The nature of a soul

Dictionary.com defines the soul in three ways:

1. as the principle of life, thought, and action in humans, regarded as a distinct entity separate from the body.

2. the spiritual part of humans in its moral aspect, that is believed to survive death.

3. the disembodied spirit of a deceased person.

I agree with how all three definitions line up, with the only exception that I do not subscribe it to just human beings. Through my years of experience and investigation I have found animals, plants and even inorganic matter have souls.

So how do we know animals have souls? Consider the evidence found in the specific behaviors of animals we see all around us. Elephants stand guard over a herd member that has passed for days or even weeks. Every dog caretaker has a story of the dog’s innate ability to perceive emotions.  Horses react in a specific way to the explicit trauma a person needs to heal. A video recently made the rounds of a lioness that adopted a baby deer and cared for it like her own. In these examples, and countless more, animals choose an action that has no discernable biological or instinctual basis or value. And why? Because they have a soul they are responding from.

My personal view of the soul is an embodiment of energy, separate from any material form, that encompasses a singular personality, with a distinct temperament and emotions, an ethical mind, and a memory that retains all things – past, present and future.

Let’s break the definition down. As I said before, everything is composed of tiny, differentiated particles or atoms and in organic matter, cells. How atoms bond together to form a stone, and cells interact to sustain life, involves both an energetic and an informational process. Everything in our world (including the universe as a whole) continually vibrates with this energy. The Law of Thermodynamics states that energy is neither created nor destroyed, it only changes form. So the energy remains accessible.

The idea that a soul holds the fundamental, core personality is commonplace, even if not precisely understood. Individuals are sometimes described as having a good, pure or black soul, a young or old spirit. Behaviorists say that human personalities are ‘fixed’ in early childhood which sits well with the idea of a soul as the seat of our psyche, due to its ability to carry forward definitive traits, talents and aptitudes from past lives. Looking at a sentient being this way, we are all products of the nature versus nurture theory and now we can add the experiences and subconscious memories of the soul.

It also makes sense that an individual’s mentality, range of emotions and general attitude are likewise carried forward and often very evident, even at birth. Therefore, an animal’s temperament, personality characteristics and given attitude, all qualities that are based in the soul, can be seen shortly after birth, and before being weaned. The shy one in a litter of over-the-top energy pups. The goat that follows the farmer everywhere from the time it could stand. The always cranky goose and the sweet donkey. The circus elephant that one night throws its trainer, and everyone says they knew it would happen by the look in his eyes. In fact, I would have to say that unless an animal is hunting for food, or procreating its species, all other behaviors come from the soul.

Or better yet, research for yourself. Search ‘heartfelt animal videos’ on YouTube or Google. There are literally hundreds of stories of animals doing extraordinary things and giving us concrete evidence of an intelligent being with a soul.

Turning to the concept of a soul as a vessel containing every memory – past, present and yes, even future – we look to the theory that energy is a carrier of information. We remember past information every day and immediately store new experiences in the form of energy to be recalled later. Intuition, deja vu and precognition, is simply the ability to remember what was seen happening prior to a soul choosing to enter a physical body.  

I have also found enough evidence to believe there is only one kind of soul, that all souls were created at the same time, that they are all the same age, and that they may or may not all come to our earth and choose to inhabit a body.  Souls are neither gender specific nor particular to a physical form, as in, there are no human vs. animal vs. plant vs. inorganic matter soul groups. There is just one form for all physical conditions.

Souls can choose the physical body they wish, depending on the lessons needed to complete their evolution as an enlightened being. When in pure form, souls reside in a different dimension, often referred to as heaven, the astral plane or the other side. The lessons to be experienced, and learned from, are relatively basic in nature, but their expression in an individual life can take many different forms. This concept is usually referred to as karma, a Hindu-based system that ties rewards to beneficial actions and punishments to detrimental actions, although not necessarily in the same lifetime. Karma leads into the theory of reincarnation, which states that a soul comes back to a physical form on Earth repeatedly until all lessons are learned and it can reside in its natural state for the rest of time.

Reincarnation is a system of belief that first appeared in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism during the first millennium BCE. Reincarnation holds to the idea that a soul will experience rebirth as many times as necessary to learn all the lessons they need to achieve a state of perfection, at which time the soul resides forever in the heaven dimension. Most souls began this process in human form as this is the quickest way to encounter the most lessons due to the long and complex life cycle. Some souls choose animal forms first and start the process at a slower pace. There are, however, some lessons that can only be learned when a soul takes a human body and some that, for instance, only a wild animal can experience.

The fundamental lessons involve love, selfless giving, stewardship, integrity and morality. Karma presents the idea that ‘what is done wrong, must be made right’. Although primarily concerned with direct action, or conversely, inaction, thought contexts and prevailing emotions also produce positive or negative consequences. Tangible outcomes due to thoughts and emotions occur because their origin is the soul and because the soul is made of energy an individual’s reality will be changed accordingly, as in the premise for the Law of Attraction. Many of the world’s religions hold to the tenet that a good deed is nothing if it doesn’t come from a good heart. In addition, karma is not a reward or punishment system as commonly viewed. Instead, a kind of ‘tally’ is kept and when one lifetime is done another must be chosen based on the depth and breadth of the soul’s accumulated history.

I have stated that there are no separate categories of souls for humans and animals. However, there are distinct ‘rules of engagement’ for each of them.

Souls choosing a human body know the basic path of that individual’s life but usually forget what they know the minute they are born. Sometimes, during their life, a human will swear they have been in a place before or experienced a certain situation. This is a soul memory of the future. An animal’s soul knows the path its life should take as well, with one major difference – they know their entire life and how they will die if everything goes according to plan during the current lifetime. So, barring an accident or other human intervention, animals are prepared for the end of life as there is always a lesson there as well. They are also more adept at manipulating external circumstances to fulfill their path.

A second contrast is the fact that humans must remain in the body they choose, from birth to death, beginning to end, while souls in a live animal can move across dimensions and visit other places and other humans they have known during their lifetimes. This is how an animal can ‘find’ the human they want to partner with. Animals can also ‘trade’ souls with those wishing to spend time in that animal. For instance, a relative or friend who has passed can inhabit a bird that comes and sings to you for several days in a row. Your loved one doesn’t become the bird, they just borrow the form to communicate with you.

There are other distinctions as well. The life cycle of an animal is relatively simple compared to a human, mostly due to the short time they are here. Those who do tend to live a long time, such as elephants, horses and tortoises, require souls experienced in more aspects of life. Animals are also afforded far less free will as their lives are predominantly dictated by their species as well as their perceived value to humans. Instinct and biology play a larger role in an animal’s life. The ability to communicate is far less so attempting to get the message across is a difficult process. In addition, there are fewer lessons to learn, often just one or two.

The process a soul goes through to be reborn into another physical body is a lot like the senior year of high school before choosing a college. There is a review of the life that has just passed away and then one of all the lives lived. Lessons that do not have to be repeated are set aside and new ones are put in place for the soul to ‘choose’ from. The futures of several ‘opportunities’ are viewed, and a decision made. During this time the soul may visit those they have known before or take on mentor roles for those souls needing guidance.

Although a lot of freedom is given to souls in choosing their next lifetime, greater responsibilities require deeper experience. For a soul to enter the body of a horse, dolphin or elephant it must have lived many lives in animal and human form. Souls entering an animal for the first time often choose something from the wild. Giraffes, deer, and wild dogs are all good animals to begin learning in a completely different environment than a human one. The untamed life has much to teach. The March of the Penguins is a witness to the lessons of perseverance and sacrifice made by the male penguin that is unmatched in the animal or human world.

Many times, the souls who choose wildlife are, as stated before, just getting started in the animal kingdom. But they may also be looking to learn a particular lesson or set a wrong to right. Or the soul is simply interested in what another life is like.

Every soul holds a vital place in the fabric of the universe, and the collective soul is a valued part of that. A collective soul refers to a single soul that has chosen to divide itself into many bodies while maintaining the symmetry and single-minded purpose of the individual. Perfect examples are a beehive, a school of tuna, all the dragonflies in a forest, or an ant colony. Let’s use the tuna to break down how it works.

A school of fish can easily number in the hundreds and yet they need to act and react as a single entity if they are to survive and thrive. They must all find the best food and they do that by swarming smaller schools of fish, which is only possible if done as a single unit. They also avoid predators through the size of the school and the confusion they create by their united movements. Therefore, by one soul dividing into each member, a group can operate as a larger entity.  The cohesiveness of the group is maintained through the control of the individual. This does not, however, preclude a single member from a one-to-one conversation with a communicator. It is still the collective soul involved in the communication, just on a more focused level.

Collective souls are found within species that require either being in a group to survive or produce large numbers of offspring where only a few achieve adulthood. If the former, such as a beehive, where the group is indistinguishable from its members, the collective soul remains for a specified period of time and each member is always a part of that soul.

In the latter case, the primary parent soul will split up and enter her young ones until they have reached adulthood. At that time, an individual soul can choose to enter the adult body. Sea turtles are a prime example of this. Baby sea turtles have only a one in 1,000 chance of reaching maturity. Females lay between 50 and 200 eggs. After they hatch it’s everyone for themselves. Their internal guidance system will get them headed in the right direction, but the way is fraught with turtle-eating birds and mammals, falling into divots in the sand left by human feet, rough seas and jagged rocks. And all of that is before they even hit the water frantically swimming where further danger awaits. By taking the adult turtle’s soul energy, the baby turtle has a strength of experience from the adult they would not have otherwise.

The sea turtle example above brings up a question of instinct versus soul intelligence, confounding the issue much like the debate of nature versus nurture. Everything in the universe has its own system of intelligence, just as everything is composed of energy. The intelligence referred to in the turtle example is the soul’s innate ability to perceive, understand, learn and handles challenges in a specific manner. The turtle’s instinct is in its DNA and just screams “Run!” Instinct itself is a construct of biology; intelligence comes from the informational energy held within a soul.

However, this doesn’t mean all large groups, such as a herd of wildebeests, are a collective. The major defining criteria is that the members are either imperative to the group’s survival, they produce huge numbers of offspring or, honestly, they are almost all fish and most invertebrates. A lone tuna is going to get snatched up quick in the big ocean if it doesn’t starve first. Animals that mate and raise their young themselves will have individual souls.

A final difference between collective and individual souls is the necessity to remain for the entire lifespan of the group. Collective souls can leave at will with an agreement another soul takes their place. If they leave and are not replaced, the group will die.