Sri Sai Baba`S:Charters And Sayings

THIRTIETH TALK 623

There again: that^is a question to whicH you all
know the arguments one way and another—if you <io
not, you may^find them very thoroughly stated in our
books. But you "see He speaks of that as a super-
stition—an idea, that is to say, which has no found-
ation in fact. He says that it has led to very awful
cruelty. Of course there is no question but that it
is so. Both these ideas—that man needs flesh for
food and that God needs sacrifices of flesh—are
superstitions. No God who is worth anything could
ever have revelled in the death of anything. It is
certainly not a necessity that man should feed on
decaying flesh, because thousands of people get on
perfectly well without it, and therefore others can.
We have to»be on our guard against these things^
which you would not ordinarily think of as supersti-
tions, because they cause much suffering. He says.
that superstition is one of the sins against love: you
can see how that is so. If the people really loved
the animals and regarded them as younger brothers
they would not Sacrifice them to any Deity. They
could not worship any deity which demanded such a
sacrifice, nor could they eat the flesh of these younger
brothers. So it comes round again that nearly all
the things which men do which they should
not do are sins against love. If they would only
adopt "the Master's attitude they would avoid all
these things—the attitude, that is to say, of active
hearty goodwill to all things. We are not Adepts yet