That seems contradiction.atma wrote:how telling the truth to the butcher may be harmful.
Someone or something here has received sorrow, and you've given sorrow. Either the cow receives sorrow or the butcher received sorrow.
Let's say a child was an orphan (no physical parents) and was adopted into a family. The parents do not tell the child until he is older. Actually, we do not know how the child will take it when he is told the truth, will he be angry for living a lie for 18 years, or will he accept his parents. Is he ready to accept the truth,which is "I am sorry son, we are not your real Father and mother".
Let's go back to the butcher. Today you've told him the wrong way. Tomorrow, he asks you again as he chases another cow. You tell him the wrong way again. After a week of chasing cows and not getting any, he's going to work out you've been cheating him. To make matters worse, he tells the entire community you're a compulsive liar. Though you saved a lot of cows.
OK, that's extreme case, but one small lie adds to another lie adds to another. Small white lies are what I think the subtle form of Maya. Maybe the case is we've been so used to making small white lies, we've come to accept a lie as being okay because we live in such a degraded world.
Again let's change the animal to be a "tiger". We do not know if the tiger was vicious or was innocent, butif it was running away from the man, it must be quite scared. Do you send the man the right way or wrong way. Don't get attached to the animal.
button slammer wrote:I would direct the butcher to the cow and help him to kill it if required.
button slammer, why would you help the butcher kill the cow ? Does the killing of the cow actually end the entire sequence of events, so thereafter you can explain to the man he was wrong to kill and he should never kill again.
I don't think we're going to know the final answer, because we do not know the full situation. However, when the man asked the question, my automatic response would be to tell the right way. If you feel guilty with this reply, you can follow up the man to tell him it was wrong to kill.