Monday, March 26, 2007

Animals Are People

Written by Mahesha from Be Your Own Boss


When I say that “animals are people” some might say what rubbish or you might say it truly is. That depends on your view point. Everybody has their own way of looking at things, that’s natural. If you read this story, you might be able to judge it yourself.

In Sri Lanka, Elephants are national treasures. They are protected species facing the threat of extinction. We are usually afraid to go near an elephant because of its size. But these animals are really kind creatures. They will not harm you unless you do something very bad to hurt them. Elephants are important additions to annual Sri Lankan temple pageants, like Kandy pageant. Some temples keep an Elephant of their own.

Once I went to a famous Sri Lankan temple built in ancient times. It was 6.00pm, the time of offering flowers. It is a ceremony held daily where you offer flowers and drummers play their nice traditional drum beats. This elephant came holding a lotus and actually kept it with reverence on the seat where flowers are offered to the Pagoda. Then he kneeled down and paid his respect. He took another lotus flower from his mahout and went round the pagoda and again placed it on another seat and paid respect. Like this he went round the pagoda paying his respect. And then went to a side and stood there allowing other people to offer flowers.

“Is today a special day”? We asked the mahout. Oh no, this is his usual routine, he does it everyday. The elephant seemed really happy swinging his trunk and curving it. I thought even a normal person would not have paid such respect; this elephant’s behavior was so amazing, he was spreading Kindness all over him.

Animals are really interesting and they are like people. Not only this story, but when you see a group of animals and if you look at their behavior carefully, weather it is so serene like that elephant or aggressive, just think, don’t we humans also behave like that. If we do some soul searching work, we would surely understand that animals are really people.

3 comments:

kuanyin333 said...

I absolutely agree with you about animals! Regarding elephants, they are the most amazing, intelligent beings!

DirkStar said...

You are in error...

Just because an animal is cognizant does not make it a person. Cognizance is not the same in all living entities. Eyesight varies, as does sense of smell, touch and taste. Field of vision orientation such as bipedal or four legged affects the world view of cognizant beings.

Recognizing the life-force in all creatures does not imply seeing all creatures as human. If you see them as yourself you have only imposed the image of yourself upon another and are in error. (You are denying the true nature of something that is not you nor does it have to be.)

There is a story of a man given a chicken and told to take it where no one can see and kill it. The man is gone for weeks and everyone becomes quite concerned. Finally, the man returns with a still living chicken.

“Why did you not kill the chicken? He is asked.

“Because everywhere I went, the chicken could still see.”

The story recognizes the chicken as a living entity without assuming it is human. He accepts the is-ness of the chicken without masking it in a false face of humanity.

Truth is seeing all things as they are and accepting them as they are without making them anything other than what they are.

They are what they are. They are not people. Why are you not able to accept them in their natural state? Why are you imposing humanity upon an entity that is already living in a state of bliss in complete oblivion to your humanity?

Focus upon yourself and learn to see yourself as you truly are.

Let the animals alone...

They already know who and what they are.

They are not asking you to speak upon their behalf.

I hear them speak as themselves and I have no problem understanding them.



This is why I never take Gandhi from strangers...

Not From Lapland said...

There was something you said in there that reminded me of an incident when I was young.

I was visiting a horse farm (like most young girls i was fascinated by horses) and asked the owner if they could see colour like we do. she said 'what makes you think th.' all people see colour the same way? What I see as green you may see as what I call orange but call it green anyway'.

This fascinated me months afterwards - and still does to some extent.

Not that it had anything to do with what you said really but it was just where my mind went whilst reading this.

I hadn't heard the story of the chicken before, it's an interesting one and should give my mind something to mull over for the day.

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