When a baby bird tries to come out of its shell, it has to strain and stretch to crack the shell. When its wing comes partially out of the crack, the shell often recoils, trapping and wounding its wing. Without getting cowed, the bird keeps exerting till finally the shell breaks apart. This struggle is painful, but it is also fruitful: that exertion exercises and develops its muscles so that they can eventually carry its body in flight in the sky.

Similarly, we are all covered by the shell of materialistic beliefs and behaviors that restrict our search for happiness to the material level, wherein we get at best temporary unfulfilling pleasure. But we are eternal souls who have the potential to attain everlasting fulfillment by learning to love the all-attractive Supreme Krishna. To realize that potential, we need to break through the shell of materialism.

To realize our potential for eternal spiritual happiness, we need to break through the shell of materialistic beliefs and behaviours.

Like a bird’s breaking its shell, our breaking materialism’s shell is a struggle: painful but fruitful. Giving up anti-spiritual materialistic indulgences and training our consciousness to focus on spiritual reality can be painful. But when by diligent practice of bhakti-yoga our consciousness becomes attached to the highest spiritual reality Krishna, we relish constant fulfillment. Pertinently, the Bhagavad-gita (18.37) states that enlightened happiness tastes like poison initially but like nectar ultimately.

Significantly, we have a major advantage over the bird. It doesn’t know what exists outside the shell, but we can know: by studying scriptural descriptions of spiritual reality and by associating with saintly devotees joyfully situated in spiritual consciousness. By getting inspiration from such study and association, and from our own occasional spiritual experiences coming from diligent bhakti practice, we can determinedly break through materialism’s shell and thereafter, by relishing devotional happiness, fly in the sky of spiritual consciousness towards Krishna’s supreme abode.

 

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