DO ANIMALS HAVE SOULS?

QUESTION: There must be a point where the sort of awareness of self which seems to separate human beings from the vast majority of other animals, breaks through. If a line is drawn between simple consciousness and self-consciousness, there must be some creatures who are approaching that line, domestic animals chiefly and surely a few who have passed the line. How far down the line of evolution does reincarnation manifest?


Over the course of history, societies have at times believed that animals posses individual souls and at other times that they have no soul. Ancient Egypt had several religious cults espousing that belief that animals(or at least some of them) not only had individual souls, but repeatedly reincarnated into the world as well. In some parts of the world, animals are still worshiped as sacred entities and are thought to have souls. So for example, in some temple courtyards in Nepal and India, monkeys are revered as sacred animals and thought to have an inherent divinity exceeding that of the average human.

We may think of such belief as originating with superstitious, primitive cults, but is there any justification in believing that any living thing is devoid of a soul that migrates from one incarnation to the next over aeons of time? Is it really possible that a thinking, or at least consciously aware, creature can have consciousness one moment and the next moment have it snuffed out from all eternity?Nature does things in the most economical and practical ways possible..., always! The question then arises: If the consciousness of sentient being is so difficult to create ( and it surely is ), would nature simple dispose of that consciousness for all time at transition simply because the processes of life generation are so well oiled and functioning so well in the universe that losing one unit of consciousness here or there would make little difference in the overall scheme of things?

The concept of an animal being able to exist in the world but not possess an individual soul seems to the mystic as being rather odd. It stems primarily from the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic stream of religious beliefs. This so called "Abrahamic " tradition speaks of an original and unique creation of humanity some time in the distant past by an anthropomorphic God who bestowed a uniquely purposed divine essence and individual souls on human beings alone, leaving out all other living creatures .....indeed making all other creatures subservient to the human species, and leaving these poor creatures at the whim and fancy of human beings, no matter how cruel. The holy writings of the Abrahamic tradition are used as sources of irrefutable reference by Jews, Christians and Muslims, not to be questioned and to be adhered to literally and often with blind faith.Historically though, all these writings, from a rational standpoint, must have been compiled by human minds..., admittedly some of them deeply inspired in a spiritual sense, but nevertheless still ordinary, fillible, human minds. For them, they have their "holy scriptures," they are the "word of God" and are therefore beyond reproach. In the cold light of rational thought and analysis, they are human created concepts, highly syncretic in nature, sometimes compassionate and spiritual, but at other times sometimes brutal and barbaric, and being derived from many sources. So if we accept their holy scriptures as infallible and absolutely true, then there is no further discourse possible upon the subject of souls in animals and their reincarnation. However, if we look at the matter free of any theological or doctrinal bondage, then the question is open to an interesting consideration.

Taking the principle one by one,we must first acknowledge that human beings are first and foremost animals..., highly evolved animals to be sure, yet still sharing many traits with other animals. It is said that we share over 95% of our genes with chimpanzees and even more so with Orangutans. looking at the primates as the frolic and play in their natural habitat, one cannot help but be deeply moved by the many similarities we see between then and human children for example. Or look at the devotion that a bitch shows towards its litter of pups and we see a kindness and gentleness that sure can only come from the spiritual realms. If you have ever owned a bird such as an African Grey parrot, you will know that such birds live to over 50 years, have distinct personalities and are capable of almost superhuman affection. Surely such traits cannot exist in creatures with no link at all with soul? Surely such creatures are the same as us in possessing individual souls, but expressing their soul personalities in different ways from us?


The second principle involves the theory of existence. How does consciousness arise? In mystic ontology, it is a result of the union of two complimentary though relatively opposite principle or energies, both arising from a supreme actuality called Nous,or as it has also been called the Monad. The two principle are called Soul, which is the repository of information, purpose and meaning, and spirit, which is the basic "center wave " upon which Soul modulates that information, purpose and meaning, thereby resulting in the manifestation of living sentient being.

The third principle relates to the degree of consciousness of the sentient being whether a human being, a dog, cat, parrot, dolphin or mouse. All living creatures have at the very least, an awareness or consciousness of some sort. In the vast majority of case, that consciousness does not extend beyond simple awareness of pleasure or pain, and it is natural that the creatures involved will always gravitate towards experience of pleasure and move away from experiences of pain.

Beyond that, there is a small minority of living things that have sense organs such as sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch, as well as other senses not possessed by humans such as the Ampulse of Lorenzini possessed by all sharks which gave them the ability to sense the electromagnetic disturbances given off by the muscular activity of other living creatures. This minority of creatures(numbering many billions, yet still very much in the minority) are akin to human in so for as they can interact with the world "out there" much as we do through well developed sense organs.

Then there is a much, much smaller fraction of living creatures on each that posses what is call self awareness, namely awareness of identity and of a difference between them and all other things. All the usual creatures we know, ranging from mice to elephants and sea-lions to whales, have this awareness of their identity.And then is the extremely tiny fraction of those creatures that have awareness of the fact that they have consciousness and are able to think about their own mental processes. This last category may only include human beings, but it is likely that some forms of self awareness also exists in the higher primates such as gorillas , chimpanzees and orangutans , and maybe even in dogs.

This is speculative though and so fat there is no proof either way. All we do know with certainty however, is that humans do posses this level of consciousness, and it is precisely because the dominant and by far the most successful species on earth.

With all there different life forms, consciousness emerges in essentially the same manner, namely with the union of two principle or force..., Soul and Spirit. And in every case, the controlling force or principle of Soul is individualized as a unique soul. Does a dog therefore have a soul? you bet it does! Does your pet parrot have soul? Of course it does! And furthermore, your soul interacts with the souls of non-human creatures all around you every day. The beauty of a bird twittering in the trees, the barking of a dog three blocks away, the yawn of a cat as it stares at you with adoring eyes..., these are all souls, individual soul that are karmically tied to your soul, and assist you in your evolution just as you assist them in theirs.

Will they evolve to higher and higher level consciousness, one day maybe even reaching the awareness of the human mind? Most likely they will, but not in the time scale that humans can understand, and most likely not incarnated in the same world we will inhabit as we go from life to life in our own process of evolution.

The sanctity of these hundreds or thousands of soul that we are so privileged to know, that wander through life with us, sharing its fortunes and misfortunes..., permeates and instructs us from deep within, far below the level of objective awareness, and help to make us the self-aware, spiritual beings we are.

What would the world be like without these furry, fluffy, slithery friends, all of which have individual soul ties for time to our souls? Sad to say, at the rate we are destroying our planet at the moment, even in our lifetimes, we may yet find the sad answer to that question .