What Are You? Rodent, Reptile or Human Being?

Would you like to live as a rodent, a reptile or a human being? In this musing, Sadhguru reflects on an individual’s choice whether or not to live within the walls of unawareness.

Sadhguru: Though a human being is endowed with the possibility of being limitless, most human beings choose – like a rodent or a reptile – to make a small hole in this earth which you want to call your own, and tie up with something or someone which you would like to call your own. Today, modern neuroscientists are recognizing that this longing, this need for territory as to “what is mine and what is not mine” is essentially coming from the reptilian part of your brain. The body and the brain evolved but most human beings are unwilling to evolve into the possibility that is naturally his or her kingdom. This unwillingness to evolve is because the body carries not just the memory of your forefathers, but also of the creatures who were before them.

“This is my house, this is my family, this is mine, that is not mine.” This essentially comes from that part of your brain which has refused to evolve, that part of your brain which has been preserved so that you can conduct your self-preservation process. If you create a situation where large numbers of people are no longer thinking about their survival and their safety, if they live in total abandon and involvement with life around them, it may so happen in a few generations that the reptilian part of the brain may shrink and disappear.

Essentially, meditation means dissolving the invisible walls that unawareness has built. It has been found that in those who are in certain states of meditativeness, certain parts of the brain are almost dormant; they are never really active.

This is a wonderful choice that a human being has. He even has a choice whether to live as a human being, or a rodent or a reptile – it is a whole range of choices. When we are physically born, the day we come out of our mothers’ wombs, it is the birth of a possibility. Biology just delivers you as an animal. It is you who can make yourself into a full-blown human being, or a divine possibility. This is something that one has to do. When he is willing, when the necessary awareness arises in a human being that he kills the animal within himself and allows the divine to flower, that is when birth becomes really significant. And this possibility exists every moment of your life.

Editor’s Note: Bhava Spandana Program is an advanced meditation program designed by Sadhguru to provide the opportunity to go beyond the limitations of body and mind and experience higher levels of consciousness. Find out more about Bhava Spandana program, including upcoming program dates and venues.