“what if we are not humans having spiritual experiences but spiritual beings having human experiences? In other words, what if the ecological crisis we are experiencing on the physical plane is itself a reflection/result of our karma and our actions on some of the higher planes of existence?”

From my POV, if we are here to have a human experience – then the plan has to include, accept and EMBRACE us being human, and ‘flawed’ and falible, and an animal, take those things into account. Incarnation, like birth, is messy, painful, and chaotic. But even more than that, it sounds as if you see a split between spirit and flesh that I don’t see, but I could be misinterpreting your words.

If what you mean by ‘what if the ecological crisis we are experiencing on the physical plane is itself a reflection/result of our karma and our actions on some of the higher planes of existence?’ that incarnation as human is a punishment, I don’t accept that. I don’t accept the ‘bean counter in the sky’ view of karma.

I DO think that there is a spritual element to everything, mind you. I see the entire universe as the manifestation – not separate creation – of the Divine. We are made of God-stuff, and are kin to the Gods themselves, I’d say. But while we are incarnate as humans, I see our Dharma is to BE human, and to deny our flesh and blood humanity is to violate our Dharma and, as it were, build Bad Karma by not learning even the obvious lesson, while learning to be fully human, embracing that humanity, etc, builds Good Karma and makes for a new set of challenges and lessons in our next incarnation.

Then again, I’m usually a heretic [g]. I also figure that it makes more sense to incarnate into ‘easy’ lives as new to human incarnation, and get progressively MORE, not LESS, challenging lives as we learn better how to be fully human.