Today, I have a cattle farmer on one side and two Hindu Indian vegetarians on the other. This sounds like a meeting of opposing forces, but far from confrontation, the latter is even helping the former to set up the farm.
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"Isn't this difficult?" I asked.
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My Indian friend smiled and replied calmly that he separates business from personal beliefs. Naturally, religion is a personal commitment and cannot be imposed on anyone else.
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"In the end, it is all about atma..." he continued.
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In Hinduism, 'atma' is one's true self beyond identification with the phenomenal reality of worldly existence. So even plants, for instance, have 'atma', only that they don't have the nervous system to experience the kind of pain as we know it.
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What amazed me was that the vegetarians did not look down on the cattle farmer, something I find increasingly common and disturbing these days. While vegetarians believe in vegetarianism, they should allow others free to walk their own spiritual journey - only then would their journey be meaningful beyond the compulsion and rigidity of dogma.
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Lest you may be tempted to think cattle farming is much about killing cows, there is a spiritual lining to this one. In the end, I think all businesses can be spiritualised - even cattle farms. Read here for more.
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