Aren't animals living beings and in reality the Self as well?

Bhagavan strokes the calf. She hops about excitedly, goes round Bhagavan and then begins licking Bhagavan's hand.

Pasupathi: Look! What a sight! It's going around Bhagavan with such devotion.

Bhagavan: Don't say, "It's going around," say, "she is going around". Aren't animals living beings and in reality the Self as well?

Pasupathi: Forgive me, Bhagavan, a slip of the tongue. The golden hand of Bhagavan has touched this calf. She is indeed blessed!

... while Bhagavan and Pasupathi Iyer converse, Lakshmi explores the Ashram and then returns to Bhagavan. Pasupathi Iyer falls prostrate in reverence to Bhagavan and then departs with mother cow and calf. Bhagavan goes inside and others follow.

Ramanathan: (To an ashramite nearby) Did you see how Bhagavan and the calf were looking so intently at each other?

Ashramite: Yes, I was wondering why Bhagavan was fixing his eyes on the calf like that.

Ramanathan: That was also my experience. Once when I was studying in the Vedapatsala, the magnetic gaze of Bhagavan was directed toward me. The instant the light from Bhagavan's lotus eyes fell upon me, springs of love for him began to open up and overwhelm me. I observed the same passion flooding the eyes of that calf. The two of them looked like mother and child gazing at one another.

Ramanatha softly recites a verse from Bhagavan's Aksharamanamalai:

As the magnet does to iron,
attract me ceaselessly and be merged into me,
O Arunachala!

~ from Sri Ramana, Friend of Animals, The Life of Lakshmi the Cow, A Story Adapted from Prani Mitra Bhagavan Ramanar

please see this: http://bhagavanramana.blogspot.com/2007/06/deliverance-of-lakshmi.html