Do animals act by instinct or they have intelligence also?

Question from Sri Chaitanya Chandra Prabhu. Do animals act by instinct or do they have intelligence also? Answer, the instinct of the animals is their intelligence.

That means that the animals don't, as far as eating, sleeping, mating, defending is concerned, they are often extremely intelligent. In fact, in many ways, they are more intelligent than human beings. Human beings, we just by observing, say, a tree or a fruit or a flower or a shrub, we can't decide whether it is edible for us or not.

But animals can actually just see and understand, oh, this is food for me, this is not food for me. So, in that sense, as far as eating is concerned, we can say that animals have more intelligence than us. But where does this intelligence come from? That, to a large extent, is instinctive.

As soon as they are born and biologically grow up, they just know it from their own instincts. Now, we understand that these instincts actually come from the Supreme Lord. Ishvara Sarva Bhootaanam, Hridesha Arjuna Tushyati, Brahmayana Sarva Bhootaani, Yantra Rudhani Mayaya, in 18.61 the Bhagavad Gita says that, Krishna says that he is guiding the wandering of all living beings.

So, one way he guides the wanderings of the different species is by providing them intelligence in the form of their instincts. Even the way migratory birds find their way, find their path, their destinations and directions through the sky going over thousands of kilometers is miraculous. No human beings can do that.

But that they are doing it so as to find a better place for eating, sleeping, mating, defending. So, animals definitely have intelligence for eating, sleeping, mating, defending and that is instinctive in the sense that they automatically have it from birth. They don't know where it comes from and they don't necessarily consciously cultivate their intelligence by study or by observation.

Although they may hone it, they may train it a little bit by that. But overall, it's just something that they naturally have. Now, we also use this word intelligence in a different sense.

We use intelligence in terms of discrimination between matter and spirit, between temporary and eternal, between physical and metaphysical. That intelligence is something which is unique to human beings and animals don't have that. So, humans also have instinct and we also have some level of instinctive intelligence also in terms of some capacity to know about eating, sleeping, mating, defending, but not much, certainly lesser than animals.

Our primary gift is the capacity for discrimination in terms of short term and long term that Krishna has given us. So, in general, the lower the level of consciousness of the animal, inherited intelligence is extremely high and its acquired or learned intelligence is very less. So, inherited intelligence basically means instinct.

For example, parrots can learn to imitate some human sounds and monkeys can learn to dance and do some other activities like humans do. They can mimic them. So, these are not skills that they have been given by instinct, but that they can learn by training.

On the other hand, the lower the species, they are primarily driven by instinct and they cannot learn much. So, if we have from the lowest consciousness to the highest consciousness over the various species, the lowest consciousness means nearly all their intelligence is instinctive and they don't learn anything by training or acquisition or observation. They just more or less, they act according to their the way they are programmed.

But as the consciousness evolves over the various species, then the animal's free will becomes a little more manifest and apart from acting according to their instincts, they can also do certain actions which may not be instinctive for them, but which they learn by training and this capacity is maximum in human beings and by that capacity we can actually learn to love Krishna. So, that's why at a spiritual level, we have an instinctive attraction towards Krishna but that spiritual instinct is largely covered and obscured by our material conditionings and that's why we may not feel an instinctive attraction for Krishna. But even if we don't have an instinctive spiritual intelligence, we can by training and by learning, acquire spiritual intelligence, acquire discrimination and this capacity is the maximum.

So, in the comparison between instinctive and inherited intelligence and acquired intelligence or learned intelligence, human's capacity for learned intelligence is the maximum and we can learn it especially by coming in the session of devotees and through the scriptural study, through the practice of the devotional culture and of course the desire of our heart. So, to summarize, if we just by instinct mean, instinct is also a form of intelligence but it is intelligence restricted to eating, sleeping, mating and defending. Animals have that alone.

Intelligence in terms of discrimination of material and spiritual is something which is possessed by human beings alone, not by the lower species and what makes this difference is, why do humans have this capacity for long term and short term discrimination? Because we can learn a lot by training and observation whereas the lower species cannot, can do this very very little and as we move upwards, upwards in consciousness, this capacity increases more and more. Till human species means, it is the maximum and the lower species may also have some sort of adaptability just like HIV, the virus seems to find out ways by which it can adapt and resist to whatever chemicals are designed to kill it. So, but that is again intelligence, that is expertise or intelligence that is restricted to eating, sleeping, mating, defending.

It cannot think about anything metaphysical. So, the capacity for learning and training that we are talking about is something beyond eating, sleeping, mating, defending that is distinctive to human beings. Thank you.