What does it mean to be human? This is a most interesting question indeed. At the risk of sounding presumptuous, I think it fair to say that most people have never considered the question. I would also wager the general consensus of humans is that they are the best, the single most important species on planet Earth. This wayward feeling of importance is of course a product of the ego, the idea of separateness.
The following is a thought experiment designed to illustrate how to think outside our limited perspective. Imagine a human life as if it were a fly. As humans, we observe a fly only lives thirty days. It buzzes around seemingly unaware how to get out of a room illustrated by bouncing into the window repeatedly. Then one morning we find it’s carcass upside down on the window sill. That thirty days in fly time is equivalent to eighty-eight years in human time. Flying around the room frantically trying to get out is our way of stumbling through life rushing to get somewhere and accumulate things all in the name of pleasure. In our death throws we bounce repeatedly into the window trying to make sense of our lives before we take that final breath, only to be swept from the window sill without a care. So you see, we think we’re important only because we identify with our perspective; we have an ego.
As long as one is identified with ego, they believe in their own importance; they strive to maintain their survival. Is a human more important than a grasshopper? If we could ask the grasshopper and if the grasshopper answered, surely it would demand its own survival. All of life is doing what it must to exist. We eat to stay alive. We clothe ourselves to stay warm. We make homes to provide safety. These basic needs exist in similar and varying ways for all plants and animals. The question then becomes: how conscious is each living being in regards to its own survival? Is the grasshopper aware that it and its fellow grasshoppers can destroy a farmer’s crop by swarming? Do rats understand that if left unchecked they would dominate all livable land? Do spiders realize they are trapping and killing innocent insects? While it may be true that humans are among the few species with enough ego development to be self-aware, that does not mean we are conscious, or aware, as a species. We have been slowly destroying earth’s resources just as a swarm of grasshoppers might a farmer’s crop. We have the collective ability to be better than we are, but we are only as conscious as our least conscious members.
When a natural disaster occurs peoples’ lives are upended, torn apart, and destroyed. Collectively, as humans, we think how terrible the loss of life is. The destruction of property, everything that we had built wiped away in moments, can be challenging to process. We come up with all sorts of rationalizations or answers to explain away the suffering. When someone steps on an ant hill, if they notice at all, it is usually a cursory glance and nothing more. What about the lives of the ants or their labor in constructing their home? Natural disasters are akin to humans stepping on an ant hill. Nature does not concern itself with the effects of its wake. It is just doing nature stuff. Likewise, humans do human stuff.
So many of us walk through life making decisions about what is important and what is not. We do it with no more consciousness than the grasshopper, rat, or spider. Our actions have consequences. The interconnected nature of all life means nothing takes place in a vacuum. Science is only just discovering this truth through its efforts to unravel quantum entanglement. When we make decisions we usually do so from a limited framework suited to provide maximum gratification to us. Even if it benefits our family or friends, we make decisions in which we derive some kind of gain. Many humans can barely conceive of the idea of thinking about how their actions affect their fellow human beings let alone other species on this planet. The ego places its own needs above all else and it does so with limited consciousness.
I am not suggesting that humans do not matter. Every species matters, and each is important. How each relates to the others is the focus here. What we fail to recognize as a collective species is that everything is consciousness experiencing itself through an infinite number of perspectives. In this case, every species of plant and animal that ever existed or will exist. We call ourselves human for conceptual reasons, but really its all the same; it is all consciousness. Every species has their unique way of communicating. Humans just happen to do it through speech and gestures. A cat’s meow or the flick of a squirrel’s tail accomplish the same thing. All life is intelligent and capable of manifesting that intelligence.
Intelligence can be displayed a multitude of ways. It is not limited to quantifiable information or knowledge. Plants have intelligence in that they direct themselves towards light in an effort to produce food. They also employ varying methods for spreading their seeds thus ensuring future offspring. Spend some time watching dandelion seeds glide on the wind. It is said they can travel up to a kilometer or more. That seems like a good case for intelligence. Animals possess intelligence by way of instinct. Many species of sea turtles return to the same beach where they hatched, to lay their own eggs. Dung beetles maintain their bearing using polarized moonlight and the Milky Way. They are the only known nocturnal animals to do so. That seems like a good case for intelligence. Honey bees communicate the distance, direction and quality of nectar sources to their hive members by doing the “waggle dance.” They are also one of the few known species that can count and also grasp the concept of zero. That seems like a good case for intelligence.
Humans could arguably be divided into more than one species based solely on their level of awareness, i.e., level of consciousness. For a brief overview, let us use the extremes. Highly conscious humans love and cherish each other while celebrating their differences and their contribution to life. They do not judge each other nor treat each other any differently than how they themselves would want to be treated. This is because highly conscious humans understand that everything is one and interconnected. At the other end of the extreme are found humans with very low consciousness. People in this category lie, cheat, steal, and manipulate others to get what they want, regardless of cost. They have no problem inflicting bodily harm on someone else and or kill and subject other species to suffering. Their life is the most important thing and they protect it at any cost. This would include psychopaths and sociopaths. Humans on this end of the spectrum are akin to animals but with self-awareness, i.e., knowledge that they exist. They go through the motions of life just trying to survive the best way they know how. The varying degree between these extremes is remarkable. Yet, we lump all humans into the same group.
If humans are incapable of seeing the worth of another species then that is human ignorance, and not the fault of the species in question. All life is sacred and holds value. Human beings are not better or more important than any other being. Everything fulfills its role and therefore has purpose. The ability to recognize this requires higher consciousness. Through this increased awareness, it is possible to see life from a much larger perspective. One can become conscious that a single lifetime is only a blip in the ocean of consciousness. The earth is a living system with its own ego and we are simply microbes feeding on it. Our trivial human affairs do not hold as much meaning as we like to believe, especially in relation to the vast amount of human suffering that takes place on account of it all. It is possible to perceive that all life is dancing and flowing in perfect equilibrium. Humans are just a small but essential part of this masterpiece.