What Are We?
Essay Preview: What Are We?
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Underneath it all we share a basic identity. We are not the animals we appear to be. It takes a lot of digging to get beneath the animal overlay and see the identity that has plagued the deeply religious teachers and philosophers.
If you cant see it you cant believe it. Our animal nature is ninety nine percent based on reproduction. That is our survival heritage from the animal world. Most people when they dig deep into themselves discover deeper and more profound sexual roots. If they do not know that beneath it all lies something altogether different they will give up before the prize is realized.
One approach of the mystics and religious philosophers is to declare that all is illusion, or Maya – we cannot believe what we plainly see. They are not trying to “spoil our fun”. Everything in our physical nature is designed to enhance our reproductive successes. All of our physical senses are geared to find a sexual partner and engage in sexual reproduction. Our emotions are geared to desire and seek out a sexual mate and reproduce. Our intelligence is geared to optimize our reproductive successes and minimize our failures.
Yet, beneath it all there is the unity that all the philosophers and religious teachers have been claiming all these centuries. They have not lied. They have not been trying to deceive us. Who, among us, can get beneath the animal heritage and find the truth? Who dares to know the truth about what we really are and why we are really here.