Theos-Talk Archives (March 2008 Message tt00221)

Im posting this as to help answer questions relating to Animals and 
their spiritual nature.

Selected exerpts:

"Looking at the question in the light of Theosophical theories, we 
see that a wide distinction exists between man and animals. Man 
reincarnates as man because he has got to the top of the present 
scale of evolution. He cannot go back, for Manas is too much 
developed. He has a Devachan because he is a conscious thinker. 
Animals cannot have Manas so much developed, and so cannot be self-
conscious in the sense that man is. Besides all this, the animal 
kingdom, being lower, has the impulse still to rise to higher forms. 
But here we have the distinct statement by the Adepts through H.P.B. 
that while possibly animals may rise higher in their own kingdom they 
cannot in this evolution rise to the human stage, as we have reached 
the middle or turning-point in the fourth round. On this point H.P.B. 
has, in the second volume of the Secret Doctrine (first ed.) at p. 
196, a foot note as follows:

""In calling the animals "Soulless," it is not depriving the beast, 
from the humblest to the highest species, of a "soul," but only of a 
conscious surviving Ego-soul, i.e., that principle which survives 
after a man and reincarnates in a like man.

The animal has an astral body that survives the physical form for a 
short period; but its (animal) Monad does not reincarnate in the 
same, but in a higher species, and has no "Devachan" of course. It 
has the seeds of all the human principles in itself, but they are 
latent.""

Here the distinction above adverted to is made. It is due to the Ego-
Soul, that is, to Manas with Buddhi and Atma. Those principles being 
latent in the animal, and the door to the human kingdom being closed, 
they may rise to higher species but not to the man stage. 

The objection based on the immense number of animals both alive and 
dead as calling for a supply of monads in that stage can be met in 
this way. While it is stated that no more animal monads can enter on 
the man-stage, it is not said nor inferred that the incoming supply 
of monads for the animal kingdom has stopped. They may still be 
coming in from other worlds for evolution among the animals of this 
globe. There is nothing impossible in it, and it will supply the 
answer to the question, Where do the new animal monads come from, 
supposing that all the present ones have exhausted the whole number 
of higher species possible here? It is quite possible also that the 
animal monads may be carried on to other members of the earth-chain 
in advance of man for the purpose of necessary development, and this 
would lessen the number of their appearances here. For what keeps man 
here so long is that the power of his thought is so great as to make 
a Devachan for all lasting some fifteen centuries--with exceptions-- 
and for a number who desire "heaven" a Devachan of enormous length. 
The animals, however, being devoid of developed Manas, have no 
Devachan and must be forced onwards to the next planet in the chain. 
This would be consistent and useful, as it gives them a chance for 
development in readiness for the time when the monads of that kingdom 
shall begin to rise to a new human kingdom. They will have lost 
nothing, but, on the contrary, will be the gainers.

WILLIAM BREHON

Path, April, 1894

From: http://mahatmaletters.net/