So here Śukadeva Gosvāmī says, "My dear king, if a diseased person eats the pure, uncontaminated food prescribed by a physician, he is gradually cured, and the infection of disease can no longer touch him. Similarly, if one follows the regulative principles of knowledge, he gradually progresses towards liberation from material contamination." This is the translation of the . . . nāśnataḥ pathyam. Pathyam. Pathyam means good foodstuff, not "Anything I can eat." That is the business of the hogs and dogs. Just like hogs have no discrimination. Anything, up to stool you give him, it will eat. That is not human civilization. Although it is the law of nature that ahastāni sahastānām, vegetables or animals who has no hand . . . just like ordinary animals, they have got four legs, no hand. So these four-legged animals is the food for the two-legged animals. Ahastāni sahastānām. Uncivilized men means two-legged animals. They are animals, but two-legged. There are four-legged animals; there are two-legged. So ahastāni sahastānām apadāni catuṣ-padām (SB 1.13.47): "And living entities who have no legs," just like the vegetables, grass, plants, trees; they have no legs. They cannot move, but they are living entities. They are food for catuṣ-padām, for the animals who have got four legs. Ahastāni sahastānām apadāni catuṣ-padām, phalgūni mahatāṁ tatra: "And the weak is food for the strong." Phalgūni . . . jīvo jīvasya jīvanam (SB 1.13.47). This is the law of nature, that one life is meant for maintaining another life. That is going on.
So sometimes they put forward this argument that "You are also eating vegetables. They have got life. Why you object that nonvegetarians, who are eating four-legged animals . . .?" No. We are not going to infringe to the laws of nature. That is not our business. You can eat four-legged animals, because you are also animal. But when we speak of civilized animals . . . civilized, not animal. That is human being. So long one is not civilized, he is animal. And the civilization begins when one understands that he is not this body. That is the beginning of civilization. Yasyātma-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke (SB 10.84.13). So long one is in ignorance, the bodily concept of life, he is animal. When one knows that "I am not this body; I am . . . ahaṁ brahmāsmi," then civilization begins.