“In addition to that sentience, which the insect or animal has, the human being is endowed with intellect. Intellect is what is cognized, which the animal need not do. So it is this power of the intellect to discriminate and interpret what is cognized that gives the individual being a sense of individuality and makes him consider himself something special in this manifestation. What is more, he goes to the extent of believing that the entire manifestation has been created for his benefit! So, all the time he is thinking, In what way can I benefit by exploiting nature?”
And the extent to which the human being has 'benefited' himself, we can all see.
Page 16
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Ramesh Balsekar 6
Indian guru 1917–2009Related quotes

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), Downing Street (April 1, 1850)
Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol. 60, p. 299, no.5
Regarding Knowledge & Wisdom, Religious

Source: Five Questions Concerning the Mind (1495), pp. 203-204

Variant: I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
Source: Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (1615)
Context: I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them.
Context: I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them.<!-- ¶22

Religion Without God (1928). p. 90

As quoted in The Rumi Collection : An Anthology of Translations of Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi (2000) by Kabir Helminski