unabashed parakeets

I'm here in the foothills of the Himalaya, in the north of India. It's springtime and at this time of year there are many birds – species that I have never seen in Europe, many of them colourful and quite full of life at this time of year. I feel to pick on one particular species to talk about today, and these are the parakeets, at least I guess that's what they are: small parrot like birds. They're bright green, and these ones have a yellow tip to their tail. And I want to talk about them because to me they seem so unabashed. They are not at all apologetic about who they are. They squawk when they want to squawk. They fly, sometimes incredibly fast, down the valley or from tree to tree, a splash of colour. Everything about them seems to ooze self confidence.

And watching these parakeets, I realise how different their existence is from that of a human. I was brought up in England, and at that time at least, it was normal for people to be rather reserved, not so colourful as these parakeets, not as loud. Somehow our emotions were suppressed. We were expected to behave in a rather muted way, everything toned down a bit.

I guess times have changed, perhaps, but I see that even now human beings everywhere are strongly conditioned by society, distorted one way or another from their natural way of being in the world. And what a shame it is, that we crush each other in these ways. How much more relaxed life would be, if we could be like these parakeets, if we could show our plumage in its full colour, whatever that colour is, and if we could fly as fast as we want to fly, squawk when we want to squawk – how relaxed one would be in oneself if there were no doubts.

But as it is, our conditioning, our childhood conditioning, has given each of us a deep self doubt. Usually we are no longer conscious even of it: a belief about ourselves that has been implanted when we were a toddler, when we were tiny. And that belief basically says: I cannot be as I am, it's unacceptable.

And with that as a foundation, we create a whole psychological structure as we grow up: layers of compensation, a huge tangled web of beliefs, stacked on top of each other. It's a mess. And a lot of our work, on the spiritual journey, is purely psychological. And that psychological work is to unearth this tangled web of beliefs that lies deep within us, and get right down to that foundation, the foundation of self doubt, and uproot it. And if we can do that, if we can bring all that into the light and let it melt away, let it dissolve, then, and only then, can we fly as these parakeets do, unabashed.