A reader asks:

What happens to animals that are tormented/abused by humans? What happens to their souls?  What about those people? My heart is often so heavy, I just don’t understand. I can feel it all and it’s challenging to shift out of that. I know we are somehow all connected but I don’t feel like I want to be connected to that. Why does it happen? Just feeling very sad at the moment. 😥

Those who suffer because of empathy and compassion, move humanity to higher awareness.

All humanity suffers the consequences of the cruelty of those who torture and oppress. Those of us who move away from the gross actions of humans, pull the mass of human consciousness in the direction of evolution and refined awareness. It is like a huge ship in the ocean, which to change course needs steady pressure in the desired direction. At first, the pressure doesn’t do anything, because the mass of the ship is so large. However, the constant pressure does make a slight shift, and this shift moves the ship on a different course. This is how the compassion of a few can affect the course of the whole of humanity.

The key is to have compassion for the suffering, while at the same time rooting our consciousness on our higher aims. To fall in despair and hatred for humanity, simply plunges us into the dross of the masses. This does not move the ship in the direction we desire. On the other hand, to become indifferent to the suffering is to disconnect our intent from the momentum of the ship.

We need, then, to stay anchored to the suffering of the innocent through compassion, while pulling on that force to the desired direction by rooting our higher attention in the higher good.

In this manner, not only humanity changes course, but the beings who suffer also are moved with us in the direction of evolution.