Reported by: Subhavilasa Das, Indianapolis, USA.
At University of Cincinnati a group of 30-40 students meet every Thursday to hear about Krishna conscious philosophy, chanting and prasadam – A standard formula across the ISKCON society.
Recently, students at University of Cincinnati had chance to hear from His Holiness Bhakti Raghava Swami about how the modern society can only live sustainably if they protect cows. Maharaja also alluded to TED talk given by Allan Savory where he proposes that “Only livestock can save us”. Through reversing desertification, he claims that rangeland soil has the ability to sequester vast amount of carbon dioxide.
Allan Savory claims, few if not all, are in line with the vedic thoughts where a herd of cows is must for sustainable living. Just before Industrial revolution – cows and bulls were the mainstay of the agriculture and farmers used to have large herd of cattle. But mechanization of agriculture has brought the society upside down. Now, farmers have no incentive to keep our “father” bull – the bearer of Dharma. Instead of using bull to plough mother earth they are sent to the slaughter houses. Mother cow also end up having same fate once they are past milking stage of their life.
Maharaja also emphasized that mother cow is one of our seven mothers and her presence is very auspicious. One can’t practice dharma if cows and bull are not protected in the society.
Maharaja lecture was followed by a very active and electrified questions and answer session and students most favorite part – Prasadam.
We hope our future generation are made aware of role of cows and bull in the society though these kind of seminars / campaign.
Hare Krishna