An Indian rajah would make regular hunting safaris in Africa. One trip he found a valley filled with brightly colored talking parrots, one of which he captured with a net and took it back to his palace. A year later he told the parrot, “I will be returning to your valley soon. Is there any message you would like me to bring to your relatives there?”
The parrot replied, “Yes. Tell them I enjoy my cage. I enjoy talking with you daily. I am very happy.”
The rajah returned to the valley and spoke those words to the birds there. As soon as he had finished, an old parrot keeled over and fell to the ground, motionless.
Back home the rajah told the parrot what had happened. As soon as he said, when I gave your message an elderly parrot fell off his branch dead, the caged parrot fell off his perch and lay motionless at the bottom of the cage.
Thinking to himself, “Hearing of the death of his relative must have caused his death, the rajah opened the cage, reached inside, and tossed the rigid parrot out of the palace window into the trash heap. But as soon as the bird hit the ground he shook himself free and flew to a nearby tree.
The rajah asked the parrot to explain and the parrot replied, “My old teacher was sending me a message through his action. He was telling me, unless you are able to experience your death while you were alive you will never be free. –Rabbi Shammai Kanter
We need to live life fully, but that means accepting our mortality. Sooner or later we, and those we love, will die. Accepting this fact will make life's meaning more apparent and meaningful. We can live each day as if it were our last with no regrets.
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