The sight of a pigeon normally excites everyone, but if I had to tell you, the creature was sighted inside an aircraft cabin while making an early morning landing, then I guess it does qualify as a rare event extracting childlike enthusiasm from each of us.
For the next few minutes, all I could manage to do was just witness him vigorously trying to find its way out of the cabin while he fluttered across the length of the aircraft cabin. Since he was unable to find his way out of the cabin his helplessness was evident in the intensity of his struggle.
Had the pigeon just stopped for a moment and noticed that the exit door was wide open for him to make an escape to his freedom, it would have been easier on him. Surprisingly, after a couple of minutes the pigeon seemed to have settled into the comfort of his own struggle by keeping himself busy.
I couldn’t help but watch it helplessly fly from one end of the cabin to another, while getting stuck himself in some open overhead stowing space and start the struggle all over again.
After a point, it was getting so frustrated that I just wanted to get up and show that helpless creature the way out. However, there were a couple of issues that couldn’t be ignored here. First, there is no way the pigeon could see me and appreciate my perspective. Second, even if he did, he would probably end up fearing me because of his lack of trust.
Commentary on our inner quest for freedom
If you can just pause for a moment & give it a thought, the incident seems to be a perfect commentary on our inner quest for freedom. Like this pigeon, we often feel trapped inside the unpredictable circumstances of our life. There is an allusion that unconditional acceptance of the present moment presents an opportunity to recognize the possibility of the liberation.
There is a possibility that we might be doing the same in our life — aspiring for freedom while resisting the pathways leading to that freedom. And in the process becoming settled in our own little zone of comfort.
The helpless feeling of being trapped inside the prison of unpredictable life doesn’t help in having an unbiased judgment. Life just wants us to experience our inner self through different circumstances. Therefore, blaming the circumstances doesn’t help us in identifying true colors & textures of the entire gamut of experiences.
Because at the end it makes no difference to the life how we perceive it to be. Life exists unconditionally to facilitate our growth and provide us all the freedom to create our unique perceptions about everything. It allows us all the requisite space to choose our respective experiences, commitments, struggles, and battlegrounds.
Since there is a serious lack of trust in our life, we start believing that we are not worthy of that elusive freedom. Whatever freedom we are seeking belongs to a distant future. We keep struggling through our lives in the hope of a future, which might show us the door to that freedom.
Most of the time our vision is so stuck in future that we end up delaying our happiness & liberation in favor of present struggle, fear of loss & suffering.
Due to lack of faith, we believe that right now we are not worthy of whatever we might be aspiring. At this very moment what we are aligned to is constant apprehension, struggle & hope — reinforcement of the fact that all the limitations just lies in our perception. Once we start questioning the limitations in our own perception by developing some faith & trust we would open ourselves to all the possibilities that may not be visible to us right now.
Worth Sharing?
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