Does our conditioning from human body carry on to a future nonhuman body?
Hare Krishna. Yes the conditioning remains but it may not express itself in the same way as it expresses itself in the gross body. That means that there is a soul, the subtle body, there is a gross body.
Among these three when we go from one physical body to another the soul and the subtle body remain the same. So if I have cultivated certain conditionings those conditionings will stay with me when I go from this subtle body to another subtle body. At the same time those conditionings may not necessarily be expressed in that same way because conditionings also express themselves in appropriate circumstances.
So for example we all have lust. But usually lust does not express itself before we come to puberty. So a 5 year old child usually does not have any lust.
At least they have to come to 12, 11, 13, 14 something like that. Then that lust starts becoming expressed. That means that lust is there in the subtle body but unless the gross body comes to appropriate condition it doesn't express itself.
So like that we humans may express our hunger for power in a particular way. So if we go to say an elephant's body or a lion's body. Now we may not express it in the same way.
So for example if somebody has a hunger for power they may contest in political elections and they may organize and manipulate and scheme and do a hundred other things to try to grab power. But when a soul goes into an animal body there they may act in different ways. Because we see even in animal bodies there are varying conditions.
That means sometimes a dog may be a street dog and the street dog has to struggle for even basic food. And sometimes the dog may be a pet dog. Especially in the western world pet dogs are pampered like anything.
And they have their own medicine, they have their own kennel, they have their own variety of facilities. So now why is this difference there? That is because of karma. They both had the karma to become a dog but depending on the variety in their karma one became a street dog another became a pet dog.
So like that say in a herd of elephants there is only one elephant which will be the king. Like Gajendra, Gaja Indra. He was the king of the herd of elephants.
So now why was he the king? Yes because he had been a king earlier and he had lost the position of being a human king because of curse. But still he had the karmic credits and he became a king in the elephant body. So like that we may also become whatever conditionings we have in the human form they will be carried over into animal form.
But they may not express themselves in the same way. So for example elephant who has the tendency to become a king then that elephant may fight with some other elephant and they may not have political elections the way we have. Voting and all that.
They may not have all the manipulations, scheming and trying to make groups and apply pressure. But they just have a straight head on fight. And based on that they learn.
And based on that they move forward. That's possible. But the principle of fighting and competing is always there.
And trying to lead will be there. But now which elephant will actually become the leader and which elephant may have to live as a subordinate person or may be killed in the fight to be the elephant that will be dependent on karma. So the conditionings that we acquire in the human body in the subtle body they will stay with us.
But they may not be expressed in the same way in animal body as they are expressed in the human body. Because the expression of conditionings depends on the resources of the subtle body. Just as lust is not expressed in the body, is not appropriately equipped, is not at the level of puberty.
Similarly, power, hunger for power or greed or whatever because humans have more advanced intelligence we may use all that intelligence to do scheming and politics and 100 other things to try to satisfy that hunger for power. But we will not do that in the animal body because the animals may not have that level of intelligence. Subtle body remains the same but expression of the conditionings of the subtle body vary depending on the nature of the gross body and the nature of the conditions.