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THE SCIENCE OF SELF-REALIZATION
Student:  Śrīla Prabhupāda, Christianity's sanction of meat eating is based on the view that lower species of life do not have a soul like the human being's.
Śrīla Prabhupāda:  That is foolishness. First of all, we have to understand the evidence of the soul's presence within the body. Then we can see whether the human being has a soul and the cow does not. What are the different characteristics of the cow and the man? If we find a difference in characteristics, then we can say that in the animal there is no soul. But if we see that the animal and the human being have the same characteristics, then how can you say that the animal has no soul? The general symptoms are that the animal eats, you eat; the animal sleeps, you sleep; the animal mates, you mate; the animal defends, and you defend. Where is the difference?
Cardinal Daniélou:  We admit that in the animal there may be the same type of biological existence as in men, but there is no soul. We believe that the soul is a human soul.
Śrīla Prabhupāda:  Our  Bhagavad-gītā  says  sarva-yoniṣu , "In all species of life the soul exists." The body is like a suit of clothes. You have black clothes; I am dressed in saffron clothes. But within the dress you are a human being, and I am also a human being. Similarly, the bodies of the different species are just like different types of dress. There are 8,400,000 species, or dresses, but within each one is a spirit soul, a part and parcel of God. Suppose a man has two sons, not equally meritorious. One may be a Supreme Court judge and the other may be a common laborer, but the father claims both as his sons. He does not make the distinction that the son who is a judge is very important, and the worker-son is not important. And if the judge-son says, "My dear father, your other son is useless; let me cut him up and eat him," will the father allow this?
Cardinal Daniélou:  Certainly not, but the idea that all life is part of the life of God is difficult for us to admit. There is a great difference between human life and animal life.
Śrīla Prabhupāda:  That difference is due to the development of consciousness. In the human body there is developed consciousness. Even a tree has a soul, but a tree's consciousness is not very developed. If you cut a tree it does not resist. Actually, it does resist, but only to a very small degree. There is a scientist named Jagadish Chandra Bose who has made a machine which shows that trees and plants are able to feel pain when they are cut. And we can see directly that when someone comes to kill an animal, it resists, it cries, it makes a horrible sound. So it is a mat-