Non-veg is not part of any meal provided by the Ashram to its inmates and visitors via the Dining Room. Chicken is however allowed to students who want to take it. It is a concession given to the students who are engaged in vigorous physical activities as well as sports which is part of the training they receive in the School. Its purpose is to make them physically and vitally strong. Non veg food has been part of ancient Indian culture, for the Kshatriya class, for the very same reason as well as to take away from them the emotional recoil during real conflict and wars. Students studying in the Ashram are not sadhaks nor expected to do sadhana hence the option of chicken.
It may be noted that it is only chicken which is permitted and not any other form of meat. The permisdion itself was given at the request of the then Head of the Physical Education department and for the reasons mentioned above. It was not a concession given to the demands of the palate or taste buds. It is never something enforced and one is free to chose alternatives.
The reason for allowing chicken and not other forms of meat lies in a certain kind of development that takes place in higher animals, both emotional as well as a rudimentary psychic development. Chicken is however a bird species where there is no trace of an individual soul spark. Not that it implies that we can kill chicken and fishes with impunity. But we must know the special difference between mammals and the animals that have emerged before them. Killing, hunting are cruel acts and The Mother has strongly opposed it. But chicken and fish, can be taken if the rigorous nature of the work or physical training demands.
Having said that strict vegetarianism has never been the demand of Yoga in ancient India or now. Not one verse in the Gita or the Upanishad says that one must be a vegetarian! These things anyways drop off as one evolves just as many other animal tendencies that are far more dangerous for the yoga, such as sex, fear, anger and ambition begin to drop off as one advances in the Yoga. In fact, sex, fear, anger and ambition pose much greater danger than eating non-veg food to the spiritual aspirant. Therefore in the Ashram life the main prohibition is smoking, drinking (alcohol) and politics (where falsehood dominates). Veg or Non-veg are relatively minor issues. They spontaneously drop off as consciousness develops and have a main impact only when the bodily transformation begins. Until then they are not totally incompatable with spiritual life as certain sects in India seem to make it.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
