Path of Spirituality and Animals
Animals and Path of Spirituality
As we travel and grow along the Path of Spirituality, we come to realize that Humanity, from the perspective of the subhuman kingdoms in nature, is the divine intermediary and the transmitter of spiritual energy to those lives whose stages of consciousness are below that of self-consciousness. Humanity becomes to these lives, in their totality, what the Spiritual Hierarchy is to humanity. This service to the animal and other subhuman kingdoms becomes possible only when an individual becomes increasingly soul-conscious and not just self-conscious.
“Nothing’s perfect,” sighed the fox. “My life is monotonous. I hunt chickens; people hunt me. All chickens are just alike, and all men are just alike. So I’m rather bored. But if you tame me, my life will be filled with sunshine. I’ll know the sound of footsteps that will be different from all the rest. Other footsteps send me back underground. Yours will call me out of my burrow like music. And then, look! Do you see the wheat fields over there? I don’t eat bread. For me, wheat is of no use whatever. Wheatfields say nothing to me. Which is sad. But you have hair the color of gold. So it will be wonderful, once you’ve tamed me! The wheat, which is golden, will remind me of you. And I’ll love the sound of the wind in the wheat…” ~ Little Prince- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The following are excerpts from Module 1 of the Humanity Healing Animal Mentorship Program, De Animalibus Libri: Animals in Spirituality.
Do Animals Have Souls?
But does animal intelligence constitute, per se, proof of the existence of a Soul? Does this prove that they are traveling on a Path of Spirituality? Do a pet’s emotions and ability to relate to human beings mean that animals possess an immortal spirit that will survive after death? Theologians say no. They point out that man was created superior to animals and that animals cannot be equal with him. Most interpreters of the Bible accept that man’s likeness to God and animals’ subservience to man implies that animals may have the “breath of life,” or nephesh in Hebrew, but not an immortal Soul in the same sense as a man. The word “nephesh,” however, has more than a single connotation. Nephesh was traditionally used in many Biblical translations simply as “breath of life,” but this Hebrew word also means “creature” as well as “Soul.”