“Animals are among the first inhabitants of the mind's eye. They are basic to the development of speech and thought. Because of their part in the growth of consciousness, they are inseparable from the series of events in each human life, indispensable to our becoming human in the fullest sense.”

— Paul Shepard

Thinking Animals: Animals and the Development of Human Intelligence (1978), University of Georgia Press, 1998, Chapter 1, p. 2 https://books.google.it/books?id=rSu9AQAAQBAJ&pg=PA2.

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Paul Shepard 2

American human ecologist 1925–1996

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“The world is emblematic. Parts of speech are metaphors, because the whole of nature is a metaphor of the human mind.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson book Nature

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“What is manifestation? It is just a sudden spontaneous concurrent appearance in Consciousness, within Consciousness, brought about by Consciousness. In that manifestation, the human being is just one object. Basically, as far as the manifestation is concerned, there is no difference between the human being and the inanimate object. So where does the question of individuality arise at all? That arises because in the inanimate object, consciousness is not there in the form of sentience. The human being is endowed with sentience, like any animal. Sentience enables the senses to work. The human being is essentially an inanimate object plus sentience, precisely like any other animal or insect which has the feeling of being present, the sense of presence.”

Ramesh Balsekar (1917–2009) Indian guru

“The dread of death, an instinct so unfailing in all animals, exists, not because existence is intrinsically so sweet, nor because annihilation is so distressing, but because this bugaboo has been an indispensable safeguard against the suicide of the life process. The expectation of post-mortem consciousness, so prevalent and so insistent among human beings, is a hope arising from the concussion of a desire and a fancy—the desire to persist just referred to, and the fancy or hallucination of a double which originated among savages from shadows, images, dreams, and the like.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), The Derivation of the Nature of Living Beings, pp. 176–177

“The human condition: Lost in thought Most people spend their entire life imprisoned within the confines of their own thoughts. They never go beyond a narrow, mind-made, personalized sense of self that is conditioned by the past. In you, as in each human being, there is a dimension of consciousness far deeper than thought. It is the very essence of who you are. We may call it presence, awareness, the unconditioned consciousness. In the ancient teachings, it is the Christ within, or your Buddha nature.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: Stillness Speaks (2003), Chapter 2 Beyond the Thinking Mind

“The life force that pulsates in the trees, plants, and animals is the same life force that pulsates within us. The same life energy that gives us the power to speak and to sing, is the power behind the song of the bird and the roar of the lion. The same consciousness that flows in and through every human being, lends its power to the movement of the wind, to the flow of the river, and to the light of the sun. How can there be any sense of difference once this subtle principle is understood? When we evaluate our growth and development in the light of this great Truth, we may wonder whether we human beings have really developed or grown at all. The progress that we see today is divided growth. Only some parts are growing—the world as a whole remains unhealthy. We cannot call this real progress.”

Mata Amritanandamayi (1953) Hindu spiritual leader and guru

Unity is Peace (1995)

“Why are non-human beings ostracized and treated by humans with no consideration save as they administer to selfish human ends? Whence the doctrine that non-human species were made for the hominine species, and that there is no logic or sanity in their existence save as they feed or slave for their human tyrants? Because they are dumb, that is, because their language is not understood by human minds, and because they are wild, that is, because they are for the most part unassociated with human animals, and because the civilized consciousness, which is barely able to realize the kinship of human beings, is yet too feeble and rudimentary to comprehend the solidarity of all beings.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), Egoism and Altruism, p. 119

“And, oh! what beautiful years were these
When our hearts clung each to each;
When life was filled and our senses thrilled
In the first faint dawn of speech.”

Langdon Smith Evolution

Evolution (1895; 1909)

“Men are the dominant sign-using animals. Animals other than man do, of course, respond to certain things as signs of something else, but such signs do not attain the complexity and elaboration which is found in human speech, writing, art, testing devices, medical diagnosis, and signaling instruments. Science and signs are inseparably interconnected, since science both presents men with more reliable signs and embodies its results is systems of signs. Human civilization is dependent upon signs and systems of signs, and the human mind is inseparable from the functioning of signs - if indeed mentality is not to be identified with such functioning.”

Charles W. Morris (1903–1979) American philosopher

Source: "Foundations of the Theory of Signs," 1938, p. 1 (1971:17), Lead paragraph first chapter

“There is always a chance for a person to break out of the cycle, but there is no such chance for an animal unless it incarnates as a human and develops "I" consciousness.”

Baba Hari Dass (1923–2018) master yogi, author, builder, commentator of Indian spiritual tradition

Source: Fire without Fuel - The Aphorisms of Baba Hari Dass (1986), Ch.III: Mind - Its Functions and Its Fantasies, p.36-7

“The earth was not created; it evolved. So did all the animals and plants that inhabit it, including our human selves, mind and soul as well as brain and body. So did religion.”

Julian Huxley (1887–1975) English biologist, philosopher, author

The Humanist Frame (1961) p. 18 
Context: In the evolutionary pattern of thought, there is neither need nor room for the supernatural. The earth was not created; it evolved. So did all the animals and plants that inhabit it, including our human selves, mind and soul as well as brain and body. So did religion.

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