Our spirituality is bigger than our humanity

We humans have something special that other species don’t have – something that has enabled us to do distinctive things such as compose literature, develop science and explore metaphysics. The world’s great religious traditions acknowledge that this special something comprises our spiritual essence. But what exactly is that spiritual essence? Some traditions equate our spirituality with our humanity – they hold that we humans alone have souls. This notion makes all subhuman existence devoid of any intrinsic value; subhuman beings exist only to serve as a setting for the cosmos’ central drama of human redemption. This is anthropocentrism encroaching into spirituality. Such a utilitarian view of nonhuman life can easily degenerate into an exploitative view akin to today’s materialistic worldview that has wrought ecological havoc on our planet. Gita wisdom explains that those who equate their spirituality with their humanity confuse a difference in degree with a difference in nature. A fundamental characteristic of all life, human and subhuman, is consciousness. And consciousness being non-material comes from a spiritual source, the soul. As all living beings are conscious, they all have souls. More precisely, they are souls. The Bhagavad-gita (13.31) urges us to see beneath the diversity of life-forms, a similarity of spiritual essence. Ignorance covers the spiritual awareness of all living beings, but that covering is thicker in subhuman species than in humans. As our souls are less covered, we have a nascent spiritual capacity. This capacity drives us to enquire into the nature and purpose of our existence, thereby developing various distinctively human branches of knowledge. Thus, we humans are special not because we alone have souls, but because we alone can realize the soul. By understanding that our spirituality is bigger than our humanity, we can better value our subhuman brethren and better appreciate how the universe’s ultimate purpose includes them too.