How do we understand the count of 400,000 human species when the human population is much greater?

From: stephen

Vedas say that there are 8,400,000 species of life and out of them some 400000 are humans but when we see in this planet even number of humans is far far greater then this number and no two humans are same in everything.so how do you explain this.

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you. Question by Stephen. Vedas say that there are 8.4 million species of life and out of them some 400,000 are humans.
But when we see that even on this planet the number of human beings is far, far greater than this number and no two humans are same in everything. So how do you explain this? Answer. The figure of 400,000 refers not to the human population but to the gradation of different human beings according to their consciousness.
The figure of 8.4 million species is not according to biological form as is done in the classification of species in modern science but it is according to the level of consciousness. The Padma Purana and the other Puranas where this Jaljana, Lakshani, Sthavaran, Lakshavimshiti this verse which describes the taxonomy the classification of the species into various categories it basically talks it from a spiritual evolutionary perspective. That means it describes the soul moves from the lower species through upward to the higher species till it finally attains the human species where it has the opportunity for liberation.
So this 400,000 species refers to the categories of the levels of consciousness in the human form. So that’s why two human beings may be different from each other physically, socially, economically but if they have similar levels of consciousness despite their external differences they will be classed within the same species. On the other hand, two human beings may even be twins but if they have widely varying and widely different consciousness one of them is highly materialistic, the other is highly spiritual then again, despite their remarkable external biological similarities they will be classed into distinct species.
So this classification is primarily based on the level of consciousness and because it is based on the level of consciousness it has nothing to do with the population of the human beings. And within this 400,000 species there are also the living beings with human-like developed consciousness but who are unknown to modern science. For example, there are the higher celestial beings like the Dandharvas, the Kinnaras, the demigods, the celestial singers all these also have a human-like body and they are also classed within this 400,000 species.
So basically, this 400,000 species refers to the living beings who have a consciousness that makes them capable of enquiring into spirituality and of practicing spiritual life. So to summarize, the classification is not according to external biological characteristics but according to levels of consciousness and so even when the biological characteristics are similar two human beings may be within the same species from the Vedic perspective and even when the biological characteristics are very similar like in twins, the two human beings may be in different species and in fact, higher beings are also included within the 400,000 species and it has nothing to do with the total number of population of human beings on this planet. Thank you.