When Charles Darwin first said, looking at man’s physical frame, that it seems he has evolved from some species of monkeys, we were shocked and could not easily take it. How could man, who believed God was his father, suddenly come to replace God with the monkey? It came as a great blow to our egos, but there was no way out. Darwin backed his theory with powerful evidence. and the whole scientific discipline supported him. That is why, in spite of tremendous opposition, it had to be accepted. There was no way out.
There is so much similarity, both physical and mental, between man and monkey that it is difficult to deny Darwin. Even the ways of their being and living are so strikingly similar that we had to accept that man is very much linked with the monkey. Even today, when we walk our hands move rhythmically with our moving legs – the left hand with the right leg and vice versa – although it is not at all necessary for our hands to move. We can walk very well without moving our hands; those whose hands are amputated walk as easily. Evidently Darwin thinks that this movement of the hands is only a habit, a hangover from out old life as monkeys millions of years ago when we walked on all fours. Even the little opening where a monkey has its tail is discernible on man’s body as a linkage. It indicates that man had a tail when he was a monkey.
Darwin was searching for the missing link between monkey and man; he believed that there must be some species in the evolution of man from monkey who was halfway between the two, neither a full monkey nor a complete man. Between the two there must be a transitory period which the monkey took to evolve into man; it is impossible that a monkey was all of a sudden transformed into a man. It should have been over millions of years when some monkeys
became men and others remained monkeys. Biologists and anthropologists are still wondering what happened to the missing link. A worldwide search is still underway to discover the skeleton of that intermediary between monkey and man. Darwin’s theory met with stiff opposition, and it took a long time to be accepted. It was accepted because it was supported by proof.
I say yet another thing which is concerned with the evolution of man. I say that as man has evolved from the monkey at the level of his body, similarly, he evolved from the cow at the level of his soul. If the monkey is his predecessor on the physical side, the cow is his predecessor on the spiritual side. While man’s physical frame has evolved from the monkey’s body, his soul has evolved from the soul of the cow. Of course, in support of this theory we can not advance proofs as direct and strong as Darwin’s in support of his. But there are many other kinds of evidence in support of what I am saying: man as a soul has evolved from the cow. It is not reason enough to call the cow our mother because we are an agricultural community and the cow has great use and importance for us. If it were so, we should have called the bull our father, which we did not. And we don’t turn every utilitarian object into our mother. There is no reason to do so. The railway train has great utility for us and we cannot do without it, but we are not going to give it the status of a mother. No community calls the airplane mother, although it is so important
to modern life. Never and nowhere has an object of utility been called mother, despite the fact that there are any number of things that have utility. And there is no relationship between motherhood and utility. There must be some other reasons for regarding the cow as our mother.
In my view, the cow is man’s mother exactly in the same way as the monkey, according to Darwin, happens to be his father. And I have good reasons to say it. Further, most of these reasons are based on the findings of psychic research into man’s memory of his past lives, called jati-smaran in Buddhist terminology. Thousands of yogis down the centuries have explored and recalled the memories of their past lives and have found retrospectively that as soon as the chain of their human lives comes to an end, the life of the cow begins. If you go back into your past lives – and there are tested methods to do it – you will find that for many lives you were a human being. but as soon
as the series of human lives ends, you will enter the life of the cow that you were. Everyone who experimented with jati-smaran has come to the same conclusion: behind the layers of memory of human lives lies the layer belonging to the life of a cow. And it is on this basis that the cow has been described as man’s mother.
Apart from this, there are other reasons to say so. If you explore the whole animal world you will note that no other animal has such a developed soul as the cow. Looking into the eyes of a cow you will find a kind of humanly quality, a humanness no other animal has. The innocence, the simplicity, the humility of a cow is rare. Spiritually, the cow is the most evolved being in the whole animal world; its high qualities of soul are evident. Its evolved state clearly indicates it is ready for a spiritual leap forward.
If you watch the physical restlessness in which a monkey lives, it will be obvious to you that it is not going to rest until it achieves a higher form of body. The monkey seems to be utterly dissatisfied with his body; in fact, he is dissatisfied with everything about it. It is so agile, speedy and restless all the time. Looking at a newborn child, you will find, while his body has the agility of a monkey, his eyes have the peace and serenity of a cow. Physically he reminds one of a monkey, and spiritually he resembles a cow.
The cow is held in deep respect in this country not because we are predominantly an agricultural society, it is so because after protracted investigations in the psychic world, it was learned that man has spiritually evolved from the cow. And as psychic knowledge grows – and it is growing – science will soon support this truth that India discovered long ago about the cow. There will be no difficulty in the matter.
You will understand it better if you look at the long chain of God’s incarnations as conceived by the Hindus. It begins with the fish – the first incarnation of God is the fish – and goes up to Buddha. Until recently one wondered how God could incarnate as a fish; the whole thing seemed so ridiculous. But now the science of biology accepts that life on this earth began with the fish. Now it is difficult to mock the Hindu concept of matsyavatara, God’s first incarnation as a fish. Science has such a hold on our minds that we have to accept whatever it says. Science says that life on this earth has evolved from the fish. That is why this country said centuries ago that the fish was the first incarnation of God. The Sanskrit word for incarnation is avatara, which means descent of consciousness. Since
life as consciousness first dawned in the fish, it is not wrong to call it the first incarnation. This is the language of religion. Science says the same thing: the first appearance of life on earth was in the shape of the fish.
We have yet another of God’s incarnations which is still more puzzling and unique. It is called narsinghavatara, God’s incarnation as half man and half animal. When Darwin says that the missing link between monkey and man should be half monkey and half man, we don’t have any difficulty in accepting him. But we find it difficult to accept the concept of narsinghavatara. This is again the language of religion, and undoubtedly it carries with it a deep insight. The cow is man’s mother in the same way as the monkey is his father. Darwin was concerned with the evolution of the physical body, in fact, the whole of the West is concerned with the physical. But India has long been concerned with the spirit, the soul; it is not much concerned with the body. We have always wanted to explore the spirit and its ultimate source. For this reason we emphasized the soul much more than the body. It is very interesting that both cow and mon key ate vegetarians. Man inherits his body and soul from vegetarian sources. It is another thing that a monkey sometimes swallows a few ants, but by and large he is a vegetarian. The cow is wholly vegetarian; it will eat meat only when it is forced to. Under the circumstances it is strange how man has turned non-vegetarian, because his whole physical and psychic system is derived from vegetarian sources. The structure of his stomach is such as only vegetarian animals have, and so is his mental makeup. Obviously man must have been forced by circumstances to become non vegetarian. And even today he cannot do with, out animal food.
~ OSHO – Excerpts form Krishna The Man & his Philosophy
Alternatively please watch the video where Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev gives an interesting perpective for Non Veg eating & its effects
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yneyNx-SRzg