Our bodies and our living conditions bear the marks of the misdeeds we committed in our past lives.

When a hunter, a fisherman, or a slaughterhouse worker causes animals to suffer, they will be held accountable.

By wounding an animal or a human being and leaving them half-dead, the hunter, the fisherman, and the slaughterhouse worker cause them suffering. When they consciously cause them unnecessary suffering by only partially killing them, they are guilty of a very grave sin. They too will therefore have to suffer in the same way as a form of retribution. This is the law of karma, the law of action and reaction, or the law of cause and effect.

To cause unnecessary suffering to another living being, human, animal, or plant, is certainly punishable by divine law, the laws of nature, by having to endure equivalent suffering.

The uneducated hunter and fisherman may claim ignorance of divine laws, but they will still suffer the consequences of their sins. What then can be said of modern man, who regularly kills numerous animals in slaughterhouses and on the open sea by trawlers to maintain his so-called civilization and indulge his taste buds? He cannot fathom the suffering that awaits him.

Human beings today consider themselves highly advanced in the field of education, but they know nothing of the rigorous laws of nature, derived from divine laws, which prevail over those of men throughout the entire material cosmos. The laws of nature dictate that whoever takes the life of a living being—human, animal, or plant—will suffer the same fate; life will also be taken from them.

It is difficult to imagine the suffering that awaits farmers, farm owners, and slaughterhouse workers, not only in this life, but certainly in the next.

Neither living nor dying is desirable for a hunter, a sinner, or a murderer. If they live, their sins continue to accumulate, preparing them for a future life even more filled with suffering. If they die, they immediately begin to suffer their punishment.

That is why it is recommended that they neither live nor die.

It is the duty of God's servant to ensure that no one suffers because of their sinful actions. Krishna, God, the Supreme Person, calls those who live in ignorance of true spiritual knowledge, of God, and of the data pertaining to existential truth, “deceivers with darkened minds,” an expression indicating that, although superficially educated, their knowledge is extorted from them by the energy of illusion, which is akin to Satan.

Such people are at the head of society today. They are blind people leading other blind people; all will eventually go astray and fall into a pit. Those who follow such leaders will also experience boundless suffering in the future.

Today, so-called civilized people kill thousands of land and water animals every day for the sole satisfaction of their taste buds, and other human beings without remorse, in cold-bloodedness. It is for this reason that the whole world suffers in so many ways. Politicians start hostilities for no apparent reason, and by the rigid laws of material nature, nations slaughter each other.