Has anyone of us ever pondered how many types of living species are there in our Planet Earth and what is the stature of Humans among them all? No, hardly anyone has time to think about these aspects in this so-called busy life. In fact, even the scientists do not know the exact number of living species that exist in the world.
It is said, after several centuries of documenting living things, scientists have only managed to document 14% of living species. The remaining 86% of species that are estimated to exist are yet to be discovered. It is estimated that planet Earth has approximately 8.7 million species. As the rate of extinction has increased owing to climate change and other factors, thousands of living species are going extinct without even being documented, and their existence will thus never be known to humans. This is just one of the reasons why it is difficult to estimate the exact number of species that inhabit the Earth.
For anyone who loves nature, the sheer diversity of life on Earth is breathtaking. There are so many kinds of birds and wildflowers, so many kinds of insects and trees. And yet there are distinct patterns that are repeated over and over. A bird has a head, two wings, a body, and two feet. It has feathers, a beak, and a bony skeleton. It lays eggs. This is certainly a different pattern than that of a fish, an insect, or a tree. For centuries, and even millennia, this combination of diversity and repeating patterns has fascinated humanity.
The living species can be classified into what is known as Kingdoms viz., Animals, Plants, Fungi, Protista which is a grouping of single-celled organisms such as the protozoa or, Monera, a Greek term meaning a Kingdom that contains unicellular organisms with a prokaryotic cell. And then there are birds, fish, reptiles and mammals all have internal skeletons that include a skull and a backbone. This is quite different from worms, insects, mollusks, and crustaceans, which don’t have bony skeletons inside their bodies. Thus it is possible to divide all animals into two super-groups — the vertebrates (with backbones) and the invertebrates (without backbones). Let us, for the time being, leave the other minor categories of living beings and concentrate only on the largely visible Animal Kingdom.
Having said this, it is for sure that Human birth is the highest form of birth among all the living beings that belong to the category of Animal Kingdom. The word Human beings originated from Latin word ‘Homo’ meaning ‘creature’ and ‘Sepia’ meaning ‘Wise’, thus belonging to the phylum homo-sapiens, rather a ‘Wise Creature’ whereby it means that Humans tend to be the wisest of all living beings. But how many of the Humans behave, act or conduct themselves wisely?
To dwell little deep into the nature of the so-called ‘Wise Creature’ viz., Humans, it may be mentioned that it is only among the Human beings that all sorts of negative qualities are prevalent and such bad qualities are not that much prevalent among other kinds of animals. Almost a dozen of the worst negative personality traits that are truly nasty are found only among the human beings, such as, 1) Egocentric, that is, selfish or self-centered behavior, 2) Pessimistic, 3) Greedy, 4) Dishonest, 5) Judgmental, 6) Manipulative or to say cunning and calculative, 7) Narcissistic or self-importance or egotistical behaviour, 8) Vindictive or mean and spiteful conduct, 9) Aggressive, 10) Predatory or destructive tendencies, 11) Unforgiving and 11) always feeling the need to be right. These are in fact bad personality traits which are rampant among majority of us Humans and one should try to get rid of those.
One should not fly very high — be it in stature or success as due to the presence of gravity in Earth everyone is bound to fall down one day or the other and mix with the soil and water. No human is big and no one is small – and if some have such a feeling, it’s a pity and should be considered Naive. All are equal with identical internal organs and anyone who considers himself or herself to be a big shot, one can only but pity on such living beings who are actually just nothing considering the Nature with its many hidden mysteries. Many have come and many have gone, the World goes on and the Mother Nature with its beauties remain. One should just live, pass their destined time on Earth and try to do only good deeds and strive to protect oneself from those 12 negative personality traits.
Hence, one must just enjoy the Nature and every second of one’s life, live the life to the fullest and leave this world for another life-term depending on one’s own acts to be borne in the next life either as a gifted-being or as a Cockroach in some drainage line or as a pig or born as some other such kind of creatures in the Animal Kingdom. Depending on good acts in this life and be borne in the next life-term with a silver or even golden spoon in one’s mouth or even attain independence from being reborn, viz., attaining Moksha.
Do only good deeds as that is the asset that is going to go with the Soul immediately after death and not wait even till the funeral pyre. Do not betray anyone, harm anyone and do not run after material wealth, instead try to accumulate maximum of good deeds or try to earn blessings, lest one is born a creature in the next birth or even as human birth as an acute sufferer or live a miserable life. So, do not forget that just as Mother Nature is beautiful, try to be calm and live life to the fullest and never ever compare oneself with others, as it is reiterated everyone is today what he or she is depending on the past deeds only.
If this simple phenomenon is understood, life will become very happy and contended and one will achieve the purpose of having been gifted with high birth. Efforts should be made to utilize this high birth to achieve emancipation and get released from the cycle of death and rebirth.
If we talk about the concept of re-birth, there are different beliefs and theories. If some believe in reincarnation it is because their scriptures say so. The soul characterizes the essence of life, it is immortal and wears on one’s mortal body and consciousness. Like Lord Krishna had propagated in the Bhagwad Gita, the Holy book of the Hindus, that Soul (Aatma) just migrates from one body to another after death of a living body just like one changing one’s clothes.
The immortal Aatma for that matter has no beginning or end – that is, no birth, no death. Even about the concept of Aatma, it is all again our belief and one can rely on those beliefs with some form of certainty, going by the differences in one’s birth form – be it being born in a royal family or a destitute, being born intact or with some handicap, being born as a human or some other species in one’s future births or, even by seeing an infant or a small child leaving this world after spending little time in this world, et al, which all seem to be the outcome of one’s deeds or in fact misdeeds in previous births to which one enters this world to pay the penance for a short period or for longer period of time.
Having said that, these are some secrets of life and nature which we, the Humans or the Wise Creature, only are capable of giving a thought to and understand the true meaning of life, thus avail the benefit of the gift of a higher form of life bestowed on us.
