Can brahmins have pets?

[Raghy]

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Sri Pannvalan,

Performing the last rites for a pet need not be far fetched. The last rites need not involve a prohidhar/vadhiyar. The person who reared the pet is enough to do that. That last rite would involve the disposing of the dead pet; mourning it’s death. That’s my personal opinion.

Sri Kunjuppu,

It is interesting to notice the scale to measure one’s brahminism in percentage! I will score 0%. In Sri Sapthajihva’s opinion, one could either be all Brahmin (100%) or nothing! I am not debating any of your views. I am looking at this in the lighter note and enjoying it.

Sri Kunjuppu,

In the scorpion & rishi/monk story, the rishi/monk would not have died. Chances are, that person would have known the antidote for scorpion poison (when even our village had the antidote for scorpion poison, I think everyone would have known one). But the moral of the story is, “ The person who has a helping nature will keep helping others, even when he/she gets hurt by the person who received help in some cases (not all the cases); the person who hurts others by nature will hurt a person even when that person helped this hurting person (possibly in all cases)”. I learned this from my personal experiences.

Sri Ravi,

I have a humble request, please. Kindly try to avoid using capital letters in your messages, please. In most forums, using capital letters means, shouting a message. I don’t know about others, but I feel intimidated by such messages (you have not written any message addressed to me in capital letter, though). I sincerely hope you may not get offended for my pointing this to you. I like to read all your messages; that’s why I took the liberty to point this out to you.

 

[SuryaKasyapa]

thank you saptha.

i am not so sure that i misunderstood the whole concept of living as a brahmin. it is just that i am somewhat overwhelmed by the standards.


i am also very curious how the public views this grading system and how we can come up with one, which should be even more interesting.

Beauty is in the eye of beholder. Proof of pudding is in the eating..

Applying same to the present situation as to one is a Brahmin or not-..

Anyone can think oneself as Miss World OR Mr Handsome...But ultimate verdict is from the judges or spectators --- So how others judge you, in appearance ,in addressing, in reactions..etec If all that indicates you as a Brahmin --then one is a brahmin in the world' eye.

Then next, how do you feel yourself? If you feel that you are a beauty, you are handsome and 100% sure about that-- your actions and reactions will indicate so... So for self --one is a Brahmin

Adding Both--- one is a Brahmin in the earthly practical sense.

By becoming so one is ready to accept the inbuilt plus and minus.


If one feels he is not a Brahmin...it is for him..

If one feels he is then there is no percentage. It is either take it or leave it. Not like thinking of dying with father and staying with mother. Not enjoying two worlds.

Greetings

 

[nrgopal]

Very well said. A different dimension to the topic.

I kind of liked this unconventional topic and thought of sharing some of my thoughts here. I know my words here will/may not have an effect on the larger scale, but may linger in the minds of people who read this. Basically, make us think from the other perspective.

Let me start by confessing, I love dogs and love all living and non-living beings. My craze for dogs was at its peak when I was 10-15 years old. I never got to have one at home. In one incident, I picked up a bat which was being attacked by crows; fed and cared for it until it departed its body eventually. In one incident, I picked up a snake which was being attacked by humans and threw is far away so it may live.

Every living being has its right to be free and live its natural life as designed by nature. Even trees and plants do have that right. In one recent court ruling in India, one state government has been directed not to use any concrete around a certain distance from road side trees.

Though love for living beings is good, I would not encourage anyone who cages or ties or encloses a living being from living its life in freedom.

I write here only because most pets in this world are either caged, tied or enclosed by walls and denied their natural right to be free.

The only thing that can tie us to another living being can be love. Then we should be equally a pet to the dog or pig or rabbit or what ever.

Even the word "allowed" inflamed shri raghy into saying (our life is not controlled by anybody), because it questioned ones' freedom. Then how can one deny the freedom of another living being in the name of pet?

with love.

 

[kunjuppu]

surya, saptha,

i understand your position and have no problem with it.

however, kindly read through this one, and ofcourse, you may wish to participate as a game. in reality, we all know we are yin or yang. right?

in the eyes of the indian government, the beef eating mani shankar aiyyar and the head of the kanchi mutt are at par as brahmins. no distinction between them as caste categorization goes.

but, we all know, and accept, that mani shankar is way out on the extreme element of iyerism, and many probably, if asked, would not give their daughter to his sons.

on the other hand, in the hypothetical case of an alliance with the kanchi's extended family, many of us, may be reluctant to enter into arrangement for the opposite reason.

so, there is a difference in the element of observed brahminism in either of these two folks.

perhaps, i wish to assume, that all of us here are within the range of mani shankar and kanchi pontiff.

hopefully this is a starting point.

now over this thread, and many others, we have listed several 'must do's for brahmins.

if i am not mistaken, sandhyavandhanam goes to the top of the list with the same gayathri chanting two more times a day coming next in importance.

then comes a whole litany of yagas and punasparams, which many are familiar to learned folks - some of which they practise and others they know of but do not for various reasons.

we should, i think, with a common effort, come up with a list of about 5 - 10 'must do' rituals for the essential brahmin.

we are not talking exceptions like birth, marriage or death ceremonies as we want to keep our ranking simple.

can we list and rank the 'must do' rituals then?

over to the learned and knowledgeable folks here.

thank you.

ps.. hopefully there is atleast one taker

 

[Raghy]

Double post. Deleted.

 

[Raghy]

I do not know what qualities a Brahmin should follow. I do not know what rites he/she should perform. I perform none. But, all I learnt is,

Andhanar enbore aravore; matr evuirkkum chenthanmai
Poondu ozhugalaan. – thiru Valluvar in Thirukkural.

A Brahmin is a person who leads a honourable, fault free life. They do not hurt any living being through thoughts, words and/or actions.

 

[C RAVI]

Sri Raghy ji,

The last message of yours is the exact code of conduct and principle of life, I have considered myself from the time I could realize that Brahmins have the responsibilities towards the nature, towards the society and that obviously includes every species in this world, during my mid 20's.

Whenever I found even a small fly struggling to survive in drip lets of water, I have tried my level best to rescue it. Whenever I found a Cockroach upside down, I had put it on its legs. Whenever I found a Lizard praying a cockroach, I never tried to help the cockroach escape, because I don't want the lizard to lose its pray and remain hungry, I don't want to do that sin. Rather, I leave the place immediately. Lizard swallowing the cockroach or cockroach escaping from lizard would be purely a self battle as per the nature's rule.

I initiated this thread only because, as I have expressed, I love to interact with dogs by which I feel that It helps me broaden my analysis and understanding of myself and teaches me as how to love and be sincere to some one who is ignorant and helpless but not a crooked and dangerous.

It teaches me lessons of respecting others, loving others, keeping patience and the most important is - to understand a person (his feeling, emotions, problems etc..etc) well without being told and without making him/her cry and struggle to make me understand their problems.

As we all know that nature teaches us many things in our life, I feel a pet (Dog / Cat) can be a better teacher among all the living & non-living creatures in this world. Simply because these pets get along with us well, can understand us and can make us understand without any ambiguity and without any one helping us to understand them (if we are sincere and really attached to our pets).

We all know that Dogs are the most intelligent and trustworthy species to be accommodated with the human life. I personally feel that many of these Dogs are suffering on the streets struggling every minute of their life. I consider that these dogs are like orphan human being who all are destitute bearing extreme sufferings of the life. Whereas a Dog who is been adopted by a correct person in a right spirit, would be the dog blessed by paramatma.

All these though of mine has inspired me to adopt a dog and make its life meaningful, giving it the freedom, care, love & affection and treat it as one of my family members giving its due priorities till the end. This way I feel that the departed soul of my dog would be happy and would not regret being taken a birth of Dog.

That's why I am so eager to know the karmic duties and its possibilities that can be implemented perfectly so that my motive of petting a dog would be meaningful and can leave me satisfied without crying for the departed soul.

I am still awaiting 100% crystal clear answers for all my questions and the subsequent inter-linked questions indicated in my previous posts.

-----------------------

REGARDING USING CAPITAL LETTERS......

Sri Raghy ji, I have the tendency to type in Capital letters and making it bold wherever I feel that I have to attach a sense of Importance to my statements. As well to have a quick attention of the readers so that it would not be left unnoticed.

Other than that I don't have any sort of wrong attitude to my style of drafting.

I would like you to express you views considering my opinions and pass on to me your comments. I will accept it for sure with out any hard feelings. Rather I would feel happy that none of our members are offended any ways who all are actively contributing to the gaining of knowledge in all the aspects of life and benefiting each other to the best of their capacity.


Cheers...

RAVI

 

[Nara]

Andhanar enbore aravore; matr evuirkkum chenthanmai
Poondu ozhugalaan.

Only in our culture good qualities are appropriated to one category of people determined through birth. Why can't a person with such qualities be just a good a person? Why should he be a Brahmin, the one whose primary vocation is performing vedic rituals?

Cats and dogs have evolved into pets for humans through natural selection. They sit around and enjoy life, especially the cats, while the so called pet owners run behind them, feed them, clean them, protect them, and on and on. Seinfeld once wondered what an extra terrestrial visitor may think of a New Yorker who runs behind a dog picking up the poop.

Who is to say who the master is and who the pet is!!!

 

[Raghy]

Sri Naran,

You have asked two questions. One is

"Only in our culture good qualities are appropriated to one category of people determined through birth. Why can't a person with such qualities be just a good a person? Why should he be a Brahmin, the one whose primary vocation is performing vedic rituals?"

This question asked in connection to the Thirukkural deserves a seperate discussion on its own. So, I would like to open a seperate thread for this. I hope you do not mind.

Your second question is connected to the topic of this thread. I was laughing my head of when Seinfeld implied that the pet is the master and the owner is the servant. His body language was really hilarious.The only pets I ever had were a pair of ox. There was no misunderstanding; they were the masters justified by the amount of work they did.

 

[sridharvasudevan]

Over the last few years, watching tamil movies, I have understood, that there is more being conveyed constructively by comical role play. Try to put the following posting visually as one enacted by Vivek or Vadivelu.

One day, a good alien lands on Earth, superior to mankind in many ways. This alien falls in love with mankind, especially the cute bubbly, babies (the ones like in the baby product ads). This alien comes from a superior life style that humans cannot imagine in the next few hundred years.

This alien feels it can help in a small way by taking one of us (humans) along with them (to the alien world). The chosen baby is taken away from the mother (awake or asleep doesnt matter). The mother does not understand why, but let us not look at the mother, as the focus is the baby here (right!?), because the alien "loves" the baby.

The baby cries, the alien feeds the baby with care, in what ever way the alien feels is the best. The baby stops crying as the hunger subsides. The alien gets a sense of achievement, satisfaction and is now charged with more "love" and "affection". No, no don't think about the mother, focus on the lovely baby.

The baby grows up healthy, with love and affection. Seeing every living being around at its new home, beings that look a lot different from its own body. The aliens talk in a language which is lullaby to ears, though does not make much sense. Eventually, the baby grows up into an age where the language is understandable and can talk too. But, the baby cannot still growl like a tiger, or bark like a dog and so cannot talk the way the aliens do. So, the baby now a growing child ends up talking an alien language thinking they can understand, but we know, with all our intelligence, how it would sound to them (right!?).

The child grows into a teenager with all the changes normally happening at its physical and mental levels. Not, understanding the normal carnal urges of nature, with no one to help understand. then one day, the teenager starts getting irritable, the aliens call it by something, the humans would have called it by something ("musk" for an elephant).

Then one day, a smart alien understands, it to be the carnal urges of a growing young human. They decide to take it for an earth walk (Dating). The teenager, finds it difficult to communicate or get acceptance from the fellow humans. Hey! does not even understand what is the opposite gender means. Well, even we dont know whether it is a boy or girl right? Okay, yeah, we visualized with Vivek or Vadivelu.

The alien bred human finally finds its (his/her) "mate". Let's assume this is only a Tamil movie, so let us not go into the detailed "horrors" of how it happened between them. Mind you, all this had to be endured while the aliens kept watch, just like humans do for their loved "pets".

And, then it happened, the aliens took the "pet" human away from its mate. Back to the alien world to "pet" and shower all the "love" they always have given.

I guess the "pets" world is still as "lovely" when one visualizes the (pet) child as oneself, or one's own child or one's own family member.

Oops, sorry, to have left out one vital part of the "pet" human's growing up, the human "pet" was taken out for a walk in the neighborhood, every day and of course, when the neighbor did not see, was "allowed" to relieve itself, right in at the neightbor's doorstep.

Just like how it happens in India!

But, sorry again, I have no idea about the Karmic bondage and the rituals to perform by the loving alien when the "pet" human departs from the body.

 

[C RAVI]

Sri Sridarvasudevan ji,

Wonderful story with a moral that can not be ignored....

Thank you so much to illustrate a story of an Alien petting a human being to make us understand that we Human Beings would be the same alien petting a Dog / Cat, leading to physical and psychological ambiguities in them.


I strongly believe that we should never abduct pep from its mother just to fulfill our desire of petting a Dog. Perhaps we can adopt a young Dog living in Dog Rescue Shelters.

And having adopted should do the best to our pets.....

This motive of mine has triggered this much of questions regarding Karmic duties to our pets, to be clarified that all are somewhat beyond my own judgment. We can love our pets, take care of them and be with them to the best of our capacity whole heartedly. But Karmic duties relevant to our pets (if required/exists) can not be determined and concluded by an individual on his/her own.


Cheers...

RAVI

 

[sridharvasudevan]

Sri Sridarvasudevan ji,

Wonderful story with a moral that can not be ignored....

Thank you so much to illustrate a story of an Alien petting a human being to make us understand that we Human Beings would be the same alien petting a Dog / Cat, leading to physical and psychological ambiguities in them.


I strongly believe that we should never abduct pep from its mother just to fulfill our desire of petting a Dog. Perhaps we can adopt a young Dog living in Dog Rescue Shelters.

And having adopted should do the best to our pets.....

This motive of mine has triggered this much of questions regarding Karmic duties to our pets, to be clarified that all are somewhat beyond my own judgment. We can love our pets, take care of them and be with them to the best of our capacity whole heartedly. But Karmic duties relevant to our pets (if required/exists) can not be determined and concluded by an individual on his/her own.


Cheers...

RAVI

Appreciate the time, effort and acceptance you have given to some of my thoughts. However, every moral story is multi layered. You have picked up one of the layers. Please also look at the other layers; some of them are:

1. Freedom to visit the loo - within your campus of living
2. Day to day freedom - go where ever outside your campus
3. Choose one's own food habits as by nature of birth
4. Freedom to mate of one's own choice and whenever
5. Freedom to breed - alien's should not do our family planning right
6. Freedom to continue life with its own mate and kids

I am not sure, you can have a dog sanctuary of 20-30 dogs in just less than 15 years.

Since all above is not possible - I still only encourage the kind of love you had shown to a street dog without owning it, during your childhood.

That way, you don't even have to bother about rituals after the living being departs its body. All the more, you will have the time and resources to help/feed/love many more lives.

 

[C RAVI]

Sri Sridharanvasudevan ji,



I got the multi layered message of your story in the first instance itself....

That's why I expressed my opinion of adopting a Dog from a Dog Rescue Shelters even where these dogs lose their natural habitant.

When a group of society in which we live takes care of the strayed/orphaned dogs and provides them shelter and basic amenities, what's wrong if a dog loving person can adopt one among them and give it personal care and love....We can say that it is a give and take policy as well, where It can not be ruled out that this Dog would safeguard our home.

We as philanthropist can contribute money or feed orphans in orphanage and or to elderly people in Old Age Homes. But can never adopt any one of them and keep them with us as one of our family members. The reasons in plenty are all well known and need not be highlighted.

These dogs in Dog Rescue Centers would ever remain in cages till their end or if lucky would be adopted by some doge lovers.

So my point is- what's wrong for a Dog loving person to adopt a dog which would otherwise be in cages of these shelters losing their freedom and natural habitant anyhow?

By contributing money to these Dog Rescue Shelters we can not guarantee the genuine utilization of money in favor of these dogs in this present world.

Cheers…

RAVI

 

[DURGADASAN]

My question is who are we to provide freedom to them??? Are they depedent on us. Man because of his selfishness, started taming animals and interfered in their natural lives. In the name of petting, it still continues...

One question raghy, I accept that it pains to you when you left your favorite dog. But, you start growing other dog. Similarly, after few days that dog too will get another person. My question is "is this needed"???

1. Will you allow your dog or other pets to loo in whatever place it wishes??
A: You will start teaching it the cleaniless, inorder to keep your house clean. Is this the freedom and petness???

2. Will you allow your pets to eat whatever it wishes???
A: You will see the wall-clock and provide as per pet doc's instructions and grow it with discipline. (Do a pet require this??)

An animal is a free living being like a man. naturally, it live happily. It mates, eats, loos everything as it wishes. But, in the name of growing them as pet animals, human beings are totally changing their natures.

Do you think only the cows and bullocks used in carts are alone pityful? Are these dogs with chains or birds in cages not pityful???

You might be taking care of a dog like your child. But do you think that it is a basic amenity for that dog?.

I feel really sorry for them. Am here not with the intention to hurt anyone. But to shatter the superiority complex and chauvinishtic approach of civilised human society.

Pranams

 

[sridharvasudevan]

Dear Ravi,

The vicious cycle of dogs/pets ending up in rescue shelters is itself because of man made reasons and not ones from nature.

I had encouraged that every living being and especially living beings that end up being pets in this context to a right to freedom. So, I guess my job ends after sharing my love, knowledge and thoughts with you and this thread in general.

Thank you for starting this thread and providing an opportunity to write what I have written so far over here.

Dear DURGADASAN - my pranams to your love for living beings beyond personal ego.

 

[[email protected]]

to C.Ravi sir, You wanted that Vasanas will bring Birth, Yes, at the last breath Time a person things about his Pet, or A Big House, or any other things he will born as per his will and not as again as the same person, because the Human birth is Top of the Creation. A person at his last breath thought of a Big house he may Born as Dog in the House or a servent in the house(If Good Karmas,and may be last Chance as a Human) it is called Bog juni. So the Vasana will bring back to the world. s.r.k.

 

[C RAVI]

Dear Ravi,

The vicious cycle of dogs/pets ending up in rescue shelters is itself because of man made reasons and not ones from nature.

I had encouraged that every living being and especially living beings that end up being pets in this context to a right to freedom. So, I guess my job ends after sharing my love, knowledge and thoughts with you and this thread in general.

Thank you for starting this thread and providing an opportunity to write what I have written so far over here.

Dear DURGADASAN - my pranams to your love for living beings beyond personal ego.

Sri Sridarvasudevan ji

Thank you very much for considering this thread interesting and passing on your comments to your level best.

I thank every member who all has contributed to the queries of my thread considering them sensible.

I would certainly consider all the points that all has been highlighted, before taking a final decision to pet a Dog.

Cheers...

RAVI

 

[C RAVI]

to C.Ravi sir, You wanted that Vasanas will bring Birth, Yes, at the last breath Time a person things about his Pet, or A Big House, or any other things he will born as per his will and not as again as the same person, because the Human birth is Top of the Creation. A person at his last breath thought of a Big house he may Born as Dog in the House or a servent in the house(If Good Karmas,and may be last Chance as a Human) it is called Bog juni. So the Vasana will bring back to the world. s.r.k.

Oh yeah....

I came to know this concept long time before, but didn’t know that "VASANA" is the term explaining the concept..

Thank you so much for educating me...

Cheers...

RAVI