Observe the Non-Humans, and Learn from Them
A Discourse by Avatar Adi Da Samraj
May 11, 2008
Non-humans are not connected
to the world via conceptual mind, and, therefore, they have no problems about
Realizing the Non-Dual Nature of Reality Itself. The egoless Nature of Reality
Itself is perfectly obvious to the non-humans.
Of course, certain species of non-humans become “humanized”. For example, dogs
become incorporated into the human cycle and thereby learn all kinds of habits,
inclinations, and patterns. Dogs thus “humanized” do develop a kind of
thought-pattern that can interfere with their (otherwise) innate contemplative
awareness, just as it interferes with the awareness of humans. The non-humans
that are closest in characteristics to humans are kept in conditions in which
they cannot really live well. As a result, they become the most neurotic. Go to
any zoo, and you can see that this is so.
The zoo and the city are similar. The non-humans do not generally construct
space in the exaggerated manner of the humans. Non-humans create large
territories, and they are likewise freer within the territories that they create
than human beings are. However, the territorial instinct of non-humans is an
expression of “point of view”.
Human beings exaggerate the territorial impulse to the extent that they are even
psychologically contracted upon a point—the “point of view”. On the basis of
“point of view”, human beings construct space in which they confine themselves.
And they live as “Narcissus” in the virtual space of mind, rather than in actual
space. Narcissus does not move about but only sits staring at himself in a
mirror. Like Narcissus, human beings do a great deal of living in mental space,
staring at their own minds. In such a condition, it does not make any difference
how much you might hike in the woods. You are still sitting in front of a
mirror, experiencing spatial confinement through your own mentality.
Non-humans do occasionally make use of mirrors—they see reflections and
shadows—yet they certainly do not make the same use of mirrors that human beings
do. Human beings use the mirror as an extension of the mind, to create the idea
of themselves. How much of an idea of herself does the dog in My House have? The
inkling of herself that the dog in My House has is not nearly so complex or so
constant and obsessive as the “self”-image of human beings. Human beings live in
a domain of “self”-consciousness and “self”-projection through “self”-imagery,
to such an extent that they do not exist otherwise and Reality Itself is lost to
them.
“How can the one in the mirror survive? How does the ‘self’-image continue?”
These are the questions that human beings ask. They are not looking at the real
process of life and death. They are only meditating on the “self”-image, or the
mental reflection. Like everyone else, you are anxious for the survival of that
projection. You are afraid of death because you do not know by what means the
one that you call your “self” continues. Yet, in actuality, you are not
examining your real situation, because if you were you would discover the real
significance of life and death and you would realize the situation in which the
process of life and death is occurring.
Your fear of death is the consequence of your “self”-imagery, your
“self”-reflection, mentalizing, dissociation, “self”-contraction, identity with
“point of view”--the locatedness that is based on “self”-reflection and that you
and all humankind suffer.
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Human beings, on the other hand, live in an ego-sphere, and human suffering largely springs from that sphere, projected on a situation that humankind does not understand—because human beings are only living in a projection and being anxious about its survival.
Traditionally, human beings looked to the non-humans as a source of wisdom, a connection to a larger sphere of existence. Such sensitivity is an intuitive recognition of the different state of the non-humans. Thus, human beings have sacrificed animals in order to connect with the Divine. Eventually, rather than the connection with the Divine, the sacrifice of non-humans itself became paramount, and the result—as in the present day—is a global society of human beings who are eating animals obsessively. Now, there is only the killing and the eating of the animal and the global propaganda that one must eat animals to acquire protein in order to survive—an absurd notion with which human beings are associated by common agreement, through their perpetual propaganda.
It is true that the non-humans do not show the bondage to “point of view” and “self”-projection that human beings do. Nevertheless, human beings debate the question “Are animals conscious?” What is the real question? Obviously animals are conscious. Clearly, they are aware in exactly the same fundamental way as you are, apart from all your thinking and “self”-projection. What are people suggesting when they wonder whether or not animals have consciousness? They are asking “Do animals have ‘self’-consciousness? Are they aware of themselves as an independent individual?” As if “self”-awareness is the primary, if not only, proof that one is aware, that one exists.
That focus on “self”-consciousness is human propaganda--the measure human beings are making of other entities. If human beings decide that an entity is not “self”-conscious, human beings think that this somehow gives them the right to control, exploit, and murder the beings that are deemed non-“self”-conscious. Therefore, human beings have established a vast, terrible, cruel industry of killing non-humans all over the world. The justification for this is a false view of non-humans. The right, traditional view is based on sensitivity to the non-humans, feeling their state, and feeling how human beings can benefit from being and doing likewise. Where animals were killed, traditionally, it was done in a ritual manner--not obsessively, all day and night. Traditional animal sacrifice was occasional and always performed in a sacred manner.
Truly, the killing of animals need not be done at all. For human beings, just being around non-humans, observing them, is a lesson. What is the difference between animals and humans? Fundamentally, the non-humans are not existing in an ego-sphere. They exist in an eco-sphere--a space-time domain without ego-consciousness.
The ego-consciousness of human beings is a mental fabrication, an invention of human beings for their own reasons. In the present-time there exist six and a half billion people who are adapted to the falseness and insanity of ego-culture and all the exaggerations that result, including the abuse of non-humans.
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