To approach an understanding of our human identity, we may begin by acknowledging the various facets that compose our individual identity. There is a stirring, a shaking, a “never-again-the-same” quality as life takes on purpose and meaning.

Then things become different something not altogether explicable happens. In all cultural systems, sooner or later the human enters on the stage of existence. It forms the foundation of all great mythologies. It has been central to every religious tradition. The search for human identity has been the subject of great literature, art, and philosophy throughout the ages. It is through this process that we come to know ourselves as truly human. It is by living and working that we ultimately define ourselves as human. It is a journey in which the very process of travelling is not distinct from the unfolding awareness of our own mystery-the beautiful and awesome mystery of being human.Īccording to Laurens van der Post, Dr Carl Jung once said: “The core of the individual is a mystery of life, which is snuffed out when it is ‘grasped’….True understanding seems to me to be one which does not understand, yet lives and works. It is a journey towards knowing, feeling, and comprehending more towards a transformation that will carry us beyond ourselves. Our “what-ness” places us in the category of things, but being human is really a process in which we are constantly engaged. We might add, “a machine with interchangeable parts.” Our contemporary dilemma lies in the fact that we usually frame our definition in terms of what rather than who a person is. He added: “It is characteristic of the inner situation of contemporary man that the plausible way to identify himself is to see himself in the image of a machine” (Ibid, pp. Heschel once stated: “Every generation has a definition of man it deserves” ( Who is Man? 1965, p. Very much really depends on how we define our humanity and ourselves.

Many voices are being raised in protest against a view that would categorize us either as an animal, albeit a superior one, or as a machine, however skillful in operation. But just what can be meant by such statements? What is it to be human? Much has been written in recent years about the dehumanization of our human condition by the technological devices that we have created. The same concept has been expressed by ?ri ?ankarâchârya in his classic work on Vedânta, Viveka Chudâmani, often translated as “The Crest Jewel of Wisdom.” There it is said: “Among sentient creatures, birth as a man is difficult of attainment.” (Chatterji, Mohini M., Viveka Chudamani, verse 2). To obtain life in human form is said by the Buddhist to be the greatest privilege.

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