Life-forms and Souls

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There has been a wide consensus, among the most spiritual people, for millennia, that plants do not have Souls. It requires a certain level of mental development for any creature to possess and maintain an individual Soul. Lower organisms, such as bacteria, unicellular organisms, fishes, amphibians, reptiles, and birds share a group-soul for each species.

They do not have individual Souls. The personal, individual Soul is that part of Mind that appeared to "seperate" from the divine Mind to experience a "personal" life. This is, in reality, a life of illusion.

For all "sentient" life remains unseparated from the One great Mind, called in Eastern traditions "Brahman" or "Tao."

All mammals (horses, elephants, dolphins, cows, pigs, dogs, cats, and a spectrum of other life-forms) do indeed have individual Souls, survive death intact, and create and receive karma.

These life-forms are what the Buddha called "sentient" (selfaware) beings, and the enlightened show more respect for these creatures because they are, like human beings, partakers of the one Mind.

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