The essential difference between animals and humans is the ability to self-reflect. A chimpanzee, our closest genetic relative (around 99% similar in DNA), can be taught to do basically everything a human can, though of course at a more generally primitive level. But no chimp can self-reflect, that is, take that mental and spiritual leap of stepping outside of himself and seeing himself from an alternate perspective, or realizing consciously that he is alive, that his heart is beating, that he is walking the planet, that he will die someday, and that the moon is overhead.
A human being is capable of great degrees of self-reflection, but few people achieve much of it, and many of the most intellectually sophisticated achieve little at all. Essentially they live their lives as highly intelligent animals. They work, they solve great intellectual problems, they learn complex skills, they multi-task at profound levels, they have profound memories, they learn numerous languages with radically different syntaxes, they mate in unusual and complex ways – but they often never stop to truly reflect on their existences, much less the utter depths of their existences.
To fully become a full human being – that is, a fully enlightened human being – one has to master the art of self-reflection. This involves resolving one’s deepest traumas, opening the deepest doors to one’s core, and then taking the terrifying and beautiful leap of looking within. The answers to all our species’ problems are there.
The answers to the whole universe are there.
And there is where it is our responsibility to go.
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