In my childhood I always used to wonder why my mother discourages me from eating meat when my friends and cousins are so fond of it. She would always tell me it is against our religion to kill living beings for food whereas everyone else would say that if I want to become strong I must eat meat. I would like to confess here that 2-3 times I ate meat at my friend’s place but the guilt of hurting my mother’s feelings if she came to know did not allow me to continue doing so.  Many times I would stand in front of the butcher shops imagining the strength I would get if I ate the hanging meat and sometimes could gather courage to ask them which animal’s meat would make me more stronger.

As I was growing up I very sincerely read books from different religions trying to find one good argument in favour of eating meat to convince my mother but could find none. In my various excursions to butcher shops unintentionally I observed killing of various animals. The reading and observing made me develop my own philosophy and conviction to remain a vegetarian for the rest of my life. I would like to share the statistical information, religious and emotional experiences I gathered in trying to convince myself to becoming strong by eating meat.
 
According to a study by United Nations in 2008 people eat about 250,000,000 tonnes of meat annually worldwide. Modern practices of raising animals for food contributes on a massive scale to air and water pollution, land degradation, climate change and loss of biodiversity.   The temperature of the earth is rising. This global warming results primarily from carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels, such as oil and natural gas. 

It takes nearly 78 calories of fossil fuel energy to produce one calory of beef protein and only 2 calories of fossil fuel energy to produce one calory of soyabean.  If every human being on this earth ate a meat-centered diet, the world's known oil reserves would last a mere 13 years. They would last 260 years if all the humans stopped eating meat altogether. That is 20 times longer. One acre of land can produce 250 pounds of beef and the same land can produce 40000 pounds of potato. 
 
Ninety-nine percent of U.S. meat eating mother's milk contains significant levels of DDT.  In contrast, only 8% of U.S. vegetarian mother's milk contains significant levels of DDT. This shows that the primary source of DDT is the meat ingested by the mothers. The above data has been collected from different books and websites and much more detailed information is available at the click of a button on the internet these days.
 
In our pleasure, we do not think of the pain of the once living animals on the plate. Hence partaking in eating meat, one is not just ingesting proteins and nutrients, but the feelings of violence also which might have erupted in the animal at the time of unnatural death. The fear, the pain, the anger of an animal being taken to slaughter house can only be imagined if we put ourselves in the place of animals. We cry with the small prick of a surgical needle but fail to understand the pain of the animal whose throat is being cut while he is still alive. We get tears in our eyes if our own infant gets even a small injury but the meat of infant animals is treated as a delicacy.  Swami Dayananda has rightly said, “We should not think of ‘somebody’ being our dinner if we do not want to be somebody else’s dinner.”
 
I really like the new advertisement of Alpenleibe chocolate on TV they are showing these days in which a human being, actress Kajol is a slave to a Monkey and dances to the monkey’s tunes. All other monkeys gather to see the dance.  A very different and thoughtful imagination. Now just imagine if this becomes a reality and the earth is governed by animals and human beings are put in the place where animals are today. What would animals like to do with human beings? No doubts that they would first like to take revenge for their kids and relatives killed by human beings for food and fun. Animals are killed mercilessly in front of their family members without caring for their feelings.  God has given them same system of pain during birth as to human beings.  An animal feeds and protects its child the same way as humans do till they are strong enough to face the world. If an animal understands the feeling of responsibility for their families then they must be understanding the feeling of pain of their family members being killed in front of their eyes just to be the food of someone else. If they understand the feeling of love then they must be cursing the human beings who kill their loved ones. Imagine the feeling of our loved ones being killed in front of us just for fun and food of others. Another example of family love among animals was shown recently in Eastern India by 5 elephants who sacrificed their lives while trying to save 2 young calves who had got stuck in rail tracks.  Seeing the approaching train the elder elephants did not run to save their own lives instead they stayed before their young ones trying to shield them before being themselves crushed to death by the speeding train. What more examples we need to confirm that animals also have family system.
 
I was born in a religiously moderate family and was allowed to understand and follow any religion I liked.  So I used to visit different temples and religious places with friends.  As a child I always wondered why most of the Hindu temples have the idols of animals and birds alongwith the idols of Deities.  Lord Ganesha has the body of a human being but the face of an elephant.  His companion is a Rat without whom there is no idol of Lord Ganesha ever made.  Lord Hanuman has the body of a human and a monkey.  Lord Garuda whom we pray in many temples alongwith Lord Rama is a bird.  The epic of Ramayana clearly shows the contribution of animals and birds in Lord Rama’s war against evil.  King Bali was respected and King Sugreev was treated as a brother by Lord Rama.  Avataar of Narsingh had the body of a human and a Lion.  Goddess Durga always has a Lion with her and we pray that Lion in temples alongwith the Goddess.  Snakes are inseparable from Lord Shiva.  Nagpanchami is the festival when snakes are worshipped.  In Hinduism their have been ample examples of animals and birds being treated at par with human beings rather they are respected as reincarnations of God himself.
 
Do we ever wonder why our Gods chose animals and birds as their companions??  Why they came to this world in the form of half human and half animal??   They could have taken the form of the most beautiful human body ever made but instead they chose to include the elements of animals and birds. Why????  It was to explain us the relationship between humans and animals.  They wanted to tell us that there is no difference between the two.  Both are two bodies of the same soul.  Both are different faces of the divine himself.  Like we change clothes same way soul changes body from animals to humans and vice versa.
   
“vasamsi jirnani yatha vihaya navani grhnati naro'parani
tatha sarirani vihaya jirnany anyani samyati navani dehi”
- Srimad Bhagavad Gita Chapter 2, verse 22
 
Translation
As a person gives up old and worn out garments and accepts new apparel, similarly the embodied soul giving up old and worn out bodies verily accepts new bodies.
 
One of the main basis of Hinduism and many other religions is the system of journey of soul in different life forms due to past birth karma.  Every soul has to go through a series of manifestations to be able to achieve salvation, to be reunited with the divine power.  That too if it qualifies on the basis of karma performed in each life form.  And if it does not qualify then the soul has to go through the cycle all over again.  Every soul has to go through a series of 8.4 million life forms to reach the end of cosmic life...7.3 million forms in the insect and animal life.  In the human form alone we have 1.1 million manifestations. 
 
If one believes in the theory of reincarnation of Hinduism then it means that their is every chance that the human being living next door has the soul of our ancestor whose photo we have on our wall and we respect him from the bottom of our heart.  Our next door neighbour whom we consider our biggest enemy may be our own family member whose loss we cry everyday and whose soul requested God to grant him the form of our neighbour to be able to live near us.  This also means that there is every chance that the animal we have killed to eat to relish our tongue was the soul of one of our own ancestors enjoying the life in animal kingdom but we ended his journey midway.  Now think of the trauma the soul has to face when his body is being killed to be eaten by the relatives of his past life.  So everyone who believes in the cycle of death and rebirth should think before putting the next leg piece in their mouth, it may be from one of our own loved one’s next body.
 
"There is not an animal on the earth, nor a flying creature flying on two wings, but they are all peoples like unto you." - Koran, surah 6, verse 38