WHY DO WE NEED TO BE SPIRITUAL?

A hunter was once walking through a forest. He saw a beautiful winged parrot flying through the sun and the trees and he simply could not take his eyes off its beauty. After a considerable time spent setting up a trap, he captured the bird. He took it home and built a sturdy cage for it and kept the parrot in it. It would fly about in the cage but it could not go any further, so it gradually gave up trying.  The hunter used to feed it in its cage every day and after a few years, its wings hardly ever fluttered. One day, the hunter who was by now an old man on his deathbed, decided to set the bird free once more and he opened the cage. The parrot walked out of it for a while, but returned to the cage and sat in its spot, waiting for the hunter to feed it. Seeing this, the hunter laughed and breathed his last sigh.

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Most of us are a bit like the parrot in this story.  We’re all born with the fullest potential to experience the joy and freedom of divine love in ourselves, but we get trapped by the material world. We get conditioned by what it feeds us- a constant hum drum that puts us to sleep by which we lose the gift of realising how far we could really fly as spiritual beings, if only we used our wings. All of us are three parts in one- a body, a mind and a spirit. And each one of us is a part of a greater whole. Our problems begin when we don’t realise this truth. We are not fully awake to who we really are- a part of the divine, and instead we function in the illusion of separation, resulting in ‘I’ and ‘You’.

The illusion of separation is a great magic trick, a divine design or maya that allows us to experience life- joy, sadness, togetherness and every other form of experience that we have come here to have. All of life is a great stage, and all men merely actors- the truth behind this statement is that we’re in a contextual field that has been created solely for us to choose, every day- who will I be today? The parrot who is free and flying through the forest spreading its beautiful wings? Or the parrot who walks back into a cage even when it is set free?

Today, more than any other time in our history, the simple spiritual truth at the core of each of us is the only hope to counter the malaise of apathy, of indifference and hatred which is not allowing us to be free and let the divine part of us shine. We have witnessed a global world emerging not just because it is economically viable for us to co-operate and have trade agreements in place, but also because it is a testament to the spiritual truth that ultimately, we are all one.

Being fully aware of who we are, this spiritual vision is the key to a healthy body and peace of mind- which we need to realize our full potential. The best part is that nobody needs special knowledge to realize this truth which is already loud and clear within. We only have to set aside the ‘I’ to experience this Truth.