The lotus and the bumblebee

A man holding a hot gold brick in his hands, is screaming in agony. His Guru commands, “drop it ,drop it” but no, how can he? It’s gold. The story is the same. The pain comes not from the object, but from our clinging attachment. A refusal to drop that which hurts. Power, wealth, children, house or a relationship, the suffering is never from giving love, but expecting love. Swami Vivekananda said, “The bee came to sip the honey, but its feet stuck to the honeypot, and it could not get away.” We yet cling to sense pleasures even when they gnaw at our vitals. Stuck like the bee and suffering, we are helpless to tear ourselves away.
How many times does it repeat? We have run after the “golden deer” with starry eyes only to find the gold turning to tinsel.
But have we learned? We remain beggars at the door of sensuality. Of course the charms are there for our enjoyment, but, it is our attachment to them and our powerlessness to drop them at will that cause us to suffer its lashes. Trapped like an animal, we struggle lifelong to free ourselves from this net of “want”.
Vedanta describes this fatal attachment with a striking example: The Bumblebee nestles into the soft fragrant lotus centre, to suck honey, but when the lotus shuts its petals at dusk, the bee is trapped inside. Also known as the carpenter bee because it can drill a hole through hard wood, but the sensuous luxury of the soft lotus intoxicates him into a helplessness and he bores not the lotus, rather dying in its embrace. We lack the immunity of detachment, we ourselves lend the whip and then get lashed. No amount of sea water can drown your boat, unless it has a hole.
Prarthna Saran, President Chinmaya Mission Delhi. Email: prarthnasaran@gmail.com