Baiji's Satsang - The Bird Trapper

"A holy man was walking through the forest when he came upon a man who had a beautiful parrot in a cage. He asked him how he caught it.

'It's easy. I throw down seed until they come to eat it, then I throw my net on top of them. It's almost too easy.'

At this, the holy man had a thought, and decided to purchase the parrot from the trapper.

Once he had the bird to himself, he began to teach it phrases like, 'I'm not eating that seed, you'll catch me!' and 'I'm a smart bird who can see your nets!' These became the parrot's mantras.

Then the holy man let the bird go. When it was free, it went back to its friends in the trees and immediately began saying its new mantras.

The other parrots started repeating them until they were all saying the same mantras.

Later, the holy man came upon the bird trapper again, who now looked very depressed.

'Why are you so sad?' said the holy man.

'Because now the birds are too smart for me to catch them and I'm going to become poor.'

'Why can't you catch them?'

'Don't you hear? They're saying they're too smart for my tricks. They keep saying over and over that they know I'll throw my nets on them if they come eat my seed!'

'Throw your seed and they will still come, trust me," the holy man said.

The bird trapper doubted him, but did it anyway. Sure enough the birds came as usual, and he was able to easily trap them.

The same is true for our own mantras and meditation practice. It does us no good to say nice words over and over if we don't know their meaning, and it does us no good to sit in a meditative pose and not calm our mind sufficiently so our connection with God can happen.