Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 11.5.14
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
In this verse we can clearly see the great discrepancies in those persons who do not surrender to the Supreme Personality of Godhead and His law. As stated in the Bhāgavatam, harāv abhaktasya kuto mahad-guṇāḥ: those who do not accept the supremacy of the Supreme Lord gradually become infected with the most sinful propensities that bring, in their turn, terrible suffering upon the nondevotees. In the Western countries such as America, many people proudly proclaim themselves to be most pious religionists and sometimes even prophets or representatives of God. Boasting of their religiosity, such foolish people experience no fear or doubt in cruelly slaughtering innumerable animals in slaughterhouses or on hunting trips for their whimsical sense gratification. In the state of Mississippi there are sometimes pig-killing festivals, in which entire families enjoy watching a pig cruelly butchered before their eyes. Similarly, a former president of the United States from Texas did not consider any social occasion complete without the slaughtering of a cow. Such persons mistakenly consider themselves to be perfectly observing the laws of God and due to such arrogant foolishness lose all touch with reality. When a man is raising an animal for slaughter, he feeds the animal nicely and encourages it to grow fat. Thus the animal gradually accepts its would-be killer as its protector and master. When the master finally approaches the helpless animal with a sharp knife or gun, the animal thinks, “Oh, my master is joking with me.” Only at the last minute does the animal understand that the so-called master is death personified. It is clearly stated in Vedic literature that cruel masters who kill innocent animals will undoubtedly be killed in the next life by a similar process.
māṁ sa bhakṣayitāmutra yasya māṁsam ihādmy aham etan māṁsasya māṁsatvaṁ pravadanti manīṣiṇaḥ
“‘That creature whose flesh I am eating here and now will consume me in the next life.’ Thus meat is called māṁsa, as described by learned authorities.” In Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam this grisly fate of animal killers is described by Nārada Muni to King Prācīnabarhi, who was excessively killing animals in so-called sacrifices.
bho bhoḥ prajāpate rājan paśūn paśya tvayādhvare saṁjṣāpitān jīva-saṅghān nirghṛṇena sahasraśaḥ
ete tvāṁ sampratīkṣante smaranto vaiśasaṁ tava samparetam ayaḥ-kūṭaiś chindanty utthita-manyavaḥ
“O ruler of the citizens, my dear King, please see in the sky those animals which you have sacrificed, without compassion and without mercy, in the sacrificial arena. All these animals are awaiting your death so that they can avenge the injuries you have inflicted upon them. After you die, they will angrily pierce your body with iron horns.” ( Bhāg. 4.25.7-8) Such punishment of animal killers may take place under the jurisdiction of Yamarāja on the planet of the lord of death. In other words, one who kills an animal or who eats meat undoubtedly acquires a debt to the living entity who has contributed his body for the satisfaction of the meat-eater. The meat-eater must pay his debt by contributing his own body to be consumed in the next life. Such payment of one’s debt by offering one’s own body to be eaten is confirmed in the Vedic literature.
- Refuse to eat the flesh of animals today, recognizing that every bite incurs a debt the body itself will one day repay.
- Notice where you wear the label of religiosity while quietly authorizing cruelty, and name one such inconsistency aloud before you sleep.
- Honor the trust of a dependent creature today — feed a stray, protect a cow, or speak up for an animal who has no voice.
- Where in my life am I a 'sad-abhimānī' — proud of my piety while my plate, my purchases, or my silence underwrites violence?
- Whose trust am I currently enjoying — animal, employee, child, dependent — and would I still act as I do if I knew the debt would be collected from my own body?
- Skip the chicken sandwich at the campus cafeteria today and notice every voice — peer, advertisement, hunger — that tells you it doesn't matter.
- Refuse to laugh along when friends joke about hunting, fishing trips, or 'bacon is life' memes, even if it costs you a little social standing.
- Audit one influencer or food account you follow: does it celebrate the slaughter the verse condemns, and would you still follow if you really believed SB 11.5.14?
- Set the family table tonight with food offered to Krishna only, and explain to your children — without scolding — why this house does not eat the flesh of trusting animals.
- Re-examine the household budget for hidden violence: leather goods, factory-farm dairy, gifts of meat to colleagues, and redirect one line item this week.
- If you employ help — a cook, a driver, a nanny — ask whether you are a viśrabdha-protector to them or merely using their trust, because the same principle applies.
- Before death comes, settle the meat-debt: stop entirely, and if health permits, fast on ekādaśī as a deliberate payment toward past consumption.
- Speak honestly to your grandchildren about meals you served them in earlier years that you would not serve today, and let your changed plate be part of your legacy.
- Use whatever influence age has given you — at the temple, in the family, in the community — to protect cows and other dependent animals, so that the soul leaves this body with that account in credit, not in debt.
- Reading the verse as condemnation of 'those bad people out there' rather than seeing one's own complicity through meat-eating, leather, or industrial food.
- Reducing the teaching to vegetarianism as a diet choice, missing the deeper point that arrogant false-religiosity is what blinds one to the violence.
- Treating the māṁsa etymology and the next-life consequence as folklore or metaphor, and thereby quietly disbelieving Krishna's law of karmic reciprocity.
- Prabhupāda names specific modern examples — Mississippi pig-festivals, a Texan president's cow-slaughtering — why does he get this concrete, and where would he point if he were writing today?
- The verse targets people who consider themselves pious. What does it mean that piety itself can be the very thing that hardens the heart against the animal?
- Nārada tells Prācīnabarhi the animals are waiting in the sky with iron horns. Do we actually believe this, or have we softened it into a symbol — and what changes if we take it literally?
One student plays a self-described religious, churchgoing relative at a family dinner who is carving a roast and insists 'God gave animals for us to eat.' Another student plays a young devotee who has just read SB 11.5.14 and must respond — without preaching, without contempt, and without backing down from the verse's plain meaning.
- This is primitive karma-superstition — there is no scientific evidence that an animal I eat will eat me in a next life.
Krishna's law does not wait for laboratory confirmation; the verse states a structural fact about debt and embodiment, and the very word māṁsa encodes it — māṁ sa, 'me he' will eat. We can dismiss it, but the Bhāgavatam is reporting a mechanism, not threatening us with a fairy tale. - Plants are alive too, so vegetarianism is just a different line drawn in the same violence — the verse proves nothing about meat specifically.
The verse is precise: it indicts violence against paśūn — trusting, sentient animals raised under one's protection — and the betrayal of that viśrabdha trust is what incurs the bodily debt. Krishna prescribes what may be offered to Him, and offered food carries no such debt; the 'plants also suffer' move is a deflection from a specific instruction.
My note
Source: vedabase.io