castaway

My Guru once told me a story I’ll never forget. It wasn’t long, but it landed so deep in me that I’ve carried it for years. Sometimes, I hear it again in silence...like an echo. He said… There once was a man who found a beautiful golden cage in a marketplace. It gleamed in the sunlight, intricate and masterfully crafted. It wasn’t just a container...it was a symbol. A symbol of elegance, wealth, taste. The man brought it home, placed it in his window, and spent hours each day polishing it. Visitors would admire it, and he’d swell with pride. “Look at the craftsmanship,” they’d say. “So refined. So perfect.” And he’d nod, basking in their praise. Inside that cage was a bird...small, delicate, alive. The man had bought it along with the cage, but he never really paid much attention to it. The cage was the prize. The decoration. So each day he polished, dusted, and adjusted it....until one day, someone noticed a stillness. A quietness that wasn’t peaceful, but hollow. The bird was dead. He had forgotten to feed it. I remember my Guru looking at me, eyes wide, piercing, and still as a mountain. “That’s you,” he said. “That’s all of us.” We polish our names, our bodies, our reputations, our accounts, our platforms...the cage. We decorate it, compare it, flaunt it, obsess over it. But inside, the soul grows thinner, weaker, neglected ...and eventually, it dies. And when it dies, no one claps. No one admires the shine anymore. Because there’s no song left. Just a hollow, golden shell. He paused and said, “bhaagti… don’t polish your identity so much that you forget to feed the thing that’s alive inside you.” And I knew he wasn’t just talking about food. He meant love. Stillness. Wonder. Service. Surrender. Practice. Truth. We spend our lives tending to the cage. But the soul is the one that flies when the door opens. And it’s the only thing that was ever real.