A parable from priest and therapist Anthony de Mello on the stories we tell ourselves:

“A man found an eagle’s egg and put it in a nest of a barnyard hen. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chickens and grew up with them.

All his life the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chicken. He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet into the air.

Years passed and the eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky. It glided in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings.

The old eagle looked up in awe. “Who’s that?” he asked.

“That’s the eagle, the king of the birds,” said his neighbour. “He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth—we’re chickens.”

So the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that’s what he thought he was.”

This is exactly what the world around us makes us believe that we are nothing but ordinary mortals, made of flesh and blood, made to live and work like machines. Just eat, live and die..that’s all; there’s nothing more to life.

No!!! The Truth is that we have forgotten our real identity. We’re spirit souls with unlimited potential that is hidden within all of us. We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are “spiritual beings” having a human experience.

So let’s try to remember our True Identity, strive to understand our Real Nature, Live life to our full potential. Strive for excellence in anything that we set out to accomplish.

There is no greater sin than unfulfilled potential.