There is a famous saying 'God helps those who help themselves'. This saying has been a puzzle for me since I heard it first time in my childhood. I always felt it as paradoxical statement. My childhood mind used to raise so many questions about this saying, I used to think that this saying didn't make sense bcoz I thought God is there only to help the helpless.
If one can help himself, where is the need for help from God then?
If God cannot help the helpless, where is the need for God then?
If one can help himself, why he should be helped?
These questions used to churn my childhood mind. They remained unanswered even after I grew up, until I witnessed a small incident. That incident uncovered the meaning, rather the truth, of this saying.
I love birds since childhood and this love also grew as I grew in life. Very often a pair of birds of one type or the other remained in my home as my dear pet. Once, when I was around 20 years of age, I was at a pet shop to purchase some birds. With love and appreciation I was watching the birds kept in cages there. Their colourfulness, their hopping within the cage with swiftness, their chirping - all were fascinating to me as always. But a few among them were not so swift; rather they were dull and inactive. It pained me a little.
Meanwhile, a middle aged person who had an impressive personality and seemed to be rich, came into the shop and the shopkeeper immediately attended to him.The man told the shopkeeper that he wanted to purchase two parrots and also to make them free and fly then and there. 'Wonderful', I thought and gave my full attention to what they were doing. They both went near a cage that contained parrots - charming lush green feathers with red curved bill. They were four in number. As the shopkeeper and the rich man went near the cage and started to choose two of them, the parrots became a little afraid. While two of them idly sat in a corner of the cage, just watching these persons with their round-round eyes, the other tow started moving vigorously here and there within the cage, griping its wires with the help of their bills and claws. The man said, "Yes, these two will be OK. They look healthy and eager to fly. They will fly. Get them out." The shopkeeper managed to get them out one by one and each of them few into the sky saying something in their own language. I do not know whether they were thanking the man who purchased them to make them free and fly, or it was just a 'hurrah' in their own language. The rich man paid the price of two parrots and went away. The shopkeeper told me later that rich man comes to his shop very often and purchases two birds which are healthy, swift and look eagerly to fly and makes them free.
The meaning of the old saying immediately splashed in my mind - God helps those who helps themselves. All my questions and doubts about this saying vanished then and there. The rich man made free those parrots which were 'healthy, swift and eager to fly' and not the ones that were idle, dull and not eager to fly. God wants to help us, but very often we make ourselves not worthy of His help. He comes to help us very often in many forms to give an opportunity, but we are not selected for success, for freedom, for prosperity, for happiness, for growth, for opportunity and so on bcoz we ourselves are not selectable.
As Mahatria Ra says, "After all, not every bamboo becomes a flute in the hands of a Master. You have to be the one that's worthy of being the instrument of success."
And the irony is that we blame the Master !!
-Achalesh Sharma
Source: infinithoughts
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