Have you ever heard someone call another person a “dog,” “snake,” “cow,” “pig” or the title of any other adorable creature and mean it to be an insult?
What was more offensive or repulsive? The vicious intentions of that person manifested into their words/behaviors, or the animal that they were comparing another person to?
Although humans have tried to separate themselves from their place in the animal Kingdom for centuries, and often feel insulted when anyone brings up the fact that they are physically expressed in a homo-sapien form, there is nothing shameful about the fact that homo sapiens are animals…It is, instead, the fact that humans can be, and often are, blatantly lying about, and ashamed of, being physically expressed in this way that shines a light on the actual problem that our species needs to overcome.
Some of you reading this may relate to the fact that, for me, some of the sweetest interactions that I have ever had in life, the best friends that I have ever known, and, in fact, my most secure and loving, sacred, honoring, trusting, and respectful companionships on Earth have been with animals from other species. I adore my cat, have loved several dogs, cared strongly for a couple of turtles and countless birds, and found great joy with creatures from the sea. These animals never viewed me as potential, or competition for, mates, food, status, or survival, and as a result of this, we got/get along very well.
And, furthermore, I cannot deny the truth that I feel safer in the woods with bears, or in the desert with rattlesnakes, who will avoid conflict/direct contact with me and let me roam around peacefully, than I do with the potential to encounter another homo-sapien while walking alone anywhere. Living in a young, melanated, female, homo-sapien body, I have walked down trails alone without a coyote or any other creature on the same path harassing or bothering me (we will leave that gang of birds at the picnic table at Jasper National park out of this though). I cannot, however, say the same for members of the homo-sapien species. I have been verbally harassed or attacked by many in my own species numerous times since childhood while simply walking alone, minding my own business, both on hiking trails and in cities, and, so, I can confidently say that it is not your animal form that is the problem in our species, it is your disfunction and disconnection that are issues.
Many homo-sapien babies, for example, were recently at risk for malnutrition and death in America, not because our animal bodies could not produce milk to feed them, but because our contrived societies created such a dependency on capitalist and unnatural systems, as opposed to a confident mutually supportive self-reliance on nature (and our animal bodies), that there were several barriers in place that lowered our species’ ability to survive, be resilient, and to access the abundance that we naturally have at all times. When the new and artificial systems that are designed to replace our connection to the intelligence of our hundred thousand year old natural animal systems fail, our survival is compromised and may also fail.
To give another, but more basic example of the importance/value of maintaining reliance on/connection with our animal form/functions; I can say with confidence that I am certain that if all cars broke down tomorrow, you would probably be grateful for your two legs and ability to walk or pedal a bicycle.
Animals, unless they are actually starving, have rabies, or feel that their lives are genuinely threatened (either for their actual survival in the moment, or for that of their offspring’s survival due to the power of hormones during limited mating or young-rearing seasons), generally do not attack others for messed-up reasons. Animals, other than homo-sapiens, also tend to not kill for sport, and they certainly do not shoot up (or in) malls or schools when they are “having a bad day.” Animals, other than homo-sapiens and some aggressive male predators (yes, that tends to be the case, although not exclusively so), usually manage their problems without mass murder and shake off (very literally) their dysregulation relatively quickly.
At its core, it is not the animal form, but it is, instead, the social/socialized ego and the distorted human mindscape clouded by ignorance, feelings of powerlessness/fear, and disconnected from all of existence and the Greater-Self, walking around out of balance in disconnected body-minds and dysregulating societies, that makes humans a psychological wreck, and a screwed-up basket-case, of a species.
Humans tend to be insane and maladjusted animals, but the fact that they are animals, in and of itself, is not a problem at its core.
Although we are a unique kind of animal with special cognitive, communication, and creative capabilities, which, paired with our particular physiology, gives us certain advantages in the world, we are not any more special than any other animal in our Kingdom or outside of it. Octopi, whales, crows, elephants, and dolphins also have advanced brains, and social-emotional cognitive capabilities. Parrots, and some magpies, can talk. Orangutans can drive golf carts. Most birds can sing, and, along with beavers, birds can also do advanced construction. Ants and bees form advanced colonies. Fish can create pretty designs with pebbles and sand. Cats and dogs can love unconditionally.
And everyone/everything in this animal Kingdom can play and express joy, fear, and other basic emotions…Heck, plants, outside of our Kingdom, who are just “relatives” manifested as organic life, can communicate…so few abilities are really that unique to us and distinguish us from other animals. Many animals use tools, and many other primates are even self-aware.
It is our species’ dysregulation and lack of Greater-Self awareness, the Greater-Self awareness that we often claim is “the thing” that truly sets us apart from other animals, and defines “who we are”…It is our species’ disconnection from this True nature in, as well as beyond, form–I will emphasize again–that keeps us stuck in lower-animal behaviors like greed, hatred, and so forth (because, obviously, we also possess higher animal behaviors like the ones shared with other species listed above).
Human animals are trapped in the ongoing cycle of karma that maintains suffering and destruction in the world simply because they are disconnected from who they are beyond form and are dysregulated, not just individually, but as family units, communities, societies, and as a species. Being an animal is not the cause of this. When you become liberated from this cycle, to make this point even clearer, you do so while remaining in animal form. Again, the animal form is not the problem.
And, we, as a species, having recognized that this disconnection from the Greater-Self is the issue, to one extent or another (although some still, in ignorance, curse their animal form–forgetting all of its awesome capabilities–and not just recognizing the destructive nature of their lower-animal attachments/expressions), have been trying to solve this collective problem for thousands of years. Laws have been proposed. Religions have been created. Movements have been formed. Sciences have been explored…And most of these things have become ruined and warped in one way or another by the same dysregulation that they were designed to balance in the first place, simply because anything that humans touch in their dysregulation will become dysregulated.
The “God”-nature, that we come to understand and rest in as we move to connection with our Greater Self, beautifully expressed while we remain in advanced homo-sapiens animal form that most are disconnected from or trying to figure out, can be a blessing when purely settled into, or a curse that is reflected in/through un-self-mastered body-minds.
So, our species’ strongest, most well-tested, and time-tested, solution (called Yoga), advises that we start with getting some basic things under control and regulated to then break out of this cycle of misery fueled by ignorance that plagues us.
Starting from the social world and the ego, moving to the physical body, then the subtler body, then the mental body, this solution suggests that before going beyond our animal nature, we are best served learning to understand, accept, and manage it. And it is through gaining mastery of every aspect of our expression at this level, refining our advanced animal form so that it is a well tuned instrument for expressing and realizing our unbounded nature, that we set ourselves free from all attachment to form altogether. We get our form under control and then put it aside to become liberated.
No, you are not just an animal (whatever that is supposed to mean) because you are far more than that, just like everything else here. And, furthermore, everything is the one same divine light/essence/Spirit at its core since “that” is the only “thing” that Truly exists here in the first place and in the end.
With such a nature, how can you ever be ashamed of, or boastful about, the form in which you are manifested at any given time…other than because, you forgot who you are and are either behaving like, and/or thinking like, a dysregulated homo-sapien animal?
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