"I Too Can Fly"

Many of us talk of spirituality and aspire to become spiritual but very few actually take even the first step forward on this path…..just sit on the fence afraid to take the plunge as we feel that we do not have it in us and that those who have evolved are very different from us or are blessed’ differently”! The fact of the matter is that God has given each one of us the wings to fly and reach Him, but we are not aware of it! It is illusion or maya which makes us think like that since Maya does not want us to succeed and keeps us tied down to material and sense pleasures. i would like to share a beautiful story in this connection as told by my Guruji but slightly modified by me. There was a man who had been seeking God and trying to meditate for many years but had not achieved any success. One day he was sitting under a tree feeling sorry for himself as he felt that he had not been blessed with what was needed for spiritual progress. It was then that he saw a pair of birds, sitting on a branch of the tree below which he was trying to meditate. Soon they started collecting little twigs and made a beautiful and small little nest. He continued to watch them build their nest. Something prompted him to see what happened after that which made him come there every day. A few days later he noticed that the birds had laid a few eggs. Very soon a few lovely little chicks were hatched. They started cooing like their parents and started emulating them in trying to fly. In a very short span of time all of them were flying successfully, though a little gingerly at first. But one of them was far too scared and was shying away, as it believed that it did not have wings at all…so how could it fly? The parent birds tried very hard to coax and cajole it but to no avail. They finally did the unthinkable…they pushed the little one off the branch of the tree in the hope that it would ‘find’ its wings and fly! The little one gasped with fright but found that it had spread its wings and had managed to come back to its nest and safety! It then realized that it did have wings after all! The man sitting under the tree got the message …….he understood that The Almighty had shown him that spectacle for a purpose. He had also been shown that each one of us is a bird fully equipped to fly! The man also understood that one needs to stay in the company of ‘gurmukhs’ and connect with those who have ‘flown’ themselves or have traversed the entire spiritual path and seek their guidance. Let us not feel helpless and incapable of achieving the true goal of our lives, that of merging with Him …let us believe in ourselves, seek, connect and hold the hands of those evolved beings who have take birth to show us the Divine Light.