So cow's urine cures diseases. Then the stool of the cow, the stool of the cow known as cow dung, is even purer than human stool. You flush away human stool, but you store cow stool. Cow stool contains antiseptic qualities. And cow stool is used for several purposes including cooking. In Mayapur we have a gobar gas plant. We derive gas from gobar. And the cow when it dies a natural death, the skin can be used for making rudanga. You make— you use cow skin only when it dies a natural death. So the cow is giving us service from beginning to end. And the bull, the bull takes care of agriculture. These days our scientists have invented the tractor. And what has happened because people are using tractors, even in India people use tractors. You don't use the bull. And so if they don't use the bull, they send them to the slaughterhouse. So the cow and the bull are meant to be protected by the head of state. The Vedic system is that the society must be divided into 4 varnas and 4 ashramas. Chatur varna maya system. Guna-karma-vibhagasahana. Society should be divided into four varnas and four āśramas. The four varnas are brahmin, śātriya, vaiśya, śudra. The four āśramas are brahmachari, grihastha, vānaprastha, sannyāsa. The vaiśya community, it is their business to protect the cow. And the śātryas, as opposed to do the administration, which includes protection of the weaker sections of society. But today what we have is the Sudras taking on the role of Kshatriyas. The Sudras, the baujis, with no knowledge of spiritual culture, they have assumed the position of kings, prime ministers, presidents, etc., isn't it? And they have no concept of protecting the cow and the bull. The Vaishyas, as Bhagavad-gītā explains in the 18th chapter, kṛṣṇa, are supposed to take care of farming, protection of the cows, agriculture business. But today the Vaishyas are also failing to discharge their duties. Kalau sudra samava, as it is said, by and large everyone in this age is of, well, is of sudra mentality. So the kings are not doing their duty and the Vaishyas are not doing their duty. A few days, a few weeks ago you celebrated Ram Naami, and in Lord Ramachandra's life you see that when He returned to Ayodhya from exile and when He started ruling over the planet with His capital base in Ayodhya, He was so concerned about the welfare of citizens that He would go in disguise and stand in front of people's houses to see if they have any complaints or not. This is the head of state's duty. So King Parikshit, he was traveling and he saw that a sudra, a low-class man disguised as a king, was hurting the leg of an innocent cow and a bull. So the cow As we said, gives us so many valuable gifts, and the cow must be protected. That is the duty of the head of state. Today we see even in India such large-scale killing of cows. They may have laws banning cow slaughter. Of course, there are two states in India that don't even have a law in Kerala banning cow slaughter. I was a few weeks ago in Kerala. We opened a new temple in Cochin. So I was in Kerala and they were telling me that even 80% of the Hindus in Kerala, they eat cows. You know, there is just widespread killing of cows. At least in some states they have a legal law, but in Kerala and Bengal they don't even have a law protecting cow, banning cow slaughter. And the governments, they are making slaughtering, slaughterhouses so they can slaughter the cows and make money. I read a while ago that a lot of cows from India end up in Bangladesh through the Bengal border. So they were thinking they should make a modern slaughterhouse in Bengal. So that they can save foreign exchange. They export the cows that eventually get slaughtered in Bangladesh. It's better we slaughter them in Bengal and export the beef so that they make more money. They are so cruel. They don't understand that if the cow is not protected, then society will not be protected. Today we see the whole world heading towards disaster. It's just a matter of time before you have a major outbreak of war again. There are already so many mini wars already going on in society. We see society running short of natural resources. We see society— so many turbulences are now coming. Just like you had the tsunami, you had this big disaster in New Orleans in America. We had earthquakes in Gujarat and in India, etc. What are the res— what causes these natural disasters? When these calamities happen, what do we say? Oh, God is so cruel. Why did God do the tsunami? Isn't it? God is so cruel. Why is there drought? God is so cruel. Why is there earthquake? God is not cruel. God is all merciful, compassionate. But the laws of nature are such that when you violate the laws of God, there will be calamities. That's the law of nature. Just like if a judge punishes a murderer to capital punishment, it doesn't mean the judge is cruel. The judge is just executing. The laws of the state. So similarly, the laws of nature are such, when the cow is not protected, the bull is not protected, the religious principles are not enforced, then material nature retaliates and hits hard. So the laws of God have to be followed. Now King Parikṣit, he was traveling and he saw that The bull and the cow were offenseless, honest. They were being attacked. And King Parikṣit said that offenseless beings must be protected. And if the dishonest miscreants are not handled thoroughly, then the innocent people automatically suffer. Just like in today's society, you see The criminals are hardly dealt with. You may say that the prison houses are full, but the prison houses are full of small-time criminals. The big-time criminals or the professional criminals, they are not touched by society, they are not touched by the police force, because they all have a vested interest. And as a result, innocent people in society are also suffering, isn't it? So, for King Parikṣit, considered that now he must act. He must act to protect the cow and the bull, and he must take severe action on the culprit. So, in today's verse, King Parikṣit is saying, an abhastha living being, Who commits offenses by torturing those who are offenseless shall be uprooted by me. So here King Parashurama is saying that a crook who is torturing innocent people, he will be dealt with very severely by the king. The Manu Samhita gives us very strict laws. And the Manusmritas say that if a criminal is not punished, then he has to take on far more suffering in his future birth. For example, a murderer. A murderer must be hanged because if a murderer is not hanged, if he doesn't face the punishment in this life, then in future the punishment will be far more severe. So, King Parīkṣit here is giving us an example of the mentality of the head of state. The head of state must be God-conscious. Prabhupāda said this knowledge of the Bhāgavad-gītā is for the saintly kings. Kṛṣṇa says in the 4th chapter, ivām parapara-praptaṁ imāñyājo śrī viduḥ, This knowledge came down through the saintly kings. It came to Vivasvan, then Manu, the father of mankind, and gradually came to King Iksvaku. King Iksvaku was the ruler of the planet who ruled at the commencement of Treta Yuga, and later on Lord Ram appeared in his dynasty. So the head of state must be educated in God consciousness. And if the head of state is educated in God consciousness, then he will act like King Parikṣit is acting. So King Parikṣit here is saying that anyone who commits an offence by torturing an offenceless person shall be dealt with very thoroughly by me. Even if it is a denizen of heaven who may be considered to be deathless. Now actually, as Prabhupāda explains in the purport, nobody is deathless, isn't it? Even Lord Brahmā is not deathless. Even when Hiranyakāśipu approached Brahmā for a benediction that he may never have to die, Brahmā clearly told him, "I can't give you that benediction. Even I have to die." Brahma's duration of life is also limited, though from our material angle it appears unlimited. Brahma lives for 311 trillion and 40 billion years. Can you calculate that? 311 trillion and 40 billion of our earthly years. And then Brahma also has to die. So here King Parikṣit is saying that even if you are a denizen of heaven, Now Prabhupāda explains that the denizens of heaven are sometimes called amāra, or deathless. Now this doesn't mean that they never die. It just means that they have a very long duration of life. 6 months of our earthly planet is equal to 12 hours of the heavenly planets. So one day here is equal to their 24 hours. That's all. So you can see that the denizens of heaven have a long duration of life, but eventually even they have to die. So what King Parikṣit is saying is that even if you are a denizen of heaven, even if you are considered to be deathless, 'If you punish, if you misbehave with an innocent creature, then I am going to punish you.' So the point is, the head of state must be so bold that the culprit is brought to action. Today everybody all over the world talks about corruption, etc., immorality. Corruption is there because nobody is ever punished. Nobody is punished. The head of state, the crook, the politician is not punished, the police is not punished, nobody is punished. So punishment, corruption goes on. Whereas the duty of the king is to give protection to law-abiding citizens and to chastise those who deviate from the scriptures. This is very clearly established in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. In the 5th canto of the Bhāgavatam, there is a description of the hellish planets. There is a description of the heavenly planets and hellish planets. There are 28 hellish planets and there are different types of punishment for different types of crime. It's not that the judge sentences everyone equally. Is that right? The judge gives a different sentence based on the crime you have committed. If you have a parking violation, you may get a ticket of few shillings. If you murdered someone, then you're liable to a heavier punishment. So similarly, there are different hellish planets for different crimes. And for example, if you're the head of state and you don't discharge your duties in a responsible manner, as it is being explained in the pages of the Bhāgavatam. Then after death, you have to go to a planet where you are squeezed through a machine, just like a sugarcane is squeezed through a machine. You, you know, sugarcane to extract juice, you put it through a machine and then the juice comes out. So that's the type of punishment that awaits those who get elected to a governmental position or a position of responsibility and do not discharge it properly. The Bhagavad Gita says, if you are a father or a mother and you don't discharge your duty in educating them spiritually,, you become liable. If you are a guru and you don't give a disciple proper instruction, you become liable. If you are a political head and you don't give proper guidance, then you become responsible. So King Parikṣit is making it clear that because this personality, disguise of the king, is misbehaving, and misusing his position. Therefore, he is liable for punishment. So we must protect the cow and the bull. And the cow lives in an atmosphere of fear. You go in to touch the cow, the cow runs away. We have experience in our ISKCON goshalas, that when the cows were first brought into our goshala, they were so scared. Anyone would approach them, they would run away because they lived in that fear. But then when they saw the devotees were very loving, they would come and pat them and there was no threat to their life, then they started responding in a friendly manner. But initially, because they live in an atmosphere of fear, it's not that the animals don't have fear. The animal, when he sees that someone is trying to kill him, he runs for his life. You lift a stick and the dog runs away, isn't it? You stand there and the cow runs and the cat runs away. You have— you throw sugar, the ants will come running towards the sugar. But the moment they see that someone there with a hand or with your body, they turn around and run away. So the animals are also endeavouring for protection when they see fear to their lives. This is the law of nature. And the cows, and the cow and the bull today, they are living in an atmosphere of fear, where the cows are being slaughtered. And the bulls are being slaughtered. They are being slaughtered because the heads of state are not recognizing that animals are the less intelligent children of God. They are being slaughtered because we don't recognize the paramount importance of these two animals. So the cow and the bull should be protected. And if the cow and the bull is protected, then what happens? Then society is peaceful. Then society is prosperous. Then material nature will cooperate with you. Just like we see in the prayers of Queen Kunti, she says, "How the rivers are full of water, the earth is full of grains." The trees are full of fruits. Why? Because of your merciful plants. Because the Supreme Lord was being merciful. Why? Because the entire population was God-conscious. Kṛṣṇa. In Bhāgavatam you read that there was once a demonic ruler called King Vena. King Vena was very arrogant, proud. He considered that he was equal to Viṣṇu. So he stopped the Brahmanas from doing their sacrifices. He stopped all religious rituals and he called the Brahmanas prostitutes. He said, "I am taking care of you and instead of worshipping me, you are worshipping Vishnu." So as a result, material nature went on strike. The rivers became dry. Like today you see the rivers are turning dry. In many— and you go to India, you see the water levels are extremely low level. Now in some parts like UP, even if you dig 300 feet, there is no water, whereas previously you get water at 50 feet digging. The rivers are turning dry, the oceans are turning dry, the grain— the earth is not producing enough grains, etc. So all this is happening because of demonic tendencies. So King Vena eventually was cursed, he died, and his son Prithu became the king. So when King Prithu became the king, he at once instructed the citizens to glorify the Supreme Lord. And as the Supreme Lord was glorified, the necessities of life became available. Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, anad bhavanti bhutani prajnanam na samava. Kṛṣṇa says food grains come as a result of rainfall. Rainfall comes as a result of religious sacrifice. So, if there is no religious sacrifice, there is no yagya, then there is no rainfall. And when there is no rainfall, there is no agriculture. You can have the best fertilizers of the world, You can have the best seeds of the world, but if there is no water, will it fructify? No. There is no technology in the world that you can have agricultural production without water. Water in the form of rain, water in the form of irrigation facility, water through the medium of dams, one of these mediums is necessary if you want agriculture. Is that right? And if you want rain, you must perform sacrifice. In the famous story of Govardhan Puja, Govardhan Hill, Krishna as a young child went to his father Nand Maharaja and said, "What is this sacrifice you are doing?" Nand Maharaja was a farmer. And even 5,000 years ago, Nand Maharaja as an idle farmer, he knew Farmers can only succeed if there is rainfall, and to get rainfall, we should worship Indra. He was doing Indra Yagya. So Nanmanaj thought that my young child will not be able to understand what am I doing. So he kept quiet. Then the young son insisted, and then the father said, Sir, we are farmers who are heavily dependent on rainfall, and there's a sacrifice being done for the pleasure of Indra so that Indra will reciprocate and give us rainfall. So then, so to summarize this verse, King Parikshit is making a very bold statement that somebody who commits an offense by torturing an innocent person must be punished. And if he's not punished, then the head of state takes on the reaction. When you kill an animal, several people get the karma: the person who kills, Naturally. The person who eats, naturally. The person who transports, naturally. The person who sells, naturally. And the person who gives permission to kill, he also gets the karma. So, you can be, if you are giving permission to these slaughterhouses to exist, then you also take on the share of karma. You know, sometimes you see vegetarian, Hindu vegetarians running meat restaurants. You know, I have seen that many times. He is a vegetarian, but his satsabh is running away a meat restaurant. So I often tell them, "You are taking on the karma." They say, "No, no, I don't eat, I don't cook. That's my managers who do it." So the young man is going to do it, but he still takes on the karma. The person who sells, the person who transports, the 5, it's a gang of 5 that gets a punishment for innocently killing animals. So to summarize the verse and purport, Parikṣita is pointing out that even if you are Deathly abhrajana of the heavenly planets. Still, if you misuse your position and try to punish the innocent, then you must face punishment. So that is real compassion. Real compassion is not when somebody's on the wrong path, you just blow over the boil and let them continue with what is wrong. Once Prabhupāda was giving a lecture, and as you know, Prabhupāda would use A little strong language sometimes like fools, rascals, this, that, swa— The Bhagavad-gītā also uses the word bura, which means fool and rascal. So there was an American lady in the audience who said, "Swāmiji, Swāmiji, you should not use, speak so strongly." So Prabhupāda said, "When you have a boil with pus inside, you blow the boil to get the pus out or do you press the boil?" Naturally, you have to press the boil if you want to pass out. So naturally, a sadhu has to speak the truth. It's not that when we preach God consciousness, we give the people a watered-down philosophy so that they will accept it. We give the truth, but of course we should give the truth in a palatable way so that the truth can be digested. If you give the truth in a harsh way,, it may be hard to digest. But if you give the truth in a palatable way, it may be more easily acceptable. But the principle of truth remains. So, Pariksit Maharaj here is giving the example of what a truthful head of state should be. And by reading the Bhagavatam, we can understand the duties of the head of state, we understand the duties of the praja, and we understand how people can be happy and prosperous. Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna.