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Why Doesn't the Law of Karma Apply to Animals? || Acharya Prashant, IIT-Kharagpur Session (2020)
Acharya Prashant
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yesterday
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00:00
It is said that human beings get bad results and punishment if they enter into bad actions.
00:18
But nothing of this sort is said for animals.
00:27
Why does the law of karma not apply to animals?
00:42
The law of karma does not apply to animals because animals do not really have a choice
00:50
in their actions.
00:54
And when there is no choice there is no question of reward or punishment.
01:00
Human beings are in a peculiar situation.
01:07
They can choose to side with their animalistic conditioning or they can choose something higher.
01:20
They can choose freedom, joy, love, liberation, compassion.
01:28
Therefore, humans have a responsibility.
01:36
Animals don't have that responsibility.
01:41
Animals are dictated fully by their biological conditioning.
01:50
If there is a road accident here on the road outside.
02:09
You do not really expect the street dogs to come to rescue and help the victims of the
02:21
accident.
02:22
Do you?
02:27
They are not supposed to.
02:30
So you will not get angry at the dogs when they do not come to help the injured ones.
02:42
A couple of bike riders have met an accident and they are lying on the road.
02:53
And then there are birds on the trees and there are dogs roaming about.
03:07
They will not take any special interest.
03:10
There are so many insects around.
03:12
Some snake is there in the bush, right?
03:26
They do not really care for these two creatures who are lying bleeding on the road.
03:38
And they do not care and they will not attract any punishment.
03:42
Because they are not supposed to.
03:45
They just do not have the option to act in compassion.
03:53
No animal can be compassionate really.
03:57
Because an animal is completely just prakrati.
04:08
Animal really does not have the option to be a liberated consciousness.
04:18
The animal's consciousness is completely dominated by its physical conditioning.
04:24
Are you getting it?
04:27
Therefore the animal gets neither reward nor punishment.
04:34
Which is comfortable in a sense because the animal lives in a secure zone.
04:49
A dog is born a dog, lives as a dog and dies as a dog.
04:54
And no dog lives in a state of consciousness that is very different from that of another dog.
05:06
Are you getting it?
05:10
You cannot say one dog is liberated and the other dog is not.
05:14
You cannot say one dog is joyful and compassionate and the other dog is not.
05:21
Dogs can have varying external situations but internally all dogs are just dogs.
05:31
This is not the case with human beings.
05:35
Human beings can vary greatly in their internal states.
05:45
One human being can be full of compassion and the other one can be spiteful, angry, vicious and violent.
06:00
You are getting it?
06:02
You are getting it?
06:06
Therefore the one who is compassionate is rewarded.
06:11
He made the right choice.
06:12
He made the right choice.
06:14
The one who is vicious is punished by his viciousness itself.
06:21
He made the wrong choice.
06:25
So there is this great difference between animals and human beings.
06:29
Which also means that human beings must never justify their actions by taking examples of animals.
06:42
For example, if you eat animal flesh, you cannot justify it by saying that a lion or a wolf too kills other animals to eat.
06:59
A lion or a wolf has no option to not to kill.
07:06
You have that option.
07:11
Man is not necessarily a herbivore.
07:16
Man is more of an omnivore.
07:18
Therefore that option is there.
07:20
You could have decided not to kill but you chose in favour of killing therefore you will be punished.
07:28
A lion is never punished because the lion had no option.
07:37
A lion has done nothing wrong.
07:42
In fact even if a lion kills a human being, really it has not committed a crime.
07:52
That's how lions are.
07:53
They are supposed to kill to eat.
07:58
But if a man needlessly kills an animal, then the man will be punished.
08:07
If not by law, then by existence.
08:12
So that is a human being in the most clear terms.
08:26
A human being is a decision maker.
08:28
A human being is someone who has a choice.
08:31
How do you define a human being?
08:36
He is someone who has a choice.
08:41
And how you exercise these choices decides your life.
08:48
Choose very, very carefully.
08:51
Right?
08:53
or an elephant.
08:53
O
09:05
or another life.
09:06
A human being, really asениюs.
09:11
For destruction, yes.
09:13
For destruction, yes.
09:16
For destruction, yes.
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