Wise Turtle of Sophia Lake, talk about Life.
And O. Turtle answered:
Life is an expression of Consciousness, which allows Consciousness to experience its own self. By creating life with brains through which to work, its creates its own self-awareness - a synergy; all things with-in all things. All life is self-awareness.
So, the primary purpose of life then is to experience it, and enjoy it. This is not possible without emotions and the good and bad that comes along with them.
Experiments with mirrors clearly show that animals as small as birds have self-awareness, and are sentient beings. Human babies don’t get full self-awareness until around one year. There are even tests which show that plants are aware of our presence, and that of other living beings. So, are plants sentient also? I think so - All life is sentient.
There is some evidence that on earth we are in training to evolve to a higher state. Some call this earth school, but why we may be here for school we don’t know. School can’t be the end purpose. Thus in order to have the best experience we have a secondary purpose which is to evolve ourselves and society into the best it can be. A well known philosopher of the 1600s, Gottfried Leibniz, once said, “This is the best of all possible worlds.” Thus while Life may seem imperfect to us, if we look at its complexity, and the complex interactions between ourselves and other lives, at any given moment, it is the best it can be at that moment. Our job then, is to evolve and make it better.
Thus if all life is sentient then all life must be treated with respect.