The Food Chain - Is God Responsible for Killing?

To those who want to believe, the problem of the food chain is often a tough paradox in the sense that it seems to be a very basic evidence of brutality and violence being part of "God's creation". So is God responsible for killing and is the food chain evidence of this?

I don't know how God would reply, but in the context of Man - who has the capacity to feel deeply and also the intelligence to do something about it - we see that there have been cases where the problem of food has also been resolved without killing - at least the kind of killing we normally talk about.

1. Tulsidas, it is said in books, survived 12 years on leaves fallen on the ground, probably because the thought of killing plants for food was not acceptable to him. Well, maybe he didn't care about microbes, but at least he avoided killing plants and animals in the name of food.

2. Giri Bala, a widow who could not bear some remarks made by her family regarding her food habits, confided in a yogi about the problem. She was given a yogic practice which she did with all her zeal, and it is said (in Autobiography of a Yogi) that she survived only on water and sunlight till her ripe old age. Her unique achievement made her a revered figure in her area, but that is a different issue. Maybe the villagers did not know of Sir Jagadish Bose's discovery that even metals display some qualities of life and respond to stimuli in ways that can be called intelligent. If the world is thoroughly imbued with "chaitanya", any eating (even metals) will involve a change of the eaten material which would be akin to killing. However, she did show them a way to live without killing - at least the way we undertand the word normally.

3. Another catholic saint - I believe the name is Therese Neumann - also survived on water and just one consecrated wafer a day, as per "Autobiography of a Yogi".

4. In a famous episode, a hatha yogi stayed buried underground for 40 days without food or water, and resumed normal life once this demonstration to the king (Ranjit Singh) was complete.

All these people, intentionally or unintentionally, solved the problem of killing for food, at least the way we understand the word "killing" in usual discussions (brutality, insensitivity, etc.). If scientists were to really get down to it, couldn't we have had some kind of "photosynthesis equipment" ready by now, to resolve the problem of killing? Or, a food processing industry based on leaves and fruits fallen to the ground?

Brutality and violence are therefore not necessarily from God. Maybe the truth is that the problem has never been important enough for society as a whole to find a way out. If it was, then the above cases suggest that a solution would probably have been found already.

Sadanand Tutakne