Affinities from past lives 

are not bound by form or appearance. 

How many times have you met someone and instantly liked him? Or someone else you immediately disliked. Both people had smiled at you, but your response to each was very different. What’s going on here? You just ran into an old karmic affinity in the first instance and an enmity in the second.

Your store consciousness recognized theirs and, in a flash, old feelings about them arose within you. But this does not apply only to humans. Consider the cat who always seeks our company and whom we feel a deep affection for; the dog that growls only at us; the squirrel who eats contentedly from our hand. Consider also two distinct animals, normally hunter and prey, romping together like best friends.

We are reacting from karmic relationships, good and bad ones, just as the animals are. Developed over past lifetimes, these relationships are not bound by form or even the current path of existence.

Yet another reason to respect all beings.