Why Saving Cows is Necessary ?
Why Cows Must Be Protected ?
Have you stopped a moment to wonder about all the benefits we derive from the cow and yet the miseries we subject it to by mercilessly slaughtering it; in a sense, this is murder. Do we forget how invaluable an asset the cow is for human beings, and how peaceful and serene is their countenance? Cows feed their calves and sustain us as well with their nutritious milk, and yet, does it not break your heart to hear that in excess of 50,000 calves and cows face slaughter every single day? Try practicing cow protection and you fill find peace and happiness in your life. The philosophical explanation is rational and uncomplicated; any living beings, be it cows or other animals, have the right to live their natural life and enjoy protection from slaughter and violence by humans. Remember, all of them have souls just as we humans do, and being his children, are dear to God. We learn from Vedic philosophy That we have seven mothers-The mother who delivers us (the birth mother), followed by the nurse who brings us into this world, the Brahman’s wife, the king’s wife, our spiritual master’s wife, the earth and the cow by virtue of its nourishing us with her nutritious milk. All mothers deserve a position of respect.
The cows and the Vedas
The Vedas teach us that the cow is the personalized embodiment of Kamadhenu, abode to the gods and demigods, who fulfills all our wishes, blessed by the rays and influences of the heavenly constellations and Gods. Only the Desi Indian cows have that characteristic hump with a Surya Ketu Nadi, a vein that passes through her backbone and absorbs the sun’s rays, resulting in a golden hue to its milk, ghee and butter. The cow’s milk and body fluids are endowed with several salts that offer cures to diverse diseases of the human body. In its stature as mother to every living being, it also provides pleasure to all.
That the cow can absorb an intake of poisonous food, without passing on the negative aspects of it to her milk, urine or dung is unbelievable; what can you attribute to this, other than divine intervention. They are totally harmless and the milk is not toxic at all. When the urine of other animals is tested after feeding it them with a variety of mildly poisonous food, their urine shows traces of them.
Panchagavya
A concoction of 5 cow products, milk, curd, ghee, cow urine and cow dung, Panchagavya is a not only a miraculous elixir and dietary supplement, but also a universal cure for all diseases; it prolongs longevity, fosters a peaceful heart, besides providing physical and mental health. Recommended strongly by the scriptures as being both safe and holy, Indians have benefitted from multifarious applications of cow urine and cow dung, not to speak of their indispensable uses in ceremonial functions for decades.
The word “cow protection, evokes two kinds of responses. One school of thought wonder why protection is necessary for an animal that has a population of over billions in the world, and probably also conjecture if it would be wiser to focus on other endangered animals like the rhino or the tiger, while others wonder if it refers to something that encompasses animal worship. Philosophically speaking, all living entities, including cows have a soul, and warrant relief from slaughter, being Krishna’s dear children.
Why Krishna Loved His Cows
5000 years before, when Lord Vishnu, one of the supreme Lords among the trilogy that encompasses Brahma and Siva, decided to take his Krishna-avatar on earth, his intentions were to bring solace to his devotees and entertain them with his multifaceted playfulness. People’s perceptions of Krishna vary, from that of his role of an irresistible romantic, a fearless warrior, a statesman extraordinaire, an accomplished yogi, and what have you, but his role as a childhood cowherd and his pranks, is one that has captured everyone’s imagination. Krishna loved his cows for their warm and gentle demeanor and for their selfless service to humanity and more so for butter from their milk that he used to steal and eat. Don’t you want to follow in his footsteps?
Your first step towards Cow protection starts with ox employment.
“Protect the cow and slaughter the ox”, may sound like a right concept for many who think the cow is the only one who blesses us with her milk and other valuable products. Have you stopped a moment, to consider the facts? The cow lactates only when she bears a calf, and how would she make a calf without a bull, especially when more than 50% of the calves turn out to be bulls that will never yield milk. The farmers contend that they will run into a negative economy by just feeding the bulls, but little do they realize that their contribution in agriculture in the fields for hauling and tilling is seamless. Most farmers, throughout the world, make profit by selling the bulls and the cows that have stopped lactating, or have become redundant insofar as their productivity is concerned, for slaughter, for their meat, hide and tallow, not counting their many blessings to humans. They forget to consider the benefits of their dung and miraculous urine that serves many uses, including a cure for cancer. From them, originates the ingredients for the manufacture of compost, pest repellants, cleaning products, medicines, not to speak of the extraordinary Panchagavya, and all these have a ready market.
The Travails of the Modern Economic System
The contemporary system focuses more on output, and the use equipments like a tractor to achieve their economic goals, while they care nothing about our planet’s health that suffers from the excessive uses of using fossil fuel, insecticides and chemical fertilizers. The modern system induces the farmer into heavy mortgages, from which the small farmer, most likely, cannot extricate himself, having to leave his lands as a beggar and seek employment instead.
Formulate Your Priorities
Our only hope seems to realigning our priorities. Start first with breeding your cows and not immediately expecting its benefits in the form of milk and the calves. Let them take in the pure oxygen, which is aplenty in the pastures and among the trees and eat to their fulfillment, and in the process fertilize the soil with their natural dung and urine, saving the farmer, his expenses on fertilizers as well as the purchase of poisonous chemical fertilizers and fossil fuel that are not only detrimental to the soil, but also cancerous and a serious threat to health. You will also see how the plentiful oxygen stimulates the muscular oxen to redouble their efforts and involve in worthwhile labor. The farmers and their families could commercially grow healthy organic vegetarian food and become healthy vegetarians.
Can the Government Think Differently?
The government’s yearning for subsidies can be channeled through another route as well. Why not they subsidize small bovine based agricultural farms instead of giving impetus to the beef industry? Imagine seriously, notwithstanding their powerful beef lobby, would you want to fall a prey to deadly maladies like cardiovascular disease, colon cancer, diabetes and many more? Finally, forget not the paap-karma that engulfs you from the brutal and merciless slaughter of innocent animals.
Why Cows are Important in our lives?
The cow contributes to everything in our life. It helps us with agriculture, transports our goods. It gives us milk, ghee and curds to eat and provides all the medication that we want. The mother cow saves our crop, from fungi, insect and pest and becomes one with our family. For a Hindu, who other can the cow be, other than his mother? Herbivorous by nature, Serene by temperament, everything that the cow produces is of value to us; its dung that has a myriad benefits, including its antiseptic effect. Dried dung cakes form a fuel resource and the cow dung propagates bio-gas that leads to eco-friendly production of electricity. You use it in compost manure. Consequently, Mahatma Gandhi proclaimed that cow protection takes precedence over Swaraj.
The cow is our universal mother, and benefits us with her blessings and bi-products, expecting nothing from us, but grass and grain. Saving cows is saving the nation and the world. All auspiciousness originates from the cow, and the Gods consider them as Goddesses. They bestow so much of happiness that many worship them, because their milk supports the world of humans, while their ghee, offered in sacrifice, pleases the Gods. The cow holds the soul of the earth. It’s in the Zoroastrian scriptures, which, though Older to Hinduism, Is younger to a pre Vedic tradition. The Cow was also worshiped in Egypt as Hathor. All animals are holy, people forget.
Why it is important to take up the matter of saving cows? Someone may ask you why they should not slaughter the old, useless cows, but would you do the same to your redundant old parents? While the country is enjoying the cow’s contribution in agriculture and its multifarious useful products, we should try to save the cows and not destroy them. The widespread proliferations of the cow shelters or gaushalas, from the grandiose ones to their thousands of satellites are proof of the increasing resolution of the people to save the cows and increase their population. (Ref. # 6)
The Vedic Scriptures are full of verses that propound cow protection and caring as a major agenda. They emphasize how it is a sin to kill a cow and eat its meat. Many states in India have declared cow slaughter as illegal, which is why you can see cows roaming free on the streets of even Mumbai and Delhi.
Service to Mankind is by Serving the Cows
“The Cow is a poem of pity. One reads pity in the gentle animal. She is the mother to millions of Indian mankind. Protection of the cow means protection of the whole creation of God. The ancient seer, whoever he was, began with the cow. The appeal of the lower order of creation is all the more forcible because it is speechless.” (Ref. # 7)
How frustrating is to read about how the cows now undergo torture and butchery and separation from their calves, for increased milk yield by injection of hormones without any thought of how the cow contributes to saving mankind.
‘Vishwa Mangala Gou Grama Yathra’ (108 days) commenced on 30 September 2009; with the intention of covering over ten lakh kilometers to spread the important words, save the cow, save the nation, save the world. (Ref. # 8)
Hinduism is probably the only forum left that understands how the cow contributes to mankind. In the final judgment, it will not be the Tilak on his forehead, their pilgrimages or the mantras they chant regularly, but their number of cows they were able to protect in their service to humanity that counts for their salvation. In other words, cows constitute a silent jury in mankind’s trial.
The Indian cow’s milk is a complete food and increased longevity and brain alertness from drinking milk, is sacrificed against wasteful slaughter of these divine animals for their meat, skin, hoofs and what have you.
How Cow Grazing Can Contribute to Saving Mankind
How cows grazing can contribute to saving mankind throws a great deal of light on some fascinating aspects of how service to mankind is achieved by serving cows.
Various studies indicate that the world has extensive hectares of barren and semi barren lands that you can convert to well yielding agricultural land, by simply grazing cattle to restore the health of the land. (Ref. # 9)
You can see plant performance increase by over 200% when you integrate biological farming, resulting in better yield and quality.
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