Swami’s Views on Meat
Visitor: How does one get devotion to God?
Sai: Confidence is necessary. Food is the start. The body is made from food. Without health, it is very hard to do anything. The stomach is of four parts: 1/4 part air, 1/4 part food, and 1/2 part water. Too much food is taken nowadays; there is no room for water. In India, rice and wheat are standard. They are all right if taken in moderation. But people eat too much and get dull. Too much food results in dullness of mind. Food in moderation does not result in sickness. Swami travels to various parts of India and does not get sick from food. Swami becomes sick only when taking on the sickness of a devotee. Otherwise, never. Too much milk is bad. It is rajasic [too active or passionate].
Visitor: Sai Baba, this is for me, this is not for anybody, just for myself, my food. Meat is important. Meat is my food.
Sai: Food is important for the body. Even for being born, food is the reason. Mother and father have been nourished with food and they then give birth to a child. The parents have grown up on food. The whole body is a food bundle. The type of food you eat, that kind of thoughts will come to your mind. If you have satwic [pure] food, there will be a satwic effect. Fruit and milk, everything that is cool, and not hot like strong onions. Meat gives the blood its effect, like passion and similar qualities. Dirty thoughts come with fish. Although fish is always in water, it has a bad smell.
Visitor: How about lamb?
Sai: Meat is all right for those who concentrate on the body and want to have strength, but for spiritual aspirants it is not good.
Visitor: But the proteins that come from meat?
Sai: Yes, with meat the body will get the proteins, but mental proteins will not be there. If you are keen on spiritual life, eating meat is not worthwhile; but if you are keen on worldly life, it is all right. There is another spiritual reason. When you kill an animal you give him suffering, pain, and harm. God is in every creature, so how can you give such pain? Sometimes when someone beats a dog, he cries, he feels so much pain. How much more pain then in killing. Animals did not come for the purpose of supplying food to human beings. They came to work out their own life in the world. When a human being is dead, the foxes and other animals may eat, but we have not come to provide food for those that eat the human body; we have not come for that purpose. Similarly, man eats the animal, but the animal has not come to provide man with food. But we have taken to eating meat as a habit.
Visitor: But we take milk, which is animal.
Sai: Anything that comes from the cow, a little milk, butter, cheese, is all right for the spiritual aspirant. There is no harm to the cow, and it is of benefit to take it. In Dwapara Yuga, before Kali Yuga, 5680 years back, milk came into favor.
Source: Conversations with Bhagavan Sathya Sai Baba
