Animal Consciousness

2003-10-18 04:35:00

My Friends,

I thought I would clarify my views concerning the consciousness of animals.

I have never said that animals do not have consciousness. Indeed I have taught that all things, even apparently inorganic rocks have their own type of consciousness.

I have taught that animals do not have self consciousness such as humans. To put it in DK's words they have not individualized.

Animals do have consciousness, are keenly aware of many things that are pertinent to their lives, but their consciousness is different from ours as is taught by the story in the Garden of Eden.

The consciousness of Adam and Eve in the garden represents the consciousness of our animal; nature before we became fully human. They were naked in the garden and were not ashamed.

The transfer from animal to human consciousness is represented by the eating of the tree of good and evil. After they are of it they realized they were naked.

Why did they realize they were naked and seek to cover themselves?

Because they developed human self consciousness. They had individualized so they saw themselves as separate entities from all other creations and thus began to compare how they looked to others. They were "ashamed."

No animal is ashamed or gets embarrassed. They are happy to do their business on the floor in front of a thousand onlookers and think nothing of it. Few humans would do this unless they lost a large bet.

An animal cares not if you think it is fat, slow or stupid. We humans with our self consciousness are concerned about these things and much more.

The purpose of life in the animal kingdom is to master the principle of attention. All their consciousness is geared around the development of refined attention mainly through seeking food and survival.

Self consciousness in humans is geared toward the discovery of consciousness itself as well as that which consciousness takes in. This is why we experiment and explore to discover the universe around and within us.


There was a power outage at a department store yesterday. Twenty people were trapped on the escalators. Steven Wright