By Harold Klemp

Q: I have many questions about the nature of Soul. For example, do minerals, plants, and animals have Souls?

A: An uncountable number of Souls exist in creation. There is also an endless number of forms in which Souls can find expression for spiritual unfoldment. The human form is but one of many.

On earth, we are familiar mainly with human, animal, reptile, fish, plant, and even mineral forms (like rocks, etc.).

We are a little like the theologians and others of the early Middle Ages. They believed that all human races were then known. Of course, the sea explorations by Columbus and others later revealed two whole continents (North and South America) inhabited  by a previously unknown red race. That discovery was a major threat to biblical interpretation. Red people? The Bible didn’t say anything about a red race.

The Christian Bible says nothing about Souls inhabiting forms other than humans either. Nor does it say anything about Souls living on other planets in forms not quite human. Yes Souls do.

Soul can take many different approaches  to reach purification. For example, earth allows several levels for Soul to gain experiences in life, including the mineral, plant, fish, animal, and human stages.

But there’s no fixed spiritual law about a rock having to stay a rock. Or a daisy staying a daisy.

By choice, though, most Souls want to taste life at all levels. They do go from the lower to higher body forms. So animals could move up to human. Yet that would take many lifetimes.

Sometimes, in a spirit of fun, we ask, “Why on earth would a cat want to be a kid? It’s more fun to be a cat.”

(But do you think a cat would go back to being a mouse? Probably not.)

Souls in animal forms do not get the initiations as we do. Their spiritual unfoldment is handled in other ways.

A Soul that today inhabits an animal form will later be offered other life-forms, perhaps even human, when It is ready for a higher stage.

Entering a human body on the physical plane is indeed an optimal experience for all Souls who are given that choice. But the same is also true for Souls who are given the choice to enter an animal or plant form.

The point: Everything is within its rightful place in the Kingdom of God.

Since Soul is invisible, for the most part, and not subject to analysis in a scientific laboratory, Its nature remains a matter of speculative belief or personal experience.

The purpose of the Eckankar teachings is to give the individual proof of the nature of Soul in a way that is meaningful to him. When and how this is done depends upon the Mahanta, who determines the best time and place.

https://eckankarblog.org/2016/10/what-is-our-nature-as-soul/#more-1781