What makes human beings unique? There are other organisms that are sentient, physically complex, intelligent and emotional. These characteristics are not unique to humans. However, if we look at the world in terms of consciousness, we can see that different levels of awareness exist. The insentient things in the world exhibit no awareness at all. Stationary and simple organisms like plants and bacteria seem to have some awareness of the world - they respond to their environment - but they are not aware of themselves or their identities. Animals, on the other hand, do seem to know who they are to some extent. A dog knows that it is a dog, and can identify other dogs. But no other form of life possesses the same complete, uninhibited self-awareness that humans do. This is both what has allowed humans to conquer the world, and what causes all of our problems.
No other organism, no matter how intelligent, has complexes about its physical appearance or mental capacity the way we do. We know what we are, and at the same time, we know that we can be better. This is what drives us to excel, and at the same time, from where our conflicts arise. Vedānta-śāstra suggests that this complete self-awareness or self-judgement is the fundamental human problem. In other words, we are the problem. But śāstra also says that the solution is us alone. Our conclusion that we can be much more than what we perceive ourselves to be is a step in the right direction, if we let the teaching lead us the rest of the way.
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