Human Animal and Oneness with the Universe

Merriam-Webster Online defines Human as “a bipedal primate mammal (Homo sapiens)“—a large monkey, if you will—a part of the animal world. Why are we so gung ho about being a human anyway? I hear some of you saying, “It is because we can think logically and animals cannot!” Yes, animals cannot think logically, they have instinctual thoughts. If they are hungry they eat grass, plants or hunt and eat other animals. But, that’s it! Once they are done eating, and are sated they are done! They don’t go around killing indiscriminately to make a business out of it. At least, I don’t see them opening up shops and warehouses full of vegetables and meats to be sold to other animals. But, we humans have made thinking into a business and now thinking is running our lives. We have become slaves to thinking, instead of us being the masters of our own thoughts.

We have separated ourselves from the fabric of the universe and sat in judgment of it. The moment we say that we want to understand the universe out there, we have separated ourselves from it. Can we understand the universe without understanding ourselves? I say that we cannot. To understand ourselves does not mean that we lie down on a couch in a counselor’s office and pour out all our thoughts and ask him/her to help us make sense of it all. Of course, that has it’s place when we are really in need of it. To understand means to become one with what we are trying to understand. Once understanding takes place, there is no duality left between the one that is understanding and the one that is being understood—they both vanish into one. All questions disappear.

Problem starts with the misunderstanding of the statement, “God made us in his image.” When you are identified with the body as “you,” then you understand this statement in the following way: “us” means these bodies, “image” means a copy or reflection. Since this body is a reflection or copy of God, that God must have a humanoid form. This understanding has its uses in preliminary stages of your spiritual evolution. Your awareness deepens when you evolve more spiritually and you move beyond identification with your body. When you move deeper, you are then identified with the consciousness or awareness as you and not the body. Then, you will understand the same statement in the following way: “us” means the pure consciousness or awareness, “image” means copy or reflection. Since we are pure consciousness or pure awareness and are reflections of “God,” then God must be pure awareness or pure consciousness. Once this realization hits you and know that you are that pure awareness, you will know that there is no difference between you and other sentient beings around you. You then know that everything is just pure consciousness. To borrow the expression from Quantum Physics, you are a Quantum Field, a field of all possibilities and your current human form is only one such possibility that came to manifest.

Once you realize you are pure consciousness, you will realize that the same consciousness, that is you, also operates via our mother earth, a tree, a dog, your neighbor, planets, stars and everything else. Once this duality vanishes, you will not see yourself as something or someone special, who came to this earth to fulfill some special divine purpose. You are one with the universe. You are the manifest and the unmanifest. Once this realization strikes you, you will realize that all the things around you were not created for your consumption. But, it is a codependent world where everything that is manifest plays an equal role. This mother earth has the same place in this universe as you do. A tree, a dog, a snail or bacteria has the same place in this universe as you do.

All fears we face and all that striving to achieve something on this planet, arise because we consider ourselves to be special, brought to this earth, for some special (divine) purpose. Once you realize that there is no difference between you, a tree and a dog, all your striving stops. When you realize that you are that awareness and the Creator, and not the manifest body, your attachment to the body reduces or altogether breaks. When that happens, you as you knew yourself vanish and the realization that you are the pure awareness grows. When you bring this awareness fully to dwell in the body, your constant random thinking stops and thought becomes a tool in your (metaphoric) hand. Since you do not have any attachment with the body, all the identities you created around that form vanish for you along with all fears. Just as that Creator (which is in turn you) is playing the game of creation and dissolution without any attachment, you can play the game of creation and dissolution within your manifest life through your body (form) without any attachment or fear. There will be no striving or struggling in whatever you do, since there is no fear or attachment to whatever you are doing at that moment.

Mind you, this is not a mental statement or some kind of psychological thing that you say to yourself that you are one with all that is around you and that you are pure awareness, though it may help you in the initial stages. When this realization hits you, it is an organic change that happens in your body-mind complex—a change you may not notice that it happened. It may be very subtle. But, shows up in the way you behave and interact with others. If you are a meat eater, you may start to reduce its consumption. If you are vegetarian, you may move toward being a vegan. If you eat too much, you may start to reduce the consumption of food and take only just enough to sustain the body and nothing more. If you are holding a grudge against somebody for a long time, you may ease up on them and forgive them without any effort.

Now, I will go back to the part of being gung ho about being a human. The realization that we are that pure awareness can only come to humans. Why? It is because other animals live below the level of thought. We are living currently at the level of thought. Pure awareness is above the level of thought and thought originates from it. We are at the level of thought because of our large brain, yet to be fully activated and utilized. When the realization that you are pure awareness strikes you and you start bringing that awareness fully into the body, body’s chemistry changes—every cell changes including the brain chemistry. Only human brain is capable of undergoing such a tremendous change, so that pure awareness can express and experience through it. If you are gung ho about this fact, it is well and good. But, if you are gung ho because of wrong reasons like being identified with the body, or your perception that human body is more beautiful than any animal’s, think again!

Contemplate on these things. I know, I am, as I move deeper in bringing my realization that, “I am the Creator,” into my body more fully, and slowly break the identification with this body.