We honor the cow because, spiritually, our soul grew up through it—like thanking the mother or teacher who helped you become who you are.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, how do you look at Shri Krishna’s devotion to the cow? In the process of evolution we accept Darwin’s ape as the forerunner of the human body; and if, according to you, we agree to consider the cow-mother as the forerunner in the development of the soul, it still isn’t clear what special relation the cow alone has with the soul among all animal species! Do we call the cow “mother” simply because we are an agrarian country? What are your thoughts on cow slaughter?
In my understanding, therefore, cow slaughter will continue. It should not continue. Yet it will have to continue. It should not—but it will. It can stop only on the day we are ready to move humanity to synthetic food. Not before. The day we shift human beings to scientific nutrition, it can stop. Therefore my effort is not at all in shouting whether cow slaughter should be stopped or not—these are futile talks by which we waste time, and nothing happens or can happen. My concern is that we provide such food that can free man from meat-eating. Without synthetic food there is no way left on earth now. Food grown from soil will no longer suffice; we will have to use factory-made pills as nutrition. The human population is swinging between three-and-a-half and four billion. For such numbers there is no food solution. And this number will keep increasing…
Questioner: what do you think about cow worship? As darwin says that the monkey is man's predecessor in physical evolution, you say that the cow precedes man in the evolution of the soul. How is it that among all animals the cow comes so close to man spiritually? Or is it that we call the cow our mother because we are an agricultural community? And what is your view on the question of cow slaughter?
The cow is man's mother in the same way as the monkey is his father. Darwin was concerned with the evolution of the physical body, in fact, the whole of the West is concerned with the physical. But India has long been concerned with the spirit, the soul; it is not much concerned with the body. We have always wanted to explore the spirit and its ultimate source. For this reason we emphasized the soul much more than the body. Secondly, you want to know my view on cow slaughter. I am against all kinds of slaughter, so the question of my favoring cow slaughter does not arise. But whether I am for or against it, cow slaughter is not going to stop. The conditions of our life are such that the cow will continue to be killed. I am against meat-eating, but it is not going to make a…
Osho, that man evolved from the monkey—I can understand. But when you speak of the evolution of the soul, that I just can’t grasp.
There isn’t all that much to “understand” here. Even that the human body comes from the monkey—how do you understand that? It seems understandable only because Darwin worked very hard to explain that the human body is simply a further link in the chain of bodily evolution that includes the monkey. This body has evolved from that. But that is only half the story. If man were only body, the matter would end there. But if man is also soul—as he is—then what kind of evolutionary journey has the soul been on? In nature, evolution is going on at many levels, in many ways. Just as the body’s link is connected to the monkey, if we try to enter a person’s past lives—if we try to know your previous lives—it is a very astonishing experience that if ten or a dozen people are led into the memory of their past…
In tracing bodily evolution they found man’s body is a link after the ape. The human body has come through the monkey—this is true. But in India, where for thousands of years people reflected on man’s evolution, no one concluded the body came from the monkey. Why? One reason: India never cared for bodily heredity. India asks not whence the body, but whence the soul. And seekers in India, searching the soul, discovered that the first link of man’s soul came through the cow. Man’s soul evolved through the lineage of the cow, and man’s body through the lineage of the ape. Man carries the monkey’s body and the cow’s soul. Like a blacksmith forges the iron blade and a carpenter fashions the handle—together an axe is made. From one side, nature evolved the body—through the ape—and through that journey the finest body emerged.
Once upon a time there was a cow. In all the world there was no animal which so regularly gave so much milk of such high quality.
PEOPLE CAME FROM FAR AND WIDE TO SEE THIS WONDER. THE COW WAS EXTOLLED BY ALL. FATHERS TOLD THEIR CHILDREN OF ITS DEDICATION TO ITS APPOINTED TALKS. MINISTERS OF RELIGION ADJURED THEIR FLOCKS TO EMULATE IT IN THEIR OWN WAY. GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS REFERRED TO IT AS A PARAGON WHICH RIGHT BEHAVIOUR, PLANNING AND THINKING COULD DUPLICATE IN THE HUMAN COMMUNITY. EVERYONE WAS, IN SHORT, ABLE TO BENEFIT FROM THE EXISTENCE OF THIS WONDERFUL ANIMAL. THERE WAS, HOWEVER, ONE FEATURE WHICH MOST PEOPLE, ABSORBED AS THEY WERE BY THE OBVIOUS ADVANTAGES OF THE COW, FAILED TO OBSERVE. IT HAS A LITTLE HABIT, YOU SEE. AND THIS HABIT WAS THAT AS SOON AS A PAIL HAD BEEN FILLED WITH ITS ADMITTEDLY UNPARALLELED MILK -- IT KICKED IT OVER. The more you become clever, cunning, calculating, about the about, the farther and farther you are led astray. It is not a question of…