FISH OUT OF WATER

     What makes me different from the other animals? I eat, sleep, am subject to sex desire and will defend what I consider mine.

     The mockingbird lands deftly on the low hanging oleander branch...heavy laden with scarlet blooms. He rests briefly, looks in all directions, passes excrement and takes to the air to land on the top of the crest of a nearby house.

     He was born, will live for some time, grow, produce offspring, dwindle and die. How is that different from the human being? It isn't.

     All around me I see all the living beings. The peacocks, the lizards, the snake, the dogs, the flies and mosquitoes, the oleander tree, the grasses... we all go through this. The difference is...I have the ability to make a conscious choice whether to remain in the world of birth, death, old age and disease or to enter the spiritual world.

     This is the only significant difference between all the other life forms on this earth planet and the human form. It is the only significant difference. I have the ability to make a conscious choice.

    That some crawl, walk, slither, swim or fly is not a significant difference. It is just a variation of how we move about. That we move about is something we all have in common. Just how we do it may vary.

     That some eat meat, some eat vegetation and some synthesize food from the raw elements is not a significant difference. It is just a variation of how we eat.

     That some produce offspring by eggs, some by live birth and some from seeds is not a significant difference. We are all producing offspring.

     We all defend ourselves. Teeth, nails, claws, bad smells, sharp quills, smothering aromatics like the pine trees. We all defend.

     The only difference between the human form and all the other forms on the earth is that the human can make a conscious choice to seek out the source. 

     Why would a human consider making such a conscious choice? Because it is all suffering. The defending, the eating, the mating, the sleeping, it is all suffering that ends in death which can come at any moment.

     The human can ask:
“Why am I suffering?

Why am I forced to eat, sleep, mate and defend even if I don’t want to?

Why am I forced to get old, sick and die?

Why was I born?

Why am I different from the other living entities?

Why can I ask these questions?

Why? Why? Why?”

     This human form of life is the opportunity to go Back Home Back to Godhead.

    If the fish is out of water he will not be happy no matter how much facility he has when he is on the land. He is a fish out of water.

     I am a spiritual being. No matter how hard I try to make some nice happy life in the material world I will never be happy. Like the fish out of water.