For all of us, our total sanchita karma initially was a divine play.

For an enlightened master, it is still a divine play as he has no karma at all. Playing because you can play is the divine play.

We took birth out of choice. We forgot our prarabdha karma, started gathering agamya karma and expanded the total sanchita karma. Then, to exhaust the increased load we had to take another birth where we collected more desires and karma. This is how the cycle of life and death continues.

Please understand, your gathered agamya karma is your bondage. The total karma and this birth karma can be a divine play. The result of this play is the karma of that birth. After birth, if we play without gathered karma, it will continue to be a divine play. The bondage comes with gathered karma.

Will a human be born as an animal, bird or insect or can he be born as human being in the next birth?

This is a very good question. Let me boldly declare this truth and clear all the myths that have been surrounding this one question on the wheel of karma!

When a human being takes birth as human once, he will continue taking the life of a human unless he has acted against his consciousness like torturing others or committed violent acts in physical, mental or verbal forms against Existence which is in the form of the master, nature and human consciousness. The intensity of these acts is what gets recorded in the cosmic karmic record. Understand, it is not the act itself but the intensity of the act that matters.

When a person spends his whole life in lower consciousness, he can be reborn as an animal. For example, if he spends his whole life in only eating or sleeping, he can be reborn as an animal.

If the person has not experienced even once in his lifetime, the unique human qualities like falling in love, seeking enlightenment, he will be reborn as an animal, because he had a human body but the channels of human experience have not been awakened.

source: Living Enlightenment