fish below plants?
Philosophy · asked by user [] · 2008-06-24 · 3 answers
Recently my wifes grandfather asked me why we cannot eat fish. I told him that I quit eating fish when I became a vegetarian, which was before I knew about the Hare Krishna movement.
Where Im a little perplexed is that Srila Prabhupada has explained that the "acquatics" are below the plants in the development of consciousness. (Also, I wonder if the aquatic mammals such as dolphins and whales are in the same category.) It would seem that the foods we are permitted to eat would be those with less developed consciousness, but that is apparently not the case, based on fish being below plants. Rather it appears more like "eating low on the food chain," which was the motto I learned in my environmental studies classes in college.
Does anyone have more insight on this?
Where Im a little perplexed is that Srila Prabhupada has explained that the "acquatics" are below the plants in the development of consciousness. (Also, I wonder if the aquatic mammals such as dolphins and whales are in the same category.) It would seem that the foods we are permitted to eat would be those with less developed consciousness, but that is apparently not the case, based on fish being below plants. Rather it appears more like "eating low on the food chain," which was the motto I learned in my environmental studies classes in college.
Does anyone have more insight on this?
user [154] · 2008-06-24
"Below plants" - in the evolution of the forms of life (as generally all forms that live in the water are below _all_ forms of the dry land). Has nothing to do with what you eat - as we eat things that do not have blood or semen - ie pure things that can be offered in bloodless sacrifice, yajna, to Vishnu or Krishna ie phalam puspam...user [149] · 2008-06-24
Manu-samhita 5.15"He who eats the flesh of any (animal) is called the eater of the flesh of that (particular creature), he who eats fish is an eater of every (kind of) flesh; let him therefore avoid fish."
I take this to mean that animals generally have a small range of foods that they eat however fish eat a wide range of flesh, due to the fact that all types of animals and even human flesh are found to wash into the ocean one way or another.
user [149] · 2008-06-24
Srila Prabhupada Letter, 9 March 1970"Because of its being merged into water, it is natural to conclude that the beginning of life was aquatic. This is confirmed in Padma Purana that the species of life evolved from aquatics to plants, vegetables, trees; thereafter insects, reptiles, flies, birds, then beasts, and then human kind. This is the gradual process of evolution of species of life."