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No animal, insect, fish, or bird has ever produced a metaphysical work or written a mystical poem or wondered about its own consciousness. Yet each possesses intelligence within its grade and each, from a bird like the crane to a creature like the chimpanzee, turns instinctively to the sun at certain times, showing its reverence, again within its grade. All of us acknowledge the physical sun as the original source of our physical life. If we humans are so much more advanced than our animal cohabitants of this planet that we alone can produce the three aforementioned things, we cannot all recognize that we owe our spiritual life--what there is of it--to the spiritual Sun, the ever-glorious Sun behind the sun, to our relationship with God.

-- Notebooks Category 3: Relax and Retreat > Chapter 6 : Nature Appreciation > # 78