In Hindu, Jain and Buddhist religions especially, there is a belief that unless one gives up eating non-vegetarian food, one cannot attain emancipation or knowledge of the Supreme Spirit. Sai Baba himself was an emancipated soul and had full knowledge of the Supreme Spirit and was capable of giving such experiences to others. However, he not only had no objection to non-vegetarian food, but never insisted that his devotees should give it up. In his early days he used to cook non-vegetarian food himself in a big pot and after consecrating it through a moulvi by reciting the fatiha, used to send as Prasad to Mhalsapati and Tatya Kote Patil before distributing it to others.

There might be two reasons for this. One could be that Sai Baba, with his mission of achieving unity amongst Hindus and Muslims wore a Muslim fakir type of dress and lived like a fakir. Hence, accepting non-vegetarian food was quite appropriate. Secondly if we carefully consider the teachings of our scriptures, it will be clear that denial of non-vegetarian food is only one of the means to attain emancipation or knowledge of the Supreme Spirit and not a goal in itself. To give this up, to avoid killing of innocent animals for the sake of one’s enjoyment of tasty food or because non-vegetarian food becomes a hindrance in achieving concentration of mind during meditation by increasing attributes of passion (Rajo guna) and ignorance (Tamo-guna), is of course commendable. But to say that without avoiding non-vegetarian food one cannot achieve emancipation or knowledge of the Supreme Spirit is not correct. Otherwise great peers like Mohammed (Paigamber) and Jesus Christ, would not have been born at all. Moreover, in India, those who do not take non-vegetarian food do so because they believe in the principle of non-injury, or because they fear that the attributes of passions and ignorance would increase.