From Trickery to Truth: Unpacking the Lessons of the Monk and the Butterfly

Many years ago, high in a Himalayan mountain cave, there lived a wise old monk.

From time to time, he walked down the mountain to the local village to help the villagers with their problems. Sometimes he had fun, accurately telling the villagers the contents in their pockets, or even reading their minds.

One day, a local boy decided to play a joke on the old man and discredit his psychic abilities. His plan was to capture a butterfly and hide it in his cupped hands. He knew the monk would know what he was holding... but the boy planned to ask the old man if the butterfly was dead or alive:

If the wise man said the butterfly was alive, the boy would crush it in his hands, so that when he opened his hands the butterfly would be dead. And, if the wise man said the butterfly was dead, the boy would open his hands and let it fly free. So, no matter what the old man said, the boy would prove the old man was a fraud. He thought himself pretty clever.

So, the day came when the monk came down the mountain into the village. The villagers surrounded him to ask their most difficult questions. The boy pressed his way to the front and asked:

"Sir, if you are as wise as everyone believes you are, then please tell me whether the butterfly in my hand is alive or dead?"

For a moment it appeared as if the monk was at a loss for words. The boy smirked. He had cornered the wise old man. Everyone was silent. A few moments passed.

The monk looked straight at the boy, and then down at his closed hand. He shook his head from side to side, slowly.

"Son," he said, "whether the butterfly is dead or alive, is entirely in your hands. It's yours to choose."

We get asked similar questions all the time. Questions like, ‘Does God exist?’, ‘Am I alive?’ and ‘What happens after death?’ If you say, God exists, the next question becomes ‘What's he like?’, followed quickly by ‘Why doesn't he show himself?’. In many ways, these questions are emotionally charged traps usually asked by someone who wants to discredit us or boost their own misconceptions through trickery and ignorance. 

The answer is always in our own hands. We can access these answers through watching our reactions. Were you watching your reactions to the story of the monk and the butterfly? Did you secretly want the boy to be exposed, or the monk? Did you feel vindicated by the outcome, or were you saddened in some way that a boy would try to trick an old man?

We can all agree that the emotional bodies of most of the world are out of whack. We are a reactive species. The reactive level is where most of us fail emotionally. We are familiar with our reactions to the daily news, to violence all around the world, to the insane and out-of-control actions of people, to the grief we witness all around us, to our own personal tragedies, and more.

An Image Of A Starving Child Can Break Our Hearts, prompting the next question, 'Why does God allow suffering?'

We react to our sense of powerlessness to do anything to help the destructive conditions in our world, or to our own personal struggles. Equally, we react to expressions of love and kindness, to acts of courage, to the birth of babies, to pets and animals.

We are a collective of emotions. We are capable of experiencing love, attraction, joy, gratitude, devotion, fear, worry, rage, frustration, anger, guilt, sorrow, blame, euphoria, and much more.

When we experience a positive emotion, we want it to last forever, but when we experience a negative emotion, we want to get rid of it as soon as possible. In fact, we have invented a multitude of solutions to evoke euphoric states as well as suppress negative or painful ones. However, the fact we can feel at all is an amazing gift, but clearly, we have not mastered these emotional bodies!

Feelings Are Filled With Deep Spiritual Information

Each type of feeling, whether positive or negative, can take us to a deep place within, a place that connects us to our personal and universal heart space. Compassion resides here. Forgiveness, love, understanding and wisdom live here. To get to this place requires allowing ourselves to fall deeply into a feeling, to allow it to be for as long as it needs to be, without denial or repression.

To get the maximum benefit from our amazing ability to feel, we must not deny it or force it to be an expanded version of itself. We must accept our amazing ability to feel without wanting to change or reject our capacity in any way. 

Feelings Are A Form Of Energy

Feelings are a form of energy and because of this, they go through their own process of evolution. If we thwart this process, emotions get congealed within us and become illnesses and mental stress. 

Feelings Expand Our Knowledge

Feelings expand our knowledge of the many aspects of life. Feelings give us our sensitivity and self-awareness. ‘Falling into’ an emotional state brings us into the wholeness of ourselves. We can feel everywhere within us and observe how that emotion is affecting how we function. All emotions are energy. As we feel them deeply and observe their movement through us without stopping that movement, we eventually arrive at a place of deep peace and understanding. The emotion gets to complete its journey of evolutionary movement, and we are enriched. 

The ability to feel deeply opens our higher senses. Our humanity is expanded, we become a source of loving kindness, and we are one step further to God-Realization. The answer to our purpose has been in our own hands all the time!

Blessings from myself Ahonu, and from Aingeal Rose.