A friend from Monroe, who’s reading the book, asked me the following question on Facebook.
I should finish book before I ask..but every book I have read about this sort of thing…I am always left wondering about why animals are never mentioned. i.e what happens to them, reincarnation to or from animal form possible, what role they play other than food and the feelings on that from those 500 years ahead. When I do find information, it always seems to be skimmed over or very vague or dismissed. Any insight in your experiences?
Hi Cindy,
I think that’s a very interesting question. Just like many other books, “Letters” does not address the animal kingdom in a really focused way. But it does refer to animal consciousness in some passages. Bear in mind, no book can address all topics in depth (within 300 pages).
The “Letters” project is directed at the human species, specifically, because we are the ones causing so much trouble for the planet right now. Nevertheless, I just did a quick search for quotes about animals in the book and came up with a few. (See below)
I think this question and its response would be good to post on our web blog. Would you mind if I used your question and your first name on the blog?
These references will probably not address your question thoroughly. I think you are asking about animals’ role in evolution and the place of animal consciousness in “awakening”, as it were. My own view is that animal consciousness, and instinct, is an essential building block and portal to Conscious Evolution—the platform on which human and vigilan consciousness is constructed.
Another thing that could be said, from the grand overview, is that Consciousness is One. It manifests into various (infinite) forms, through incarnation and re-incarnation. The animal kingdom is one of those forms. Each form has its unique function and destiny. No form is lesser or greater than any other form. Each one has its unique time and place within the space of Now.
The cyclic and spiral nature of evolution and of conscious tells me that we all cycle through many different forms ourselves, since we are essentially one with all Consciousness. Our One Self is that which incarnates wherever and whenever, whether human, animal, vigilan or angelan.
Here are the passages that have some relevance to the animal kingdom:
References to “animals” in Letters from 500.
p6
The quickest way to tell you about it is to say that we recognize ourselves and each other, much more directly and intimately than naming can afford. Imagine the way the animals and birds around you identify one another.
p22
Yes, there are examples of ego in other primates and animals, but by comparison to the human ego, they are as nothing. One might even say that the ego invented you, or at least it was the chief characteristic in developing your full potential.
p23
The defensive nature of the ego came to define its relation to the world around it. Its job was self-protection, which led to greed and aggression. This sense of self could also include family, tribe or nation. Animal instinct transformed into intellect in the human mind and thus triggered a powerful expansion of territorial imperative.
The progression from instinct through intellect into intuition is an evolving principle here as well. The appreciative faculty that my species enjoys is an intuitive awareness, transcending yet including intellect. In early homo sapiens, instinct had jumped to intellect. Intellect, however, by necessity was largely cut off from its former instinctual basis. When the next species arrived, intellect made a similar leap to the intuitive state and recaptured its linkage to instinct. Said another way, intuition is instinct made conscious through intellect.
p34
“What happens to the soul of the animal when its species goes extinct?”
The soul is itself a unit within a greater whole. That soul, for example, the soul of the saber-toothed tiger, merges with the greater soul of felines in general. What was the essence of that ancient tiger lives on in the gene pool and in the soul realm. It is available if and when needed for some other form. Evolution never loses any information or point of consciousness. The form takes its experience back into the formless pool of evolving awareness.
p53
Without death there would be no physical form as we know it, no human beings, no animals or plants, no Earth or universe. Death is difficult to face for the finite mind and ego. It threatens identity and the continuity of self. From the personal perspective, it seems to deny us everything we hold dear. It is the Grim Reaper. Yet from a deeper awareness, it is the Great Redeemer. When it closes in upon us, we open up to true being; when death descends, we rise up in consciousness. All creations rise on the shoulders of Death.
p66
Another source of your troubled feelings during this transition will be the new transparency toward other humans and other creatures on your planet. The surfacing of oneness may actually feel like an attack upon your senses, given your unfamiliarity with it. You will begin to sense the anguish of billions of humans, previously hidden from you by the defense body of ego. The instinctual fears of the animal and insect kingdoms will affect you as well.
In the same vein, you will also feel other emotions from the vast body of Life. This comes at you from all directions, so that you feel as if it is your own. It is the budding of pure empathy. At first you have no way of processing this onslaught of feelings. You will be overwhelmed at times, and pulled back and forth. You will lose your balance and may even seem to be losing your sanity. These conditions will force you more and more to focus only on the present moment, the Now, and to look within yourself for understanding. The present represents the presence. There you will begin to find the answers.
p75
Human fear, of course, evolved out of animal, instinctual fear, which derived out of the early manifestations of the survival instinct. These are all stages that evolution needs to experience in order to arrive at its awakening. When the awakened state at last comes, it knows in its heart that oneness is all there is. It realizes its power of choice. All the struggles and labor of the millennia have paid off wonderfully.
p203
All of creation is manifesting appreciation continuously. The forms it takes vary immensely. A tree, for example, appreciates its place in the universe through its roots, through its acceptance of sunlight, the greening leaves and ripening fruit. It absorbs the appreciation of any animal, human or vigilan who touches it and uses it for shelter, sustenance or splendor. A quartz crystal appreciates its essence through the nourishment it receives among the minerals and energies that give it birth. When it emerges into the lighted world, a new appreciation dawns for it through its exposure to illumination. An electron appreciates its place within an atom, relative to the forces that measure its form. Only the human intellect is capable of shutting out this deep connection with oneness, with its innate appreciative sense.
p241
[The old man chuckles.] “That is a naïve question, my son. As long as there have been bodies, there have been continuous adjustments at these levels. As an example, even before the transition, when many people and animals succumbed to deadly viruses, there were always those who survived. Wouldn’t you say that their bodies were adjusting to the environmental changes? Your species also possessed the so-called placebo effect, and so-called ‘spontaneous remissions’. This was nothing more than instinctual realignment with the Life force.”
p285
“The galaxy is alive? The whole thing?”
Certainly. Most humans did not conceive of it that way, I know. You also did not think the Earth was alive. For vigilans, such distorted thinking seems preposterous. Of course it’s all alive—not just humans, plants and animals. The whole Cosmos is alive—every atom!
p294
Yes, there were always some who could see through. Any human could, at times. However, the Veil affected everyone to some extent, even great avatars and prophets. They too sometimes felt abandoned by the Cosmos. Look at Jesus with his plea during the crucifixion, “Father, why hast thou forsaken me?” But the Veil was in constant flux. It was denser in some places and times than others. It was initially designed to be rather porous and transparent. But it became more hardened and brittle as ego and mental dominance took over. For instinctual animals and plants, no Veil ever existed.
