Parmatma in non human bodies

July 8, 2003

Hare krishna prabhus and matajis,

I wonder what will be the role of parmatma in animals.

In humans it is the local witness of our activity or karma and then based on that the sole gets another body in subsequent life . Well for animals there is no karmic reaction , so parmata has no need to be a witness. Of course it gives the necessary life to the body .

Second thing is how a sole transit back to human body .

Does it has to go through all 8.4 million bodies again and come back to human body Or it goes to some of the 8.4 millions body depend on his KARMA when it had HUMAN body.

Hoping for a sincere reply .

Hari bol.

DEV

I_love_krishna_ · July 8, 2003

He is the local witness of karma. However, it is said that not even an ant moves with out the will of krishna .

I think he did say that he is the king of all animals in bhagavath gita.

By the reference to Yoga Vasistha, the living being moves from human form to a specific animal form based on its karma.

The Karma also works in the opposite direction, where the living being moves from the human form to a higher demigod form in a higher planet through the measure of "Punya" or Virtue.

"Punya" and "Papa" are like "Golden chain" and "Iron chain" in the prison of Karma. They both bind a person into the karmic cycle.

In Yoga Vasistha and other scriptures , the Punya and Papa help each other out, for example, if a living being has more virtue, all the nice things happen to it, then it gets full of itself and ego develops and falls into evil ways.

Like we see in Ravana's case in Ramayan.

If the living being does Papa, then it rises from its evil ways and goes to "Punya" or virtue, where it goes to a higher plane of consciousness.

So, these notions of Satvism, Rajasism and Tamasism are nothing but notions of the living entity where the living being just goes from the upper part of the circle to the lower part and vice versa in the great wheel of karma. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

You can cut it by the use of knowledge as explained in Bhagavath gita.

To the devotees here: Please correct me if I am wrong /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Gauracandra · July 9, 2003

I remember reading that Srila Prabhupada says that so called instinct is actually the supersoul within the animal guiding it.

I believe it was Srila Siddhaswarupananda I heard on one of his programs say that if you analyze what instinct actually means when the scientists say it, it means "We don't know." But instinct sounds oh so scientific.

There was a program on television a couple years ago that showed ants growing and harvesting a certain kind of mold on leaves. They said it was instinct. That means nothing. Why in the world is a dumb animal growing food? Instinct means nothing. If you say it is chemical molecular interations then break down why that happens. But they can't because they don't know why it happens. It just does.

July 9, 2003

Krishna says in the Bhagavad-gita:

"I am situated in the heart of all living entities as the Supersoul and from Me comes knowledge, rememberance and forgetfulness." (15.15)

So we see that the Supersoul is the one that makes a living entity act according to his previous desires. Somehow of other a soul wanted to be in a tiger body, well the Supersoul gives him the intelligence of a tiger. etc for all other bodies.

Even though there is 'no karmic reaction' for the the animal body, the Supersoul is the Superintendent remembering the previous activities of the living entity and also directing that entity into fulfulling his desires. Krishna says in the Gita that "Many birth you and I have taken, I remember them all, but you do not." (somewhere early in 4th chapter)

Karma is very difficult to explain because of the infinite possibilities that can derive from one event. An animal body can even get liberation if he gets the chance to associate with a pure devotee. But it is true that it depends on the activities of the soul in higher levels of consciousness like humans and demigods or demons.