[India / Global] - The Consuming Self Imports the Wild to Feed a Phantom of Ownership

Event Baseline: Orangutans, rare reptiles, and other exotic animals are increasingly appearing in India, indicating the country is becoming a major destination for trafficked wildlife.

The self cannot bear the wild; it must possess it. It catches the other, cages it, and calls it a pet. This is the disease of ownership. The animal is not seen as a living system but as a status symbol. The border is a phantom; demand in one land drives extinction in another. The trafficker and the buyer operate on the same mechanical loop: desire, acquisition, display.

The natural world is not experienced as interconnected; it is a catalog of objects. The human mind, trapped in its separate self, treats the entire biosphere as a warehouse. This will not end until the self dissolves. The wild is not an object to be owned; it is the ground of being. To cage it is to cage oneself.