6
On the Way to Kṛṣṇa
are different kinds and grades of living entities, and their conceptions and perceptions of happiness are also of all different types and grades. Although one animal may see that another animal is being slaughtered, he will go right on chewing grass, for he has no knowledge to understand that he may be next. He is thinking that he is happy, but at the next moment he may be slaughtered.
In this way there are different degrees of happiness. Yet of all of them, what is the highest happiness? Śri Kṛṣṇa'tells Arjuna:
sukham ātyantikam yat tad buddhi-grāhyam atīndriyam vetti yatra na caivāyam sthitaś calati tattvataḥ
“In that joyous state ( samādhi ), one is situated in boundless transcendental happiness and enjoys himself through transcendental senses. Established thus, one never departs from the truth.” (Bg. 6.21)
Buddhi  means intelligence; one has to be intelligent if he wants to enjoy. Animals do not have really developed intelligence and so cannot enjoy life as a human being can. The hands, the nose, the eyes, the other sense organs and all the bodily parts may be present on a dead man, but he cannot enjoy. Why not? The enjoying energy, the spiritual spark, has left, and therefore the body has no power. If one looks further into the matter with a little intelligence, he can understand that it was not the body that was enjoying at all but the small spiritual spark that was within. Although one may think that he is enjoying