Quiz: Fish-Eating So-Called Great Monk
Intro: Kindly read the below quote from Baba's teachings. At the end of the quote a question has been posed. If your answer to the question is correct then it means you read Baba's books carefully; and, if your answer is wrong or you do not know the answer, then it signifies that you need to pay more attention when reading Guru's teachings. After all, if sadhakas are not diligent in studying Baba's books then who is going to read them - non-margiis?
"Many persons were born in the past who shed copious tears for suffering humanity. But strangely enough, after their eloquent speeches were over, they sat down comfortably at a dinner table and treated themselves to a delicious meal of hilsa and kaimách fish – as if those fish had not suffered pain and death. This human sentiment has expressly violated the interests of non-human creatures, but its proponents have found nothing wrong with it."
"Once I read in a certain book that a "great" saint used to live only on locusts dipped in honey. That saint did not seriously consider that those little locusts also had vital life force throbbing in them."
"Obviously human beings will have to behave rationally; they must maintain their existence while adjusting with the external environment. It is true that living creatures are the food for other living beings (jiivah jiivasya bhojanam); and indeed, the vegetables that we eat every day also have living cells in them. But regarding food, I have expressed my opinion in some of my books." (Liberation of Intellect - Neo-Humanism, Disc: 1)
Quiz: What is the name of the "great" monk who used to sit down to eat fish - utterly oblivious and / or callous to the pain and harm experienced by the fish?
Answer: Swami Vivekananda is the monk that Baba is talking about in the above paragraph. He is the one who was eating fish.
(Proof of the above answer in the articles below.)
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"Who
can understand a spiritual Master’s ways? With the ordinary human mind,
we can never, never know the Master’s ways. They are inscrutable.Sri Ramakrishna would tell one person, “Go and eat meat. Nothing will happen.” To another person, he would say, “All restlessness will enter into you if you eat meat. You must never eat meat!” If the first person ate meat, his consciousness would not be disturbed in the slightest. If the second person ate meat, the restlessness of the animals would enter into him instantly and take him into the abysmal abyss of his consciousness.
After he realised God, Swami Vivekananda used to eat meat and fish. His fellow brother-disciples and other critics used to say, “O my God, he is eating meat! He has definitely fallen.”
Swami Vivekananda would answer, “When I was poverty-stricken, you did not give me even one rupee. Such kind-hearted people you were! Now I am in a position to eat meat and you are criticising me mercilessly. Is eating meat taking away my spirituality? Am I descending? You are such well-wishers! Where was your sympathy when I was without money for weeks on end?”
Sri Aurobindo used to eat chicken quite regularly for a year, even when he was in his high, higher, highest consciousness. Nothing affected him. And while he was writing his magnum opus, The Life Divine, his servant used to come to him with a very large Burmese cigar. Sri Aurobindo would smoke to get inspiration. This is all written in official books on Sri Aurobindo’s life.
Another great Master of the highest heights, Sri Ramakrishna, used to smoke a hookah frequently before he entered into his highest meditation. In most cases, if people smoke, they cannot raise their consciousness even an iota. Even if someone is smoking next to another person who does not smoke, it is all finished for the non-smoker! That person will not be able to go higher at all.
In Lord Buddha’s case, a man gave him poisoned meat and then the Buddha died. As he was dying, when someone asked him about the man who had poisoned him, Lord Buddha said, “Forgive him! Forgive him! He has not done this intentionally.” (Courtesy of Sri Chinmoy Reflections)
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"There is one story about Swami Vivekananda, he says, travelling down the Padma river in 1899. A fisherman offered him 16 hilsas – presumably the large ones – for Rs 1, adding four more free. Vivekananda then stepped ashore to look for pui saag, a type of green, together with which he would cook the ilish dish. A villager had pui at home, but wanted to be accepted as Vivekananda’s disciple in return for parting with it. Swamiji agreed. All for the hilsa." (Courtesy of Business Today)
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“Vivekananda once told his disciple Sarat Chandra that ‘one who cannot cook cannot be a great monk’. His disciple, native of East Bengal, had once cooked Vivekananda a ‘Bangal’ platter of ‘rice, munger dal (lentils), koi macher jhol (koi fish curry), maccher tak (tangy fish) and maccher shuktuni (bitter fish with vegetables)’. Vivekananda, after eating, said he had never tasted anything like it before.
The act and joy of eating stayed with the spiritual master till his last moments on Earth.
Mukherjee in his book “The Monk as Man: The Unknown Life of Swami Vivekananda”, reveals how a few days before his premature death at the age of 39 from ill health, Vivekananda was found ‘gleefully eating chanachur (a hot and spicy mix of chickpeas and nuts) from a saal leaf at Ahiritola in northKolkata on the bank of Ganges’.
Vivekananda, on July 4, 1902, had a lunch of ‘hilsa’ fish curry, rice, fried vegetables and a tangy dip (ambol). At 9.30 p.m., after a day of prayer, banter and meditation, he died of a heart attack, says the book. (Courtesy of Merinews)
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The Monk As Man:
The Unknown Life of Swami Vivekananda
By Samkara
" For Swami Vivekananda, hilsa was as necessary to Indian spinach as a lock to a key..."
http://books.google.com/books?id=TfP5kBxkZaAC&pg=PA138&lpg=PA138&dq=vivekananda+machh&source=bl&ots=uy73GC1yZr&sig=ee74F3Os3CUZ2jzQPq0tMKXjJOE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=0xb-UpHGG_Ll0AHHxIDYAQ&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=vivekananda%20koi%20hilsa&f=false
Note: If you have any problem with this let us know.
The Monk As Man:
The Unknown Life of Swami Vivekananda
By Samkara
" For Swami Vivekananda, hilsa was as necessary to Indian spinach as a lock to a key..."
http://books.google.com/books?id=TfP5kBxkZaAC&pg=PA138&lpg=PA138&dq=vivekananda+machh&source=bl&ots=uy73GC1yZr&sig=ee74F3Os3CUZ2jzQPq0tMKXjJOE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=0xb-UpHGG_Ll0AHHxIDYAQ&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=vivekananda%20koi%20hilsa&f=false
Note: If you have any problem with this let us know.
