Importance of the human stage (E.J. Gold)

The act of being human is a necessary and important stage in the evolution of a planet and more importantly to you, in the personal evolution of the being. It allows us to actively participate in self-evolution by fusing the intellectual, emotional and physical centers into a single unified presence through the process of intentional suffering; to perfect ourselves through conscious labors; and to attain crystallization of the soul through the process of the collection and transformation of higher substances.

-- E.J. Gold, from Autobiography of a Sufi