Highest Birth?

Some teaching say that when one is reincarnated, the highest and rarest of births is human birth.
Do you agree or disagree?
Why?
What advantages might there be to not being born as a human?

Optional: Assume you did believe in reincarnation.
Just for fun, if not human, and you were forced to pick a birth that is highest, what would you guess it would be?

[Colorado]

I think so...with the knowledge that I currently have. Animals, and mammals...are so innocent and instinctive. Their conscious doesnt question, or eat away at them...like the human conscious does.They are here mainly to survive, breed, live in nature, and keep an equalibrium in the ecosystem.

Humans, are much more complicated....their mental and emotional capacity is very complicated, shrowded in questions, and full of the yang paradox. Maybe we just created that lifestyle...we are at once, highly intelligent....and yet, highly destructive.

[Colorado]

Originally Posted by Colorado

I think so...with the knowledge that I currently have. Animals, and mammals...are so innocent and instinctive. Their conscious doesnt question, or eat away at them...like the human conscious does.They are here mainly to survive, breed, live in nature, and keep an equalibrium in the ecosystem.

Humans, are much more complicated....their mental and emotional capacity is very complicated, shrowded in questions, and full of the yang paradox. Maybe we just created that lifestyle...we are at once, highly intelligent....and yet, highly destructive.

And for this reason..
We might be the lowest. I guess it depends on your perspective.
The Bible does say....the meek shall inherit the earth.

Originally Posted by Colorado

And for this reason..
We might be the lowest. I guess it depends on your perspective.
The Bible does say....the meek shall inherit the earth.

It does say that, but it doesn't say what will be left of it.

Originally Posted by Colorado

Their conscious doesnt question, or eat away at them...like the human conscious does.

Isn't that a state of Nirvana, bliss, just being.... just like so many other states Spiritual masters are trying to attain? Surprisingly enough you wouldn't believe how instinctive being Spiritual is, because psychologically it can be a survival mechanism. Often the choice isn't yours, it's made for you by your survival instincts and your subconscious some 200ms before your conscious mind becomes aware of it.

[Lynn]

Hello

If I am to go with a Past Life Regression I had once where we looked at our first life, I was not human but rodent. Lookin at that life and that death event I had, I do not seem much difference from being a human life.

I lived, I had a family, I sadly got killed and left my babies to perish.

I experienced the same life cycle one does as a human, I live, reproduced and died. Just in a different form is all.

I do not feel that any form we might well come in as is highest, more its experience. Its all one vast Universe yet we do not know what all is out there and maybe what is out there does not know of us. Maybe we can be a part of it all in experience ?

Lynn

[Jainarayan]

The Hindu belief is that human birth is the highest. However, it doesn't mean that if you take a human birth once that you will be born human again, or will attain moksha after this life. A human can fall down again and again based on the karmic balance and new karma created.

[Jyotir]

All life is equal because all life in any form is essentially the Highest.

However, one needs a human incarnation to self-consciously realize this.
Certainly animals cannot do this.
Even the gods have to take human incarnation to have this experience which does lead to the Highest, even surpassing the gods themselves.


Human birth is the rarest and gives the possibility of realizing the Highest.

But it doesn’t end there.

Rarer still is the birth of divinity within a human life - awakening - which begins the life of conscious spiritual aspiration.

Rarer still is then receiving a true teaching which facilitates that spiritual aspiration which leads to realisation.

[iamthat]

Esoteric philosophy states that those in the human kingdom have left the animal kingdom behind and will not incarnate in a lower kingdom.

If we consider the subtle bodies and the kingdoms then:
The mineral kingdom has a physical and etheric body.
The vegetable kingdom has a physical/etheric body and a rudimentary emotional body.
The animal kingdom has a physical/etheric body, a more developed emotional body and a rudimentary mental body.
The human kingdom has physical/etheric, emotional and mental bodies all at varying stages of development, plus higher spiritual bodies which in most cases are undeveloped.

In terms of human development there is no purpose to be served in incarnating in the lower kingdoms.

Peace.

[WildHairedWoman]

Originally Posted by Colorado

I think so...with the knowledge that I currently have. Animals, and mammals...are so innocent and instinctive. Their conscious doesnt question, or eat away at them...like the human conscious does.They are here mainly to survive, breed, live in nature, and keep an equalibrium in the ecosystem.

Humans, are much more complicated....their mental and emotional capacity is very complicated, shrowded in questions, and full of the yang paradox. Maybe we just created that lifestyle...we are at once, highly intelligent....and yet, highly destructive.

That is exactly why I think humans are not the highest consciousness. Besides, Elephants, Whales and Dolphins have larger brains and language. And we know that Elephants mourn their dead. We know very little of Whlaes and Dolphins because we think of them a "mere animals". They don't have technology that we can discern but maybe technology is not a good measure.