The egg and the bird
Shri Mataji has explained many a times that a realized soul and a bird were called with the same compound name in Sanskrit, “dvi-jaha” meaning “twice-born” . And the meaning of Easter is of course partially captured in the offering of the egg, reminding us of the spiritual aim beyond the shell of our body and our ego and conditionings. And that is a powerful image that transcends geography, time and spiritual traditions.
The analogy goes quite far. Just as commercial eggs do not have an embryo and will never give rise to a bird, when we become fully “commercial”, materialistic, the spiritual aim vanishes without trace and no further transformation is possible.
Even if the egg has the embryo, it has to be kept safe from accidents and predators. Thus a reasonably secure environment, looking after our body and keeping as much in balance as possible as well as staying away from wrong advice of every sort, including spiritual, are key in maintaining the health and transformative potential of the egg.
As expected, the “incubation” period follows. This is when we are actively seeking for answers to fundamental questions about ourselves and larger things. The egg has to be kept warm until hatching, meaning our attention has to be on the end result and we have to keep our spiritual desire while waiting for the right time when we meet someone who can give us Self-realization.
Lastly, once we get our Self-realization, we are like the newborn chicks and our inner instrument is still fragile and we still have to shed many remainders of the shell, yolk and so on - leftovers of our ego, conditionings and materialism, wrong desires, etc. As that happens, we eventually become truly free and powerful birds - our Self soars in the absolute realm at will and enjoys the eternal light, peace and awareness.
This is a journey that Shri Mataji has made accessible to the masses. We are indeed the luckiest of people now in the modern times - that She calls “the blossom time”. It is up to us to recognize the opportunity and start knocking at the shell !