There
is a nice story on awakening (or the lack of
it), a story about the chicken and the eagle,
made popular by Anthony de Mello. Once upon
a time, there was an eagle’s egg that
somehow got lost and got mixed up with the eggs
of a hen. The eggs hatched, and the eaglet grew
up with a brood of chicks. The eagle believed
it was a chicken (although it did look rather
awkward to other chickens), and it lived all
its life doing what the other chickens did.
It clucked and cackled, and scratched the earth
for insects and worms. It could even fly up
a few feet into the air, thrashing its wings
about, like the other chickens.
Many
years later, on a bright cloudless day, the
eagle-chicken saw a magnificent bird high above
in the sky. With its wide wings fully spread
out, the great bird glided effortlessly and
majestically. Awed by this sight, the eagle-chicken
asked “Who’s that?” and a
wise old hen replied, “That’s the
eagle, the king of the birds. The great eagles
live in the sky; but we chickens can live only
on the earth”. And so, the eagle that
believed it was a chicken, lived like one and
eventually died like one, without ever realising
its true identity and potential.
