Caught this critter on camera. 
He was very cooperative and seemed to be posing for his photo shoot.
Several robins have been hopping around along with other signs of the coming season- white buds on the apple trees, daffodils and other bulbs popping out of the soil along the walkways, new leaves on the trees, warmer days...
So I was thinking that just as we can understand the appearance of spring, how we can understand also by symptoms the approach of death or impending destruction.
A couple verses from Srimad Bhagavatam come to mind. Saintly Vidura is speaking to his brother, the blind king Dhrtarastra, who had lost everything in the fratricidal battle detailed in the Mahabharata:
"Your father, brother, well-wishers and sons are all dead and passed away. You yourself have expended the major portion of your life, your body is now overtaken by invalidity, and you are living in the home of another. You have been blind from your very birth, and recently you have become hard of hearing. Your memory is shortened, and your intelligence is disturbed. Your teeth are loose, your liver is defective, and you are coughing up mucus. Alas, how powerful are the hopes of a living being to continue his life."
SB 1.13.21-33
Yes, how powerful is the urge to continue on. Vaisnava sastra explains that's because it's our original nature; the nature of the living entity is to live forever. It is the eternal nature of the soul (called sat) which makes death or a change of bodily situation disagreeable.
And transcendental knowledge of the resilence of the soul and one's relationship with the Supreme Loving Soul, Lord Krishna, contrasted with the fragility of our mortal frame makes all the difference between fearing the signs of old age and inevitable death or allowing them to appear without anxiety. Something the poet Victor Hugo suggests we can learn from a bird.
He was very cooperative and seemed to be posing for his photo shoot.Several robins have been hopping around along with other signs of the coming season- white buds on the apple trees, daffodils and other bulbs popping out of the soil along the walkways, new leaves on the trees, warmer days...
So I was thinking that just as we can understand the appearance of spring, how we can understand also by symptoms the approach of death or impending destruction.
A couple verses from Srimad Bhagavatam come to mind. Saintly Vidura is speaking to his brother, the blind king Dhrtarastra, who had lost everything in the fratricidal battle detailed in the Mahabharata:
"Your father, brother, well-wishers and sons are all dead and passed away. You yourself have expended the major portion of your life, your body is now overtaken by invalidity, and you are living in the home of another. You have been blind from your very birth, and recently you have become hard of hearing. Your memory is shortened, and your intelligence is disturbed. Your teeth are loose, your liver is defective, and you are coughing up mucus. Alas, how powerful are the hopes of a living being to continue his life."
SB 1.13.21-33
Yes, how powerful is the urge to continue on. Vaisnava sastra explains that's because it's our original nature; the nature of the living entity is to live forever. It is the eternal nature of the soul (called sat) which makes death or a change of bodily situation disagreeable.
And transcendental knowledge of the resilence of the soul and one's relationship with the Supreme Loving Soul, Lord Krishna, contrasted with the fragility of our mortal frame makes all the difference between fearing the signs of old age and inevitable death or allowing them to appear without anxiety. Something the poet Victor Hugo suggests we can learn from a bird.
Be like the bird that,
Passing on her flight
Awhile on boughs too slight,
Feels them give way beneath her,
And yet sings,
Knowing that she has wings!
Passing on her flight
Awhile on boughs too slight,
Feels them give way beneath her,
And yet sings,
Knowing that she has wings!
