You might be excused for being confused. Why is there so much diversity in nature? How have humans evolved? Who invented pussy cats?

These are questions that have fascinated me for decades, simply because science offers no clear answers. Charles Darwin springs immediately to mind as being one of the first to study nature and how species adopt new characteristics and shed old ones, over time. He also noticed how ‘unnatural selection’ – that is breeding artificially – can evolve a species.

After you have finished studying barnacles in the finest detail over long periods of time (as Darwin did) you have to pause and take several hundred steps back. There is an overview and to me, the speculation it offers is fascinating.

I start with the mystery of pussy cats. I use this term to distinguish our door mat variety of lion from lions. The puzzling piece in the jig saw picture of all domesticated animals is, who created them? Domesticated cats appear in the hieroglyphs of Ancient Egypt, so indisputably they were around in pre-history.

The usual story around how wolves became dogs, for instance, is that wolves hung around early species of the genus Homo smelling meat dripping over camp fires. A piece of meat was flung to a salivating wolf and a bond was created. The wolf became half tame and a symbiotic relationship maintained that bond through generations of wolves. What morphed a wolf into a Dachshund has always bothered me. Was early man involved in choosing small wolves from the pack and breeding them to make miniature wolves, that became more like…well, dogs?

And if the wolf / dog domestication is hard to picture, consider how the mighty Aurochs (bos primigenius) ceased to be large wild cattle and became mild mannered, spotty cows. Who was in control of that transition, arguably over hundreds of generations?

When we list the present domesticated animals, there is a longer list of wild animals that were never domesticated. Why are there no miniature giraffe’s for instance, keeping the bushes in our gardens trim?

Most scary of all is the question that no one dare ask. Are we some thing’s pets? That is, the story of human evolution is partial at best. There have been several genus of ape-like creatures before Homo and it’s variations. Were the Neanderthals sweet natured creatures that laid flowers on graves and Sapiens Sapiens the bad guys who wiped them out? In which case why would you want to prefer a violent species?

There is a suggestion that modern men were created by a race of being from another star system. They needed slaves to work the gold and precious metals from the earth. Manipulating DNA to create a new species was something they did in their spare time. We are probably all aware that our genome is just a few genes different from our ape cousins. There is no ‘missing link’ because there is no missing link. Homo Sapiens Sapiens were created in a laboratory. In other words we are the product of unatural selection.

That is an interesting theory but it is the only one based on the present evidence and the Bible stories of interbreeding between angels and men. When we have indisputable evidence of ‘angels’ or beings from other stellar systems, our origin may become clear.

Until then, we are left with the conundrum of Us. For we have an enormous distinction from other life forms. We have a soul. This soul is common to every human and is described in multiple ways in our myths, legends, religions and mystical traditions. Mystics have declared a personal unity with the Almighty, for which some have been ritually murdered. Beings sent to convince man to be loving and compassionate such as Jesus the Christ, Buddha, Krishna were only partially successful. How many generations will it take for us to evolve into compassionate beings?

If you wonder whether animals have a divine potential then the answer is, in my view, no. They are locked into the evolution of not only their physical bodies but their souls. And their souls do not have the same quality as humans to become Divine. They are further down the evolutionary ladder and being reborn as animals is their precursor to being born as human. As animals they live mainly in their instincts and emotions and intelligence. At the intuitive (or soul level) then they act as a collective. Birds swoop in a flock and change direction as if they were one. Fish do the same as do most animals with the herd instinct.

The animals have souls that are evolving, just as they evolve physically. The cat that adorns your fire side mat, or the dog that trots along in front of you on your walks, is in training mode for becoming human in a next life. As humans we evolve domestic animals physically, socially and spiritually. We remove them from their herd instinct and place them in safe shelter, where, through interaction with us, they become individual, with a name.

This individuality is the last step on the process of animal evolution. Perhaps the Ancient Egyptians knew this, which is why they mummified their domestic cats.

The evolution that Charles Darwin studied so closely in lower life species, is parallel with another evolutionary process on this planet. A soul moves through countless human and non-human life times, each time correcting weaknesses. When we are reborn we have a new set of lessons and corrections to make; a process which follows a natural and unatural evolution. Humans evolve through new knowledge and experience, which can only be obtained in the 4% of the universe which is physical matter. Eventually, the perfect lifestyle that the body adopts will create a perfect human body, as revered by the Ancient Greeks. The noble lifestyle that the soul longs to  adopt, will eventually create a perfect human soul. At this point in it’s evolution the soul leaves the ‘Wheel of Karma’ and  is restored to it’s natural place in Heaven.