The Honeybee and the Fly

The honeybee flies from one flower to the next, drinking only the sweetness and the essence of the nectar of that flower without disturbing the flower in the slightest, and then going to the next flower and drinking the nectar there. So, we have much to learn from the honeybee; it is teaching us the art of transcending the faults in others.

A honeybee looks for flowers even in a place full of garbage. Not paying attention to all the filth around, the honeybee rushes to even a small flower a midst the garbage and sucks the nectar from it. The qualification of a true spiritualist is that he or she has given up the propensity to find faults in others.

However bad, evil or crooked a man or woman may be in this world, a saintly person can always find something good in them. He magnifies that good quality hundreds and thousands of times, and simply flies over anything that does not provide him nectar, just like the honeybee.

We are living in an age when people are very quick to criticize, to find faults, to gossip, to relish rumors of others’ defects. But a saintly person knows, as Lord Jesus Christ has described in the Bible, “Seek and ye shallfind”, that if you look for the nectar, you will find the nectar. If you look for the faults, the flaws, the disgusting matter, then that is all you will see. For example, the moon is shining beautifully every night emanating volumes and volumes of cooling, soothing rays. Only a fool will look at the moon and condemn it for having so many spots. The honeybee is not concerned with the spots. The honeybee is only looking for the nectar.

So a saintly person should always look for the good in others. Even if there is just a tiny little spark of good in another, the saintly person wants to fan that spark and make it grow and grow until it blazes and devours all the bad qualities.

We can learn something from the fly too. In this world we can learn our lessons from both the good and the bad. The fly is not interested in the flower.

If your body is very healthy and you have one cut that is infected, the fly will zoom right in to eat your infectious pus. It doesn’t care about your healthy parts. It’s simply looking for the pus. This is the life of the fly.How many flies do you see drinking the nectar from flowers, and how many bees do we find eating the pus? So, one whose mentality is like that of a fly is always looking for the pus in others, always quick to find faults, to criticize, to condemn, to discuss obnoxious rumors.
– Radhanath Swami
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