Animal Dharma...

"Non-rational creatures, as Aldous Huxley put it, live in the animal eternity of
a perpetual present. Instinct is their animal grace and constant inspiration.
They are not worried about right or wrong. They are never tempted to live
otherwise than in accord with their own animal dharma, or immanent law. The
human being, on the other hand, relies on personal cleverness (reasoning) rather
than on instinct and intuition. And this is what Nature intended. This
"wearisome condition of humanity" is a prerequisite of enlightenment. Cleverness
and reason "are not and cannot be a proximate means of union with God". They
are, however, necessary to bring about first, the intellectual understanding of
our real nature that could lead to a deeper understanding in the
heart....Advises Jalal-uddin Rumi: sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment;
cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment is intuition. The fact of the matter is
that such transaction can take place only at the appropriate time, when the
realization dawns that the human being does not live, but is being
lived........Such simplicity or "purity or maturity of intellect" leaves the
intellect open or vacant to receive the apperception that all there is is
Consciousness..."Self-realization is not available to those who are weak"
(Ashtavakra Gita). What "weakness" truly means is a lack of courage to give up
those traditional routines which were prescribed for when one was a spiritual
beginner. It is the lack of courage to accept the intuitive promptings of the
basic, fundamental Truth in its totality that all there is, is Consciousness. -
Ramesh Balsekar