Is milk vegetarian or nonvegetarian?

Questioner: Just as one should not eat the 'vegetarian' egg, one should not drink the milk of a cow.

Dadashri: You cannot eat eggs but you can drink cows' milk, eat yogurt and some can even eat butter made from that milk. There are no restrictions.

The Lord had forbidden some people to eat butter, but that was for specific people and for a different reason. You can make puddings and sweets from that milk. Even if some scriptures forbid this, I will tell you that those scriptures are wrong and that there are no restrictions. Go ahead and enjoy them but take care not to overindulge.

Questioner: But nature had intended the milk for the calves and not for us.

Dadashri: That is completely false. Only the calves of the wild cows and buffaloes drink all their mother's milk. People however, feed and nurture cows so that both the calves and the humans can benefit from the cows' milk. This has been the practice from time immemorial. If you feed a cow well, it can produce up to fifteen liters of milk a day. If you feed it well it will produce more than the normal amount of milk so you would not be depriving the calf of its share and letting it go hungry.