Microbiomes and More

I have long known that bacteria living in the digestive systems of human beings play an extremely important role in the digestion and absorption of food.  I sometimes wondered idly, whether these bacteria actually thought of my colon as their “world” -- whether they played, studied, worked, married and reproduced within my gut, with absolutely no awareness of me as a larger entity housing them.  Anytime I took an antibiotic to take care of some infection, these bacteria probably wondered at this new cataclysmic “world event” that was annihilating them in large numbers.  When I had a bout of food poisoning, they probably thought there was a tsunami taking place in their world.  A bout of acute acidity and biliousness probably had them shaking their heads at each other over the changes in the environment (“global acidity”), and the increasing fickleness of the weather.

I took my thinking a step further and wondered whether a set of bacteria actually adopted other bacteria (or yeasts or viruses or bacteriophages, or whatever) as pets and / or workers.  Or set up armies and fought with each other – with the result that I felt I was ailing, without quite understanding why.  Did they set up hierarchies and compete with one another for various resources – the stuff I often unthinkingly stuffed in my mouth as food?  When I drank water, did they wonder at the sudden downpour and when I was dehydrated, did they speak of the drought?

From here, it was only a small step further to wonder whether we (human beings, and this world in its entirety) also exist within some other organism and play an intrinsic role in the well being of that larger organism?  Is this what is meant, at a very literal level, when spiritual leaders tell us we are all one, and the well being of one is only to be found in the well being of all?