Reverence for life

I was a guest in Maharaja Jamnagar's palace. He showed me hundreds of lions, deer - their heads. The whole palace was full, and he was showing them: "These are the animals I have killed myself."

I asked him, "You look a nice person. What was the reason? What have these animals done to you?"

He said, "It is not the question of reason or a question of them doing anything against me. It is just a game."

I said, "Just look from other side: If a lion killed you, would that be a game? Your wife, your children, your brothers - will any one of them have the guts to say that it was a beautiful game? It will be a disaster. If you kill, then it is a game; if they kill, it is a calamity. These double standards show your dishonesty, insincerity."
He said, "I have never thought about it."

But the whole of humanity is non-vegetarian; they are all eating other life forms. There is no reverence for life as such. Unless we create an atmosphere of reverence for life, man can't realze the goal of getting his fundamental right of life.
Excerpted from 'Sermons to Stones' by Osho