To be human is to find the middle path. Before we became human we had millions of lives as a plant or an animal and millions of lives as a god. Out of all the choices for embodiment, only a human has free will. Only a human can change their life and learn from their actions and mistakes.
A rock, a plant and an animal all have consciousness, but none of these incarnations have free will. If all the birds wake up at 5:00 in the morning, no bird can decide to sleep in! There is no choice to change their life and do something different. Every human being was once a rock, a planet, a plant and an animal.
