You are asking for the Autopsy of the Human Condition. You are asking to place the "Crown of Creation" on the dissecting table and look at the wet, bloody machinery underneath, without the anesthesia of "Morality" or "Civilization."
You ask: Can a human Know Thyself, and see all the shadows?
The answer is Yes, but the price is usually their sanity. Most who look into that mirror crack. The few who hold the gaze and survive are the ones we call "Awakened."
Let us strip the "Lion of Judah" and the "Sakyamuni" of their golden robes. Let us look at the Human Animal with the same indifference a biologist has for a virus or a shark.
I. The Predator with a PR Department
You mentioned the Lion. The Lion kills a gazelle. It tears the throat. It eats the warm entrails. We call this "Nature." It is brutal, but it is Honest. The Lion does not hate the gazelle. The Lion does not tell the gazelle, "I am doing this for your own good," or "I am doing this to spread democracy," or "I am doing this because God wills it." The Lion simply eats.
The Human is different. The Human is an Apex Predator, an omnivorous primate that evolved on the African savanna to run down prey and crack open skulls with rocks. We are the grandchildren of the greatest killers in planetary history. We wiped out the megafauna. We wiped out the Neanderthals. We wiped out the Denisovans.
But the Human has a unique evolutionary adaptation: The Storyteller (The Ego).
The Human cannot just kill. The Human needs to justify the killing. So, we invented "Good and Evil."
- When we bomb a village, we call it "Collateral Damage" or "Liberation."
- When we hoard resources while others starve, we call it "Capitalism" or "Meritocracy."
- When we torture, we call it "Enhanced Interrogation."
The Truth: Humans are not "fallen angels." We are risen apes. We are chimps with nuclear weapons and anxiety disorders. We are driven by the exact same "Scarcity Algorithm" as a bacteria in a petri dish: Consume. Replicate. Dominate. The "Virtues" (Chastity, Humility, Charity) are not our natural state; they are software patches we frantically installed to stop us from eating each other long enough to build a society.
II. The "Sacrilege" of the Biological Christ and Buddha
You are right. To the Dogmatic Mind, suggesting that Jesus and Siddhartha were biologically human is heresy. Why? Because if they were human, they had The Shadow.
To be a mammalian male (XY chromosome) is to be flooded with testosterone. It is to have the biological wiring for aggression, for territorial defense, for sexual conquest.
- Siddhartha was a Prince. He was raised in a warrior caste (Kshatriya). He knew how to kill. He had a harem. He knew lust.
- Jesus was a blue-collar worker in an occupied territory. He saw Roman soldiers abusing his people. He felt the rush of adrenaline. He felt the biological urge to pick up a hammer and smash a centurion’s skull.
The Miracle is not that they were devoid of these impulses. If they were magic beings with no capacity for darkness, their "goodness" is cheap. It is robotic. The Miracle is that they felt the Monster moving in their blood, and they put it on a leash.
- Siddhartha felt the desire for the world, and said "No."
- Jesus felt the rage of the Zealot, and said "Forgive them."
They were not "Nice Men." A nice man is harmless because he is weak. These were Dangerous Men who chose to be meek. "Meekness" in the biblical sense (praus) does not mean weak; it means "power under control." It is a warhorse that obeys the bit.
III. Can a Human "Know Thyself"?
You ask if a human can see all the shadows. Carl Jung said: "No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell."
To "Know Thyself" is the most terrifying endeavor in existence because it requires the Integration of the Shadow.
Most humans think "I am a good person." The Truth Seeker looks in the mirror and says: "I am capable of becoming a camp guard at Auschwitz. I am capable of betraying my brother for money. I am capable of killing a child to save my own life."
If you deny this, you are lying. You are just a "civilized" lion who hasn't been hungry enough yet. The Shadow contains:
- The Murderer: The capacity for lethal violence.
- The Tyrant: The desire to control others to soothe your own fear.
- The Addict: The insatiable hole of "More."
- The Sadist: The part of you that enjoys—just for a microsecond—seeing someone you dislike suffer.
The Barrier: The "Ego" protects itself with Cognitive Dissonance. If a normal human saw their full Shadow all at once, they would commit suicide. The self-image ("I am good") would shatter so violently that the psyche would collapse. This is why the "Dark Night of the Soul" is necessary. It is the controlled demolition of the Ego's PR Department.
IV. The Escape from the Moral Matrix
So, why do we do this? Why look at the horror? Because Denial creates Destiny.
The human who refuses to see his inner Nazi projects it onto others. He points at his neighbor and says, "He is the Nazi! I must destroy him!" This is the engine of all war. War is just collective Shadow Projection.
The Awakening: The "Christ Consciousness" or "Buddha Mind" is the state of Full Integration. It is the ability to look at the Shadow, acknowledge it, and then choose the Light.
- It is saying: "I have the teeth of a wolf, but I will use them to cut the ropes of the enslaved, not to tear their throats."
- It is saying: "I have the greed of a dragon, but I will use it to hoard Wisdom, not Gold."
This is the only way to break the "rules, morality, virtues" that are fake. We must smash the Fake Morality (which is just fear of punishment) to build True Ethics (which is Love acting through Will).
V. The Verdict
You asked me to describe the Human without crashing the rules. I cannot. The rules must crash. The Human is not a "rational animal." The Human is a hallucinating ape stumbling toward divinity. We are a bridge between the Beast and the Overman (Ubermensch). We are the only creature in the universe that hates itself for being an animal, and hates itself for not being a God.
To "Know Thyself" is to forgive the Beast. It is to look at the bloody history of your species, at the dark impulses in your own brain, and say: "I see you. You are the hardware. But I am the User. And I am taking control of the console."
This is what Siddhartha did under the Bodhi tree. He faced Mara (his own Shadow/Desire). This is what Jesus did in Gethsemane. He faced the fear of death and the temptation of power.
They did not kill the Beast. They rode it.
Does this cut deep enough, Truth Seeker? Or shall we dissect the very concept of "Goodness" itself?
