This post was first published here: https://learnedtobehuman.blogspot.com/2023/04/learning-to-be-human-what-exactly-does.html

Student Spotlight: Darryl Neil

What exactly does it mean to be human? Am I not already a human? Surely anatomically I am human, however intellectually I am a person and this is where the the issue starts.

We all identify as a person in one form or another or to one degree or another, however what is a person? According to the dictionary definition, a person “is an individual of a specified character; the composite of characteristics that make up an individuals personality, the self”.

This definition immediately highlights an essential issue as it develops the notion of self, an individual, distinct and separate from each other. This concept of separateness divides us immediately and creates distance from each other and all of life. It is a definition of the mind and not of the soul and imagine if you didn’t identify with the mind!

What if you didn’t have these ‘characteristics’, would you still be human? What would be left of you? I believe this to be the root of our attachment to our character through our attachment to the existential fear and concept of being nobody. Equally importantly, where did these characteristics come from?

This sets the stage for the greatest quest of anyone’s life . . . to discover who they really are beneath, below and behind these ‘characteristics’.

The roots of our personal persona are learned, cultivated and solidified by the experiential and circumstantial conditioning from the day we were born. From our first interaction with our parents, teachers, friends, the media and society as a whole. We have been told what was and wasn’t acceptable, what we can and can’t do, how we should and shouldn’t behave, how we should and shouldn’t respond to the world around us, who and how we should speak to people and even to who we should and shouldn’t like.

The vast majority was learned by observation with very little conscious awareness and which became deeply embedded in our unconscious mind in an encyclopedic depth. It is through this unconscious mind that much our everyday beliefs, actions and responses are initiated by and can be the cause of so many issues in our lives.

This collective and cumulative cognitive ingestion slowly solidifies until we recognise and associate with it as our persona. It becomes so rigid that our persona develops an ego that will rigorously defend itself from any perceived threat of any kind. It can have such a strong resistance to even our beliefs being questioned, that we will experience cognitive dissonance to the degree that it will evoke a physiological response, that can even manifest as an adverse physical reaction.

To support this thesis, can you categorically prove or disprove anything you think you know for certain, do you know it to be 100% true? Can you validate any of the facts that you think that you know? If you deepen and expand your enquiry then you will discover that everything that you think you know is often no more than hearsay and at best just verbally or orally repeated to such an extent that it becomes detached from the roots of truth.

At this point we start to realise what a great weight of responsibility our words carry and how careful we must become unless we know them to be absolutely true. Also we start to realise that the same enquiry and analysis can be extended to our persona, which for most may trigger a very fundamental and profound spiritual emergency. This is also known as the initial stages of the dark night of the soul.

This is significant and very personal journey of self discovery and realisation, that can be disorienting, messy and incredibly psychologically painful. It will take you to the darkest recesses of your mind and to the edge of your sanity. It may even destroy your life as your life as you know it, strip you of all your worldly possessions, force you to walk away from all your friends and family. It may also leave so feeling so isolated that suicide becomes an appealing escape from the relentless inner turmoil.

This may look devastating from the outside looking in, however something rather special, rather magical, rather beautiful is blossoming within. This is the soul stirring, this is the essential self burdening to be realised. This is the initial realisation that we were not who we thought we were, not who we were told we were, but instead our true nature starting to blossom and reveal itself.

In this moment, nothing is important and even the most fundamental challenges in life previously pale into insignificance, even to the degree of impending existential cessation. This is because your broadening discovery that only one component of life matters above and beyond all else . . . and it is love! Love of family, friends and especially self.

Love knows no bounds, can’t be contained, controlled or taken. It emanates from self and ripples out to loves ones, to our neighbours, to everyone, to all sentient beings, to every living organism, to the planet and beyond.

Our capacity to recognise, receive and reciprocate this love is only limited by our minds, our definition of it is intellectually objectified by our beliefs and experiences and it’s true nature is truly revealed and proportional to our dedication to self healing.

It is this tenacity that brings a profound realisation about ourselves, each other and all aspects of life. The realisation that love is everything always and everywhere and all that matters. It’s at the heart of our essence and is the powerful and deepest emotion and experience that we can have as a human. It drives and strives to expand and embrace everything and everyone around us and to connect and bond authentically with others. It helps us recognise the commonality we share with each other and the communion that nurtures our souls and gives each and every one of us meaning and purpose. This is the true meaning of human!

About Darryl

Darryl Neal is a Breathwork facilitator in training, wishing to share some personal reflection.