Do Animals Have More Worth than Humans?

Both humans and animals, like everything in creation, are manifestations of God’s consciousness, so God became them both. Different animals have differing levels of intelligence and consciousness of themselves, and varying capabilities to learn, and relate to the world and others around them. Their intelligence and feeling nature react and respond to issues of survival, and love. Yogananda said that animals live out their lives on a sort of “automatic pilot,” karmically. They can’t necessarily make conscious decisions about morality and behavior with the intention of changing their consciousness or karma. I don’t know if animals have a similar astral anatomy, such as chakras, but if they do they mostly focus on the lower ones. They are most concerned with survival: eating, procreating, being sheltered, and most have a social structure within the local group of their species.

Yogananda explains that humans are, unlike animals, “wired” for Self-realization. We are not on an automatic evolutionary track, but a very conscious one, and we have the brain and nervous system to work with techniques and practices to help us rise up to meet the grace of God – that which will carry us all the way to freedom.

Yogananda and others have related stories to illustrate that a human and an animal are both in a circumstance together where one needs to die. An animal is considered a lower life form, so the human would be spared. A human has the ability to grow in truth, in spirit, and therefore when one is making this effort it is a blessing to spend as much time in the body as possible, until spiritual growth is no longer possible.

Saying all of this, it is still true that we are made from / of God. What you are asking is, “does God value one part of Himself more than another?” Only God can answer this.

Lisa Powers