134
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
[Canto 6, Ch. 16]
gained? By causing pain to one's own self due to self-envy and by causing pain to others, one arouses Your anger and practices irreligion.
PURPORT
Any religious system but the process of  bhāgavata-dharma —service as an eternal servant of the Supreme Personality of Godhead—is a system of envy of one's own self and of others. For example, there are many systems of religion in which animal sacrifices are recommended. Such animal sacrifices are inauspicious both for the performer and for the animal. Although one is sometimes permitted to sacrifice an animal before the goddess Kālī and eat it instead of purchasing meat from a slaughterhouse, permission to eat meat after a sacrifice in the presence of the goddess Kālī is not the order of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. It is simply a concession for the miserable person who will not give up eating meat. It is meant to restrict his desire for unrestricted meat-eating. Such a religious system is condemned. Therefore Kṛṣṇa says,  sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja : “Give up all other duties and surrender unto Me.” That is the last word in religion.
One may argue that the sacrifice of animals is recommended in the  Vedas . This recommendation, however, is a restriction. Without Vedic restrictions on the purchase of meat, people will purchase meat from the market, which will be overflooded with meat shops, and slaughterhouses will increase. To restrict this, sometimes the  Vedas  say that one may eat meat after sacrificing an insignificant animal like a goat before the goddess Kālī. In any case, a system of religion in which animal sacrifices are recommended is inauspicious for those who perform the sacrifices and for the animals. Envious persons who perform ostentatious animal sacrifices are condemned in  Bhagavad-gītā  (16.17) as follows:
ātma-sambhāvitāḥ stabdhā dhana-māna-madānvitāḥ yajante nāma-yajñais te dambhenāvidhi-pūrvakam
“Self-complacent and always impudent, deluded by wealth and false prestige, they sometimes perform sacrifices in name only without follow-