No book ever written is useless. It is neither too early nor too late to start reading. Reading helps you in multiple ways like internal realization, external performance, etc. As a student, we are supposed to read more than the prescribed texts. The prescribed texts control your mind and confine you at a shallow level, and you superficially flow around the external surface of knowledge. In contrast, books of your own choice will lead you to the core of the subject. Although becoming a bookworm and vegetarian are two different ideas, both of the concepts are intepreted in a logical way you can consider them on your own as well.
Once you become an avid reader, no one can rescue you from the addiction to books, and it gives you the greatest joy of life. Before planning to read books, you need to go vegetarian first. Those who eat meat cannot become great readers because they spend the money on meat, they physically suffer and cannot allocate time for study, and from a religious perspective, the meat eaters will not be bestowed with interest in good things.
Consumers of meat spend a lot of money on meat. In the context of Nepal, meat is one of the most expensive things people consume, and meat is not a food to eat at all. Why is that people do not understand this? Instead of spending thousands of Rupees every month on meat, think of what happens if you buy books with that amount. Meat is expensive but knowledge is priceless which you can gain from books. Many people don’t have sufficient money to purchase books, let alone buy meat- they are unlucky. But those, who don’t have the guts to prefer books to meat, are the unluckiest of all.
More than 90 percent of students in the Kathmandu valley are from the outside. Their parents send them to the capital city for further education, for which they take loans from other people and institutions. But what do the students do here? I have seen some who wander about the whole day and eat outside and repeat the same routine the next day. This is not education. We must have some purpose so that we can understand the meaning and value of education.
Comparatively meat eaters suffer more from different communicable diseases than vegetarians. In villages, I have witnessed people killing suffering animals in the name of freeing them from pain. Meat sellers in cities are more doubtful. God knows whether they sell a mixture of human flesh and animals. Maybe it won’t really matter to the voracious eaters. Meat highly toxic substances and they cause cancerous diseases. Moreover, consumers suffer from obesity. The Natural News, a US-based newspaper asserts “Food that kills or makes people sick should not be considered food at all”. It further says “…effects of vegetarian diet had on longevity, heart disease, cancer, and various other diseases”. When people get sick, they do not get to read, rather they should be on hospital beds and spend thousands more. So, we better eat vegetables, live longer and read more.
From a religious perspective, it’s ethically wrong to eat meat and bad people are not bestowed with good features. Not a single religious philosophy allows you to eat meat. Philosophically, religion is a good thing, no matter which, but the followers have practically violated the rules. Almost all people believe in God, but the question is “where does god dwell?” In humanity is the god. In the ancient period, the human race would stay in the jungle and live on raw meat. They would mercilessly kill the animals and eat in the group. Later on, the next generation knew that grains could be grown, and they started their life in agriculture. And now, we call ourselves civilized humans. We got to prove that we are civilized by violating the prevalent custom of killing innocent animals and moving to a more humanitarian path. We shouldn’t teach the young generation such malpractices rather we need to be the hero for and inspire them in the field of education by cultivating the habit of reading books, not killing a single life.
Hence, we need to reform the entire humanity by avoiding meat and reading books. Without books, education is just gossip. So, we need to love and read books that interest us. George RR Martin’s statement “readers live a thousand lives, whereas non-readers live single” should inspire us to read books with a more peace-loving heart.
