King and A Hawk

On the occasions of a king's birthday, someone gifted him two hawk chicks.

The chicks were of a rare breed and the king had not seen such beautiful specimens before. So, he appointed an experienced handler to take care of them.

A few months later, the king visited the hawk rookery. He observed that the hawks had grown considerably bigger and looked quite majestic. The king wanted to see them in flight, so told the bird handler to instruct the birds to fly. The bird handler complied.

While one hawk kept soaring to greater and greater heights, the other one, after just a short flight, returned to the branch from where it had taken off. Surprised, the king asked the handler about this discrepancy. The handler replied: "This hawk has always had this problem. He always flies to a short distance and comes back to the branch. 

Now the king loved both the birds equally. So, he made an open announcement in his state that whoever could make this hawk fly just as well as the other, will get a big reward.

And soon, many experts and knowledgeable people came and started trying out various ways to make the bird fly high - but they all failed. Every time, the bird would take a short flight and come back to the same branch. 

Then one day the king was pleasantly surprised to see both the hawks soaring way high in their true grandeur! The king could not believe his eyes! He immediately summoned the person who had made this happen. This man, an ordinary farmer, came to the king's court the next day. After giving him a gift of gold coins to this farmer, the king said: "I am very pleased with your work, and would like to know how you got the hawk to fly while even renowned experts couldn't do it."

The farmer said that he was just an ordinary farmer and not an expert on such matters. However, he had observed that the hawk had developed a feeling of security from the branch and became too dependent on it since the childhood. He felt insecure flying too far away from it and always came back to the same branch. Realizing this, the farmer had that branch cut off from the tree. 

With its comfort factor gone, the hawk now followed its natural instincts and started to fly high – just like the other hawk 

We too, often get so dependent on certain things - or a person or certain rituals that we lose confidence in our self and start thinking of ourselves as incomplete or disabled. We start feeling that we are somehow deficient and unable to accomplish anything on our own - by our-self - without the help of those rituals or people.

The lord has bestowed the capability of deep thought and knowledge only to the humans. Each and every one of us is capable of reaching greater and greater heights in our chosen field. But rather than challenging ourselves, we fall back into our comfort zone, thus losing the ability to achieve greater heights. 

If we are also finding ourselves into the same kind of rut - falling into same groove and pattern of life that is preventing us from flying high, maybe it's time to cut off that cozy branch on which we are perched?