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Is milk (and milk products) a non-vegetarian food to be forbidden?

[Devotees asked some questions during some recent Satsangas and Swami replied to them, which are given below.]

[A question by Shri D. Nagendra]

Swami Replied:- Milk is not the blood or flesh of the cow. While taking the milk from the cow, the cow is not killed. After allowing its child to drink sufficient milk, the milk was taken from the cow in ancient days. If the milk is not taken from the cow, the cow gets ill. From the egg, the child is coming and hence, eating egg is a sin. Of course, if the child is not coming from the egg, it is not a sin. As long as you are not harming a soft natured animal like cow, goat, bull, cock etc., there is no sin at all. Torturing the cow through machines etc., for the milk is certainly a sin. The Veda says that food for zoological living beings is plants (Oṣadhībhyo'nnam). Plants do not have feelings because of the absence of nervous material. Even in a zoological living being with single cell like amoeba, the neuro-spot exists. Even in a multi-cellular huge tree, even a small nervous spot does not exist. Only Annamayakosha  and Praanamayakosha exist in plants. Manomayakosha,  the starting nervous activity, does not exist in botanical plants.

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