Thursday, March 31, 2011

Honey bee versus House fly

Honey bees always alight only on flowers and suck the honey. They never sit on filth. They will never alight on anything else but flowers.

House fly will sometimes sit on sweetmeat, sometimes on a rotting wound, and will also sit on filth. It will feed on any of these things.

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna says “Those who are able to devote their minds constantly on God are like bees which light only on flowers and sip their honey. Those who live in the world, in the midst of ‘woman and gold’, may direct their attention to God; but their minds dwell also on ‘woman and gold’. They are like common flies, which light on a piece of candy, then on a sore or filth.

Lust and greed are the villans. Careful choices would transform house flies into honey bees. That is the power of being a human. Everything is in the mind. Whenever the mind aspires for something lowly, chide it and say “What a shame? Should I remain a house fly and sit on filth? I have the power to become a honey bee. I will become a honey bee.”

Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this divinity within, by controlling nature, external or internal. Do this either by work, or worship, or psychic control, or philosophy – by one, or more, or all of these – and be free.
– Swami Vivekananda

Manifest the divinity in you.