Love

I recently read a beautiful parable about a King and his three sons. In trying to decide which of his three sons should be his heir, he decided to test them. He gave each son a sack of seeds and told them that he was going to be gone for several years on a journey. The son who cared best for the seeds would be his heir. One son locked the seeds away, the other son sold them with the intention of buying new ones when his father returned and the third son threw all of the seeds into a garden and cared for the plants and flowers as they grew. When the father returned, the one son who had locked the seeds away, gave him a bag of dead seeds. The King was disappointed. The second son gave the father the new seeds he had purchased. Although this son did better than the first, the father was still not pleased. The third son took his father out to the garden and showed his father the beautiful, flourishing garden....of which the son said that he would soon collect the new seeds from the flowers to give back to his father. The King was very happy that this son knew how to care for the seeds, so this son became his heir. The moral of the story is this: "The seed is never in danger, remember. What danger can there be for the seed? It is absolutely protected. But the plant is always in danger, the plant is very soft. The seed is like a stone, hard, hidden behind a hard crust. But the plant has to pass through a thousand and one hazards. And not all plants are going to attain to that height where they can bloom into flowers, a thousand and one flowers....Very few human beings attain to the second stage, and very few of those who attain the second stage attain the third, the stage of the flower. Why can't they attain the third stage, the stage of the flower? Because of greed, because of miserliness, they are not ready to share...because of a state of unlovingness. Courage is needed to become a plant, and love is needed to become a flower. A flower means the tree is opening up its heart, releasing its perfume, giving its soul, pouring its being into existence. Don't remain a seed. Gather courage--courage to drop the ego, courage to drop the securities, courage to drop the safeties, courage to be vulnerable"....(Osho).