Why Doesn't the Law of Karma Apply to Animals? || Acharya Prashant, IIT-Kharagpur Session (2020)

Acharya Prashant

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00:00It is said that human beings get bad results and punishment if they enter into bad actions.

00:18But nothing of this sort is said for animals.

00:27Why does the law of karma not apply to animals?

00:42The law of karma does not apply to animals because animals do not really have a choice

00:50in their actions.

00:54And when there is no choice there is no question of reward or punishment.

01:00Human beings are in a peculiar situation.

01:07They can choose to side with their animalistic conditioning or they can choose something higher.

01:20They can choose freedom, joy, love, liberation, compassion.

01:28Therefore, humans have a responsibility.

01:36Animals don't have that responsibility.

01:41Animals are dictated fully by their biological conditioning.

01:50If there is a road accident here on the road outside.

02:09You do not really expect the street dogs to come to rescue and help the victims of the

02:21accident.

02:22Do you?

02:27They are not supposed to.

02:30So you will not get angry at the dogs when they do not come to help the injured ones.

02:42A couple of bike riders have met an accident and they are lying on the road.

02:53And then there are birds on the trees and there are dogs roaming about.

03:07They will not take any special interest.

03:10There are so many insects around.

03:12Some snake is there in the bush, right?

03:26They do not really care for these two creatures who are lying bleeding on the road.

03:38And they do not care and they will not attract any punishment.

03:42Because they are not supposed to.

03:45They just do not have the option to act in compassion.

03:53No animal can be compassionate really.

03:57Because an animal is completely just prakrati.

04:08Animal really does not have the option to be a liberated consciousness.

04:18The animal's consciousness is completely dominated by its physical conditioning.

04:24Are you getting it?

04:27Therefore the animal gets neither reward nor punishment.

04:34Which is comfortable in a sense because the animal lives in a secure zone.

04:49A dog is born a dog, lives as a dog and dies as a dog.

04:54And no dog lives in a state of consciousness that is very different from that of another dog.

05:06Are you getting it?

05:10You cannot say one dog is liberated and the other dog is not.

05:14You cannot say one dog is joyful and compassionate and the other dog is not.

05:21Dogs can have varying external situations but internally all dogs are just dogs.

05:31This is not the case with human beings.

05:35Human beings can vary greatly in their internal states.

05:45One human being can be full of compassion and the other one can be spiteful, angry, vicious and violent.

06:00You are getting it?

06:02You are getting it?

06:06Therefore the one who is compassionate is rewarded.

06:11He made the right choice.

06:12He made the right choice.

06:14The one who is vicious is punished by his viciousness itself.

06:21He made the wrong choice.

06:25So there is this great difference between animals and human beings.

06:29Which also means that human beings must never justify their actions by taking examples of animals.

06:42For example, if you eat animal flesh, you cannot justify it by saying that a lion or a wolf too kills other animals to eat.

06:59A lion or a wolf has no option to not to kill.

07:06You have that option.

07:11Man is not necessarily a herbivore.

07:16Man is more of an omnivore.

07:18Therefore that option is there.

07:20You could have decided not to kill but you chose in favour of killing therefore you will be punished.

07:28A lion is never punished because the lion had no option.

07:37A lion has done nothing wrong.

07:42In fact even if a lion kills a human being, really it has not committed a crime.

07:52That's how lions are.

07:53They are supposed to kill to eat.

07:58But if a man needlessly kills an animal, then the man will be punished.

08:07If not by law, then by existence.

08:12So that is a human being in the most clear terms.

08:26A human being is a decision maker.

08:28A human being is someone who has a choice.

08:31How do you define a human being?

08:36He is someone who has a choice.

08:41And how you exercise these choices decides your life.

08:48Choose very, very carefully.

08:51Right?

08:53or an elephant.

08:53O

09:05or another life.

09:06A human being, really asениюs.

09:11For destruction, yes.

09:13For destruction, yes.

09:16For destruction, yes.

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