Our Lesser Bretheren

Silver Birch has always stressed man’s responsibility to every creature.
 

Alas, because of lack of spiritual development, there are millions of people on earth who do not realize that the spirit which animates them is the same one that animates all the creatures who share the planet with them. They do not see them as spirits with earthly bodies, just as they are.

They do not realize that because they believe they are superior to the animals, they have a responsibility towards them, because the higher should always help what it believes is the lower.

You have needless cruelty and terror inflicted on innocent creatures in the false belief that through this vicious means health will be attained by humans. This is not true.

The long-term problem is to spread the knowledge of spiritual realities so that these wicked and often diabolical experiments should altogether cease. You have to reach the stage where man has developed his conscience to know that what he is doing is wrong.

“Why should animals suffer at the hands of humans? Were they put here only to test our spiritual growth? Why were they not put on another physical plane whose inhabitants were highly-evolved beings who would love and help their spiritual evolution?”

The same question could be asked as to why humans are put into your world to suffer at the hands of other humans. Why cannot they be put elsewhere where they cannot suffer?

What you have to realize is that the whole of earthly life is a prepatory school, a training ground where man is given the opportunity to manifest in the largest possible manner the divinity within him.

He has, to a limited degree, the free will to decide his actions. As a result he advances or holds back the progress that he has to achieve in your world or in mine, so that the spirit evolves and gradually sheds the imperfections on its eternal path of progress.

When you have free will then it is patent that some will exercise it wrongfully, vengefully, ignorantly, and others will suffer as a result.

If the Great Spirit intended that all animals and all humans should be perfect, then they would not be in your world, or even in mine. They would have achieved the summit of evolution, which is not possible because it is an eternal progression.

There is much to be done to end animal cruelty. There are wars constantly being fought between the forces of good and those of greed and selfishness, between the ones with knowledge and those who are ignorant. And there are the short-sighted people who do not realize the part animals play in your world and that they have as much right to be there as humans have. The battles will be fought, and gradually you will win.

“Will you say something about the next evolutionary stage for birds and fish which are evolving in line with human beings? Is this the deva evolution? What is the next stage for insects, so many of which seem so far advanced and have a complicated ‘civilization’ of their own?”

I do not think the word “civilization” is correct. Applied to any life, civilization is the means by which you adapt your societies and cultures.

If you ask will a bird ever become a human being, the answer is no.

The deva evolution is part of the elemental life that concerns fairies and similar aspects of being. They have their part to play in nature’s growth. Evolution is part of the natural law for all life and is evidence that the Great Spirit is imbued with love. Evolution consists in growing from the lower to the higher all the time.

The law of evolution embraces every facet of life, the insect, the birds, the fish, the human. They all have their parts to play and are related to one another. No aspect of life is isolated; every form of life is integrated so that the totality forms a composite whole. You are part of the same law of evolution that is responsible for how animals progress.

If you work with the natural laws, if you are in harmony with them, you not only fulfil yourself, but at the same time you help the evolution of all other aspects of nature. The whole scheme is divinely ordered so that you play your parts as co-operative elements in it. Those who violate nature instead of working with it are performing a disservice to what they violate, and to themselves. Those who co-operate with nature are helping its growth and also helping the unfoldment of their spiritual natures.

“Does this mean that as human beings we have no special place but are part of the process?”

You are part of the eternal processes of life. Because you consider that man is a higher species than other forms of life, you have a responsibility to help what you regard as the lower, just as you desire that higher beings in our world should help you.

“Is there such a thing as a higher form of life in our world, so far as the animals are concerned?”

No, each animal has its own evolution to outwork. Whatever lives does so because it is spirit. Spirit is life, life is spirit. Therefore every living thing, creature, bird, fish, flower, tree, fruit, is spirit.

When you talk of higher and lower it is only a question of the stage of evolution that is reached as compared with other stages in the variegated forms of life. To the fish you may be a higher stage of evolution, but to the hierarchy of our world you are at a lower stage.

“We are making such slow progress to help animals. It seems to get worse and worse in this world.”

This is the result of man being given a limited free will. If there were to be no problems, no struggles, no sacrifices, no difficulties, you could not evolve. Progress is achieved when you are confronted with difficulties, not when your life is easy. It is an inherent part of evolution that there has to be a “crucible” from which each soul must emerge as part of a testing time to ensure that it can call on latent strength.

Progress is slow in some aspects and faster in others. It is man’s responsibility to ensure that he is at peace with all who share the earth with him. But whatever happens, there is compensation as part of the natural law.

You have the responsibility of ensuring that animals should evolve according to their path of evolution. If you abnegate your responsibility, then you must pay the price for it. Those who practice cruelty will have to pay the spiritual price for everything they do.

Alas, the innocent always suffer. We cannot thwart the operation of natural law. If a brutal man commits a murder he will have to pay the price, and there will be compensation for the victim. The law of compensation will always outwork itself. The Great Spirit has ensured that divine justice will be meted out to everybody through the laws of compensation and retribution.

“In nature it seems that the strongest survives. If that is right, how would this be applied to human and spiritual matters?”

Have you heard of symbiosis? Isn’t that a law of nature? And isn’t it a fundamental law that the co-operation existing in nature enables nature to fulfil its purpose?

The tree absorbs the poisons in the atmosphere, purifies it, and enables you to be healthier. Is that strength, or is it not harmony and co-operation at work?

“I think of animals especially.”

Which animals have survived from prehistoric times? The elephant. Was that a brute? It was not. The animal was a vegetarian that did not prey on other animals. All the others have not survived. Which is the strongest?

You have a garden. If you work with nature you get results. If you abuse nature, you don’t get results. Show love not only to your fellow beings, but to animals. Do not exploit people, do not exploit animals and do not exploit nature. Then you are helping not only the people of your world, but everything that exists to have that peace, orderliness and harmony that is the ultimate purpose of evolution, the law devised by the greatest power in the universe.