What is wrong in being an animal? I have not seen a single man who can be compared to any animal. Suzuki used to say, “I love a frog, even a frog, more than a man. Look at a frog sitting near a pond: how meditatively a frog sits! Look at him, how meditative he is — not disturbed by the whole world going on, just sitting and sitting and meditating, one with existence.” Suzuki said, “When I was unenlightened I was a man, and when I became enlightened I became just like a cat. “Look at a cat: she knows the secret of how to relax and she has not read any books about relaxation. How to relax?
Look at a cat. No man can be a better teacher than a cat. The cat is relaxed and alert. If you relax, you go to sleep. The cat is alert even in her sleep, and the body is so flexible, so relaxed in every moment. What is wrong in being an animal? Man, through his ego, has created comparisons. He says, “We are not animals.” But no animal would like to be a human being. They are at ease, at home in existence. They are not worried, they are not tense. Of course, they don’t create any religion because they don’t need to. They don’t have any psychoanalysts — not because they are undeveloped, but because they don’t need any.
What is wrong with animals? Why this condemnation? This condemnation is part of the human ego. Man thinks in terms of being the superior one, the highest in the hierarchy. No animal has consented to this hierarchy. Darwin said that man has evolved out of monkeys, but if you ask monkeys I am afraid they will not say that man is an evolution; they will say he is a degradation. Man thinks himself as the center. There is no need for this. This is only egoistic nonsense. If you feel like being an animal, nothing is wrong in it.
Be one and be one totally — and be one with full alertness. That alertness will first uncover your animal because that is your reality. Your humanity is just false, skin-deep. Someone insults you, and the animal comes out — not the human being. Someone condemns you, and the animal comes out — not the human being. It is there, and your humanity is just skin-deep. If you accept everything, this skin-deep humanity will disappear. This is a false thing, and you can become aware of your real animal. And it is good to become aware of reality. If you go on being alert, within this animal you will find the divine. And it is always better to be a real animal than to be an unreal man. Reality is the point. So I am not against animals, I am only against falsities.
Don’t be a false human being. Be a real animal, and with that reality you will have become authentic, substantial. Now go on being alert, and by and by you will come to a deeper layer which is more real than the animal — and that is the divine. The divine is not only in you, remember; it is in all animals. It is not only that it is in animals: it is in all the trees, it is in the rocks. The divine is the basic center in everything. You can lose it only by being false, and you can gain it again by being real.
