not all hindu people are vegetarian... not all indian people. it's mainly their caste that prescribe them to or not to. the higher castes (which are supposed to be more pure) are forbidden to eat-meat because their body is more pure, and meat is an intoxicant (kind of) so it will totally pollute their body.
this is what I learnt in india, that the "purer" you become, the less inclined to eat meat, drink alcohol or seek worldly pleasures you are.
but it is not the kind of change to happen overnight. it's a work one has to do on him/herself.
people eat meat because it tastes damn good, and well most people do so why feel bad?
It's because we don't fully measure the consequences of the act of eating meat. Maybe we are aware that life was destroyed for our enjoyment but that's it. We don't go further because then it doesn't feel nice to think about the pain these animals go through, but especially, the fact that we unknowingly decided that such or such life should be terminated.
If we were the one to be killed to be eaten, all our back hair would stand in terror and protest, cause we wouldn't like that to happen to us. So why impose it on other living beings?
it's a little bit about seeing things through a veil. If everybody just imagined the pain the animals feel, or even saw the animal before it was killed and cooked, not many people would still eat meat.
Sometimes i wonder, who are we to destroy life? those animals and vegetables are also on their path to God no? But then life on earth is a cycle. Everything is recycled. Food is meant to be eaten until we grow spiritually and learn to feed ourselves on pure energy. I think we still have time
Until then, enjoy your steak fries, but be grateful to nature, the plants and animals who gave their life and suffered so that you could eat, sustain your body and carry on your path to God. :)
So at the end of the day, it's all about how you feel about it. If you feel like eating meat, first ask yourself if it's gluttony, or a real need of your body. Then you act accordingly.
But I have to say that the more you ask yourself that question, the more you will tend to feel like you don't really need meat. And gradually you will eat less and less of it.
One good thing about it? When i go to the grocery store, my bill is now only 40% of what i used to pay when i was a big meat-eater
now about vegetables, well yes they have a life too. But the meaning to their life, their purpose in this vegetable body/incarnation is to be eaten. If it's not by animals, it will be humans, or bugs or worms or whatever.
A vegetable is alive, yes, but it's purpose is to be eaten, otherwise why would God put it down here. It's a kind of "inferior" entity, in the sense that the only thing a vegetable can do is grow, ripe and die. Maybe during its life it can ponder upon what's up after death and why am I a vegetable, but it cannot change its life, its behavior according to the lessons it learned in its life. I think vegetables they have a soul (somehow), but their soul somehow knows what their purpose on earth is, ie to be eaten.
it's not the same with animals and humans. We have higher purposes i think.
That's why to me vegetables are a "lower" form of incarnation, form of life, thus ok to be eaten, and animals are "higher", though i don't like to put hierarchy at all, i just don't know how to put it in words.
When i say lower, its not hierarchical, it is just to say that the level of spiritual interaction they can have in this vegetable life is very low, compared to us, who can go on and on about spirituality, and adjust our behavior according to the spiritual lessons we learn from life.
I hope i make sense
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