Reactions

The first reason is the reaction due to slaughter. In Bhagavad-gita it is explained that every action performed on the material platform-that is, with the intention to enjoy the result-will subject us to a reaction-in-kind in the future (generally in the next material body we take because of our material desires at the time of death). In other words, we will reap what we sow, as the Bible puts it, in terms of enjoyment and suffering in our next life, in exact accordance with the enjoyment or suffering we cause other living beings in this life.

Now, it is a cruel fact of life in the material world that one living being can feed himself only by troubling or killing another, and we all need to eat, even if we are culturing Krsna consciousness, simply to maintain our bodies. This does not, however, justify troubling or killing conscious animals who can experience fear and pain when systematically slaughtered. When milk products are available, as well as simpler forms of life that do not suffer when their fruit is removed or even when they are killed, such slaughter is completely unnecessary.

The cows, sheep and other animals we slaughter, as well as the chickens whose eggs we take, are all capable of consciously suffering, just as we do, because they have developed minds and senses. (Plants also, of course, can register rudimentary sensations, but nothing like the fear, pain and pleasure of animals.) Humans are more intelligent than animals, however, and if we misuse our intelligence simply to gratify our lusty tongues, causing misery to animals when we could instead subsist on simpler forms of life that do not suffer when killed, then, according to the Vedas, we ourselves will be liable to slaughter in the future. For example, today soldiers and civilians all over the world are being maimed and slaughtered in wars, just as they have previously slaughtered animals. The Vedas say that there will be constant wars as long as there are slaughterhouses, and in this way parents will have to suffer as their sons are killed, just as a cow suffers when her calf is dragged away and butchered to provide our veal cutlets. This is the law of karma (material activity).