According to Vedic conception, the animals, they are also members of your family

Expressions researched:
"According to Vedic conception, the animals, they are also members of your family" |"The lower animals, they are also our family members"

Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures

Horses, elephants. They are also within the membership. According to Vedic conception, the animals, they are also members of your family. Because they are giving service. Not that one section of the members of my family I give protection, and the other section, I take everything from them and then cut throat. This is not civilization.

Lecture on BG 1.26-27 -- London, July 21, 1973:

Pradyumna (leads chanting, etc.):

tatrāpaśyat sthitān pārthaḥ

pitṟn atha pitāmahān

ācāryān mātulān bhrātṟn

putrān pautrān sakhīṁs tathā

śvaśurān suhṛdaś caiva

senayor ubhayor api

(BG 1.26)

tān samīkṣya sa kaunteyaḥ

sarvān bandhūn avasthitān

kṛpayā parayāviṣṭo

viṣīdann idam abravīt

(BG 1.27)

Translation: "There Arjuna could see, within the midst of the armies of both parties, his fathers, grandfathers, teachers, maternal uncles, brothers, sons, grandsons, friends, and also his father-in-law and well-wishers—all present there. When the son of Kuntī, Arjuna, saw all these different grades of friends and relatives, he became overwhelmed with compassion and spoke thus."

Prabhupāda: This is the problem. Now Arjuna is facing the problem. What is this problem? Suppose you bring all my friends, my relatives, my sons, grandsons, my father-in-law, brother-in-law, friends, my animals... Because there were soldiers, senayor ubhayor api, there were animals also. Horses, elephants. They are also within the membership. According to Vedic conception, the animals, they are also members of your family. Because they are giving service. Not that one section of the members of my family I give protection, and the other section, I take everything from them and then cut throat. This is not civilization. You keep your sons, wife, daughters, cows, dogs, they are animals, asses, domestic animals, horses, elephants. If you are rich, you can keep elephants also. It does not mean... Either family-wise or state-wise, it does not mean that you give protection to some members and cut throat of the others. Oh, how horrible it is. So all of them were present now. And the problem is that he has to kill them, Arjuna. It is fight, it is a family fight.

If one is actually in knowledge, brahma-jñāna, he thinks in the same way that "The lower animals, they are also our family members. And if I kill him for my satisfaction, my sense satisfaction, it is great sinful act."

Lecture on BG 1.44 -- London, July 31, 1973:

Sama-darśinaḥ means equal vision. A learned brāhmaṇa, he is most intelligent man in the human society, and a dog... Superficially, externally, there is much difference. Here is a dog, a street dog, and here is a learned brāhmaṇa. But one who is paṇḍita, one who is Kṛṣṇa conscious, he sees that the paṇḍita and the dog, they are the same, because they are also the same spiritual spark. By his karma, he has become a learned paṇḍita, and by his karma, he has become a dog. But within the different body, dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ (BG 2.13). Asmin dehe, in this body there is the soul. That is his vision. Of course, externally, it is not that I shall behave equally with the brāhmaṇa and the dog. That is external behavior. But internally, we should know that both the brāhmaṇa and the dog, they're a spiritual spark. This is called brahma-jñāna. Brahma-jñāna means the knowledge of spiritual self. That is called brahma-jñāna. So when one attains this brahma-jñāna, then brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā na śocati na kāṅkṣati, samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu (BG 18.54). Samatā, equal. That is brahma-jñāna.

So in this verse Kṛṣṇa says, er, Arjuna says that yad rājya-sukha-lobhena hantuṁ svajanam udyatāḥ (BG 1.44). So when are killing animals for the satisfaction of our tongue, this is mahat pāpam. Kṛṣṇa, Arjuna says, aho bata mahat pāpam. Mahat pāpam, great sinful act, great sinful act. If we want to kill anyone, any living entity, for my satisfaction, either my tongue satisfaction or any sense satisfaction, it is mahā-pāpam, great sinful act. Because they are all svajana. You cannot kill, either you take this sense or that sense. But Arjuna is speaking in a limited sense; he is thinking of his own family members. But if one is actually in knowledge, brahma-jñāna, he thinks in the same way that "The lower animals, they are also our family members. And if I kill him for my satisfaction, my sense satisfaction, it is great sinful act." Unfortunately, everyone is killing for his sense gratification in the name of religion. In the name of religion, although it is prohibited, still they are killing. Just imagine how much sinful activities they are doing. And how they can be happy?