{"id":250,"date":"2011-01-13T22:58:15","date_gmt":"2011-01-13T22:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/projectconversion.com\/?p=250"},"modified":"2011-01-13T22:58:15","modified_gmt":"2011-01-13T22:58:15","slug":"vegetarianism-a-hindu-way-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/projectconversion\/2011\/01\/vegetarianism-a-hindu-way-of-life.html","title":{"rendered":"Vegetarianism: A Hindu Way of Life."},"content":{"rendered":"

Around the world, followers of Santana Dharma (Hinduism) are recognized by a few conspicuous traits. One of those is the practice of ahimsa<\/em>, the concept of non-violence. Because Hindus believe that everything that takes birth, ages, and dies has a soul it is considered\u00a0a sin to kill animals. Thus the eating of flesh is frowned\u00a0upon. Of course as with everything in Hinduism, the call for humanity to adopt a vegetarian lifestyle is delivered as a suggestion rather than a command. This is due to the concept of freedom of belief–of choice–within the faith. No, you won’t burn in hell forever for eating meat, but because of the law of karma (action-reaction, cause-effect) and samsara (rebirth or reincarnation), someone who killed a goat in this life could very well end up one in the next.<\/p>\n

Each birth (until moksha, or liberation) is viewed as an opportunity to learn from the mistakes of a past life. Being born as a goat then would (in theory) help that soul sympathize with the plight of said creature, thus giving him the chance to erase the effects of his negative karma in the future. The food one selects to eat is also said to fall into one of three categories:<\/p>\n