Once there was a king who received a gift of two magnificent falcons from Arabia. They were peregrine falcons, the most beautiful birds he had ever seen. He gave the precious birds to his head falconer to be trained.

Months passed and one day the head falconer informed the king that though one of the falcons was flying majestically, soaring high in the sky, the other bird had not moved from its branch since the day it had arrived.

The king summoned healers and sorcerers from all the land to tend to the falcon, but no one could make the bird fly. He presented the task to the members of his court, but the next day, the king saw through the palace window that the bird had still not moved from its perch. 

Having tried everything else, the king thought to himself, “Maybe I need someone more familiar with the countryside to understand the nature of this problem.” 

So, he cried out to his court, “Go and get a farmer.”

In the morning, the king was thrilled to see the falcon soaring high above the palace gardens. He said to his court, “Bring me the doer of this miracle.”

The court quickly located the farmer, who came and stood before the king. The king asked him, “How did you make the falcon fly?”

With his head bowed, the farmer said to the king, “It was very easy, your highness. I simply cut the branch where the bird was sitting.”

Lesson: 

We are all designed to fly — to realize our incredible potential as human beings, both in the worldly as well as in our spiritual lives, to realize our True Self. But instead of doing that, we sit on our branches, clinging to the things that are familiar to us, clinging to our comfort zone, clinging to our superstitions, clinging to our fears and phobias, clinging to our false concepts, notions and opinions, clinging to our false identities. The possibilities are endless, but for most of us, they remain undiscovered because of our own mental blocks. We conform to the familiar, the comfortable, the mundane and never even suspect the existence of a Higher Reality, our Real Self, beyond the apparent. So, for the most part, our lives are mediocre instead of exciting, thrilling, fulfilling and blissful.

So, let us learn to destroy the branch of fear we cling to, the branch of conditionings we identify with, the branch of limitations and bondage we have imagined ourselves to be in, and free ourselves to the glory of the absolute, infinite, eternal freedom, beyond all conditionings and their limitations.

So, are we ready to loosen up our clinging to false identities and conditionings and eventually destroy them to soar into the absolute, infinite, eternal bliss?