Is the suffering of animals also caused by their karma?

[Shri B Barik asked: Sincere Praṇām! I was thinking that only human beings are struggling in life because of their past karmas and that animals suffer less. But after watching the NGC and Discovery channels, I have seen that animals have their own struggles. Predators killing their prey mercilessly, inflict severe pain on their prey. Why do animals also suffer? Do they also have accumulated past karma? Regards, B. Barik]

Swāmi replied: Condemned souls are thrown into the lives of animals. Condemned souls are the souls, who concentrated only on the lower aspects of life like eating food, drinking, sleeping and sex, while they were in human bodies. They never bothered about God. The lower aspects of life on which they fully concentrated, are totally available in the life of animals. Hence, granting them another human life is unnecessary.

Ferocious animals commit sins by killing other animals. Such ferocious animals are reborn as soft-natured animals to be killed by other ferocious animals. Soft-natured animals, in turn, are reborn as ferocious animals to kill the ferocious animals reborn as soft-natured animals. This is a cyclic process running continuously and there is no chance of these souls getting a human rebirth. The soul’s deeds give their related fruits to the soul, whether it is born as a human being or an animal. Your sympathy for those dying animals is unjustified because you have only seen part of the picture. You have only seen the hanging of the criminal and you sympathise with him. But you have not seen the crimes of that criminal in which he killed several innocent children! Your ignorance of the entire picture is the cause for your irrational sympathy. All souls are equally the children of God (Ahaṃ bījapradaḥ pitā—Gītā). Yet God has no such irrational sympathy for such souls since He is omniscient and He knows the total picture (Tānyahaṃ veda sarvāṇi—Gītā).

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| Shri Datta Swami | Is the suffering of animals also caused by their karma? | Aham bijapradah pitaa Taanyaham veda sarvani Gita Giita