13 October 2014 - QA 8

At what point in creation do things that are alive get souls? I am referring to mosquitoes, trees, bacteria, cells, and so on.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Soul is in everything, right from an ant to bacteria; it is there everywhere. But a mature soul enters into your system at a particular stage, either during conception or in the fourth or fifth month, or even at the time of birth. These are the three possibilities, and you don’t know when it happens. So it’s better to just be.