The Animal Realm

We learned in the last podcast that the animal realm is the first basement level within the prison of Samsara. This is the realm where all the animals and insects dwell. Whether they are flying in the air, surviving on the surface, even underground or living in the water, all the animals and insects are found in the animal realm. The animal realm is considered one of the lower rebirths.

You may be wondering why it is considered a lower realm and pictured below ground especially since there are animals all around us in this life. Surely if we are on the ground level or main floor of the prison and they are here with us, then they cannot be below us. Well, the prison with the six floors is only an image to help you picture the realms to better understand them. The animal realm is considered a lower rebirth because animals do not have the mental capacity that we enjoy as humans. They lack the ability to understand spiritual concepts and to make spiritual progress. An animal cannot dedicate their virtuous actions for instance.

Being an animal or insect is generally a hard life. Now there are some pets that are totally pampered, but there are also pets that are badly mistreated, some of them are starved, while others are overfed, and some of them are abused in other ways. Being someone's pet is no guarantee of an easy life. Some animals are kept in captivity unable to live freely. Some of them are kept in cages or pens that are too small and confining for them, put on display to entertain humans. Animals are kept as livestock to be killed and eaten at some point. Some of them are experimented on for various reasons. Some are used in times of war or battle and are killed because of that.

The animals and insects in the wild have to struggle for survival. Animals and insects tend to fill their life with finding food, finding shelter, reproducing, sleeping and sometimes playing a little. They have limited lives. They not only have to try to find sources of food, but most have to worry about being a source of food themselves for other animals. They have to constantly be on the look out for danger, if they become too complacent they may be killed and eaten. If wild animals get ill, they do not have doctors or hospitals they can go to, to get well. Those ill animals, as well as young and old animals are usually targets for predators.

We need to be careful of the desire to want to be an animal in our next life, because we may just get what we wish for. I have thought it would be great to be a sloth or koala bear and sleep 20 hours a day, because I never seem to be able to get enough sleep. I like sleeping. However sleeping too much is a form of laziness. We don't really want to be born as an animal, because it is wrought with danger. Just watch any nature show on the lives of animals to see how difficult it is to be one. The chances of surviving into adulthood for most animals can be very low.

Many humans have no respect for animals and this causes them even more danger. Humans cause extinctions, and destroy the environment that these animals need in order to survive. The population of the entire animal kingdom is down 90% compared to a few hundred years ago, due to human interference. Huamns carelessly buy products that are causing these issues, mindlessly trying to fulfill their own desires with no thought of how these products are made or how the ingredients that go into them are produced or where they come from and the effect that has on others. There are poachers that kill animals for profit, taking prizes from the animal, but not utilizing the entire carcass, just leaving it there to rot. Trophy hunters that kill an animal for sport and to brag about it, create all kinds of negative karma for themselves. Again every animal that they kill creates the karma for them to be born as that animal and to be hunted and killed the same way, lifetime after lifetime. That's how karma works.

I saw a show not long ago and there was a man who fished in the Thames River in England on the program. He was bragging that during his life he had caught thousands of fish in that river. I cried for him, because he has created the karma to live thousands of lives as those fish and will be caught the same way until he clears up that karma. Every spider or mosquito or any other insects or animals you have killed, creates the cause for you to take rebirth in the future and you will have to live a life as each and every one of those insects or animals and go through the same kind of death until you have cleared up all your negative karma of killing them. That's not even getting into the collective karma involved.

If for example we take rebirth as a mosquito and we go around biting and sucking the blood out of all kinds of creatures, until we die, we will have created the karma of taking rebirth as each one of those creatures and get bitten by a mosquito. This shows how taking rebirth and being an animal or insect without the capacity to know anything about how your behaviour affects your future, is why the animal realm is considered a lower rebirth. All those animals and insects have no idea that karma even exists, never mind trying to purify all their negative karma or dedicating their positive karma. That is how we create the karma to continue to take uncontrolled rebirth in all of these different realms over and over countless times.

This is why we need to learn about the animal realm and the dangers it poses for us, so we can act now in this very lifetime to purify the unknown negative karma we have stored up, so that we do not take any unfortunate rebirth in the animal realm in the future. We can completely purify all the negative karma we have collected that remains in our storage units in this very lifetime, if we choose to. In fact, it is imperative that we do, because if we think we can clear some up now, and do the rest in our next life, we don't know if we will actually be able to do that. We would be risking taking an uncontrolled rebirth into a lower realm, like the animal realm and not having a chance to do any spiritual work whatsoever. It could be many lives before we get the karma that ripens for us to take a human rebirth and even then we may not have the karma to have any spiritual teachings or abilities in that life. It is not worth taking the risk.

During my shamanic journeys, I have visited the lower realm, which is a natural animal spirit realm. I interact with many different spirit animals there. I help them with things they need done and they help me to accomplish things. It is always wonderful being there and having these spirit animals as companions. I try to help teach them about doing no harm and other spiritual things, so they can strive to ascend in the future. They really seemed to enjoy learning to meditate. It is vital that anyone that chooses to do shamanic work that they do it to benefit others, not for selfish, harmful reasons. This is important when it comes to working with spirit animals, that we do not use them and cause them any harm or ask them to do harmful things. They have karma storage lockers, just like the rest of us and we want to make sure we are helping every living being, even spirits to gain as much good karma as possible for everyone's benefit. While these spirit animals may be able to learn about spiritual matters, it would still be a lower rebirth because they would still be trapped in the cycle of uncontrolled rebirth and can be harmed by any humans that misuse them.

We may not be able to teach animals here on Earth how to meditate or do spiritual things, but we can try our best not to harm any of them. This doesn't mean we all have to become vegetarian or vegan, but we do need to be mindful of the food we eat and to be thankful. Even vegans and vegetarians need to be mindful of all the insects that are killed to provide them with vegetables, fruits and grains they eat. They are also responsible for all the environmental impact their exotic food choices cause. Their diet harms living beings as well. It is degenerate times, and due to this, no one is free from doing harm or negative things as it touches all aspects of our lives. If the vegans and vegetarians hate people that eat meat, then they are causing themselves harm and this very act of hating others proves they are not superior to anyone. It is completely illogical to love all animals some of which eat other animals, but not love any humans because they eat animals.

Hopefully we will purify our karma enough that we will not have to take a rebirth in the animal realm some time in the future. We also need to erase any karma that could lead to an even lower rebirth such as the hungry ghost realm which we will take a look at in the next podcast. 

Listen to the full podcast here: https://youtu.be/7g-JBInNwTI