Do animals have a mind? How come they don’t have any mental issues?
Animals do have a mind, they do have the feelings.
There was an article on how a leopard helped a baby monkey survive, and how a dog was helped by a dolphin. These are such many amazing things.
Usually we use the phrase ‘fighting like dogs and cats’, but in our ashram a kitten is being nursed by a dog. The kitten sits happily on the dog’s back and dog cuddles the kitten. They are such good friends.
Just a month ago, Bhanu (Sri Sri’s sister) was telling me that she saw the peacock at our ashram escorting a snake. Usually peacock and snakes are staunch enemies, they kill each other, but because there were rabbits in the same place and the snake can kill the rabbits, the peacock escorted the snake out and saved the rabbits from being attacked by the snake.
So animals do have minds. If you see elephants, they are very intelligent. Our ashram elephant, if I give her rice, she will not take it in her trunk because she knows it will become messy. But if I give her a banana she will take it in her trunk. When I give her rice she will pull my hand and put it in her mouth.
The mahouts says that when she comes to my kutir (room) she runs, but when it’s time to go back, she’s very reluctant to go and doesn’t want to go. So she’ll do all sorts of pranks.
The mahout says, ‘She listens to me on the way to your kutir Gurudev, but she doesn’t listen to me on the way back’.
Animals are very intelligent. They do have a mind, but mostly they align themselves with nature. They don’t do anything against nature, they don’t overeat, and they don’t oversleep or not sleep. They don’t indulge in any excessive activity like human beings, like excess pleasure. They are better off because they are programmed to be aligned with nature.
Note – The above text is excerpts of Sri Sri Ravishankar Guruji’s Art of Living satsang.