Hi JMG - You've posted a couple of things recently proposing that plants and other "lower" life forms are souls that are just a few grades behind us, so we should offer them love and blessings. I am not trying to troll here, seriously asking: How is that compatible with feeding ourselves? Not only do we kill plants for food, but when I garden I rip up weeds and throw them in the compost, or cut the woody mess back as well as possible. I don't stop to apologize to or ask permission of every weed seedling, and really can't. Doesn't being a heterotroph require me to suspend love and compassion for some organisms, at least sometimes?

Related question, I know some occultists and others assert that all souls are eventually supposed to get to our level and beyond, even those that are now just bacteria. But we could not live on this planet to experience growth if there were not plants to eat, bacteria to break down waste, etc. Doesn't this make it inevitable that when the last sentient beings to live before the Earth's destruction are living, there must also still be plants and bacteria, which won't get the chance to progress to intelligent life? Has anyone speculated about what will happen to them?

Thanks very much for tolerating weird questions!

-Translucent Jejune Octopus