Neale Donald Walsch argues that humans are driven by something deeper than survival. He points to examples like running into flames for a baby or confronting an assailant to show people act against self-preservation, guided by a sense that their true self's survival is already assured.
Chapters
Survival is the basic instinct of most chemical or biological life forms. It is what makes flowers turn toward the sun. It is what makes birds fly to warmer climates. It is what makes turtles recede into their shells. It is what makes lions roar and rattlesnakes shake their rattle. Survival is not, however, the basic instinct of human beings. Nor of any sentient creatures in the cosmos who have evolved into self consciousness. For such beings, the basic instinct is divinity. If your basic instinct were survival, you would run away from the flames of the burning house. But you run into the flames because you've heard a baby cry. In that moment, your. Your survival is not the issue. If your basic instinct were survival, you would turn away from the man with the gun. But you stand between the man and the person he's assaulting.
In that moment, your survival is not the issue. Something deep inside of you, something you cannot describe or name, calls to you in such moments to demonstrate at the highest level who you really are.
People who have done this, when interviewed by the newspapers later, never put it that way. Of course, they say they simply acted on instinct. But it surely could not have been survival instinct, for their actions defied survival. Yet they had no fear, not even a thought of fear at the time. Because who they really are knows that survival is not the issue. It knows that their survival is guaranteed. There are no questions about whether they will survive. The only questions are how, in what form, why, and for what purpose. These become, in moments of self realization, life's only inquiries. And in moments of self realization, the mind and the soul answer as one instantly.
