Thursday, September 03, 2009

Transformation

From an egg to a caterpillar to a pupa to a butterfly... It is a fantastic process, quite unbelievable in many ways, to see that such a beautiful butterfly appears out of a little dull egg. Such is the magic of creation, but if you didn't read it in Science books, and if you saw an egg and a butterfly, will you know that one came out of the other. No... That is the way I feel at times. When I see human beings who have transformed themselves in such a tremendous way, I doubt if such a thing is possible for us, but they were also once like us. After crawling through life like the caterpillar, right now life is like the pupa. A little more evolved than the caterpillar, but still a dull pupa... Happy, warm, comfortable and cuddled up inside the little cocoon... Not knowing the life of a soaring butterfly, stuck and unmoving... If the transformation has to happen, the cocoon must be broken. What appears like life threatening, that is, breaking of the cocoon that has been the very protection so far, is actually liberating. For a logical mind, a security seeking mind, it may seem absurd that the very house is being broken, but that's the only way the butterfly can come out. It may be a painful process to break open the pupa, but the end result is far more worthy than the shell. Other pupae will never know the experience the butterfly has... They may belittle, argue and call out the foolishness in breaking open the cocoon. But once the desire to transform has set in, one has to make the effort to break open the cocoon... Once the cocoon starts breaking, someday Nature may take over and one may end up soaring as a vibrant butterfly...

8 comments:

Raji said...

that was very beautiful...:) thanks

Mani said...

Well explained.

Vivek D said...

very nicely put!
you do have a way with words da Rams!

Prasanna said...

:-)

Unknown said...

"There is a beautiful story about a caterpillar that lived much of its life believing that it had come into being only to eat and sleep and do what the rest of the caterpillars did. However it was unhappy. Somehow it sensed that its life had another dimension not yet experienced.

One day, driven by a strange longing, it decided to become still and silent. It hung from the branch of a tree, weaving a cocoon around itself. Inside the cocoon, although constrained and uncomfortable, it waited, sensing and aware. Its patience bore fruit, for when the cocoon burst open, it was no longer the lowly worm that went in, but a beautiful, resplendent, winged butterfly which dazzled the sky. It soared and flew, no longer limited to its worm-like existence, but free and unbounded. The caterpillar had been transformed into a thing of air and lightness, magic and beauty.

Once the transformation had taken place, it was impossible for the butterfly to return to being a worm. In the cocoon, the caterpillar had become one with its inner being and in this union it reached its ultimate nature.

What happened in the cocoon can be described as yoga.
Yoga is the path towards being boundless.

Yoga transforms and liberates human beings so that they can reach this unbounded state. Humans, unlike animals, are not merely existing. They are becoming. To evolve as a human being is to become aware of one’s limitations; to strive, with intense passion, towards the transcendence for which we all have the potential."
- Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

Your post was probably inspired by this! In the old ishafoundation.org website, this was the first explanation under the heading Yoga.

Rams said...

@Anupama: That's a beautiful story, much better... Not sure where I got the inspiration for this story from... May be Sadhguru's story was sitting in the subconscious... but when I wrote I was just looking for a simile to relate to...

Nithish said...

Really nice post... All the very best!

Unknown said...

really nice lines and explanation........

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