Prejudices!

Some days back, I don't remember how exactly, but I came across the line,

"Prejudices are also cages, very subtle and self created. First we create them, then becoming imprisoned in them, we lose all capacity to fly in the open sky of truth..."

and it brought back memories of a rainy Sunday afternoon, guess I was in the 3rd or 4th standard, and a handwriting competition in a distant school I had attended.

My favorite green and gold 'China' pen. A single sheet of paper to write on, one that you aren't suppose to smudge and the wooden benches in an alien school. They had given a printed sheet of Osho's para that we were supposed to copy in the best handwriting. (Ah, good old days!) :D

And I distinctly remember not understanding much of it, especially the word 'prejudice'. I had read the para over and over, never quite understanding the crux, so much so that the above lines somehow are still written indelibly in my mind (perhaps with the same green China pen too). The lines came flooding back to memory the moment I read it somewhere, some days ago.

Back then, I was trying to mull over how 'prejudice' (an alien word to me then) and a bird in a cage could be related, but it confounded my eight year old self.

I also remember having stashed that sheet of paper somewhere in my drawer for safekeeping. (I still have it somewhere, but it's easier finding stuff on google (this is the link) than delving in my old cupboard) :-P ;-)

Here goes :
"While returning from my morning walk, I saw a bird in a cage. It reminded me of people imprisoned in prejudices.

Prejudices are also cages, very subtle and self created. First we create them, then becoming imprisoned in them, we lose all capacity to fly in the open sky of truth.

And just now I see a kite flying in the sky. What freedom, what a liberation in its flights! One is a bird in a cage, the other a bird in flight in the open sky, symbolic of two different states of mind.

Those who are liberated, fly in the sky of truth, but neither are any footprints left behind, nor is any path created... there is no readymade path, everybody has to create his own path to truth..."
~Osho

Amen to that.