Yesterday on my long flight from Istanbul to Cape Town, I was musing over the whole sanitization-security phenomenon. Due to Covid, we all have been using way too much sanitisation process. HEPA filters are trying to kill all kinds of microbes. But, without these microbes, we really can not survive. In fact, the human body has almost ten times as many bacteria in it as human cells! And, can we even call these non-human cells? They are an integral part of our body and without them, we won't be able to function. When humans evolved, we evolved together with all these microorganisms as well. We did what scientists call co-evolution. We evolved as a single entity. This musing gave me an exciting insight.
For many years I have had a query. Why are there so many species if each species is trying to survive? I have never had an easy-to-understand answer. Co-evolution did the trick for me. Individual species never evolve on their own. They evolve together with other thousands of species. There is a deep interconnection. "Fittest" does not apply to each individual species. It applies to the whole group of species. A nice allegory would be a clockwork. The battery of species together makes this beautiful clockwork we call an ecosystem. The clockwork of living organisms keeps on evolving to become more successful to be in the earth, together. Each species are like small gears and pegs in this big clock. They also evolve. But the goal is not to become the fittest survivor. Rather, the goal is to be a better wheel or gear to make sure that the clockwork ticks perfectly. Mere "survival" is not the goal. It is co-evolution....almost community-evolution! Selfishness has absolutely no place in nature.
Let us get back to our human cell vs bacteria discussion. We argued that by all means the microbes can and should be considered as parts of our own bodies. Then, by following the community-evolution discussion, every other species and living thing is also part of our own body, is not it? It is not some emotional plea. It is a science-based hard fact. Every living species is a part of our own body. We have evolved together. Hurting other species is the same as bruising parts of our own body! Self-mutilation is a sign of an unhealthy brain. Harming the environment is a sign of an unhealthy brain. Maybe this is what the Buddha meant when He told "this is because that is"! On this world environment day, let us hope that more humans are cured of this illness. 🙏
