It was a month after the Return that the first gull of the Flock crossed the line and
asked to learn how to fly. In his asking, Terrence Lowell Gull became a condemned
bird, labeled Outcast; and the eighth of Jonathan's students.
The next night from the Flock came Kirk Maynard Gull, wobbling across the sand,
dragging his leftwing, to collapse at Jonathan's feet. "Help me," he said very
quietly, speaking in the way that the dying speak. "I want to fly more than anything
else in the world..."
"Come along then." said Jonathan. "Climb with me away from the ground, and
we'll begin."
"You don't understand My wing. I can't move my wing."
"Maynard Gull, you have the freedom to be yourself, your true self, here and now,
and nothing can stand in your way. It is the Law of the Great Gull, the Law that Is."
"Are you saying I can fly?"
"I say you are free."
As simply and as quickly as that, Kirk Maynard Gull spread his wings, effortlessly,
and lifted into the dark night air. The Flock was roused from sleep by his cry, as
loud as he could scream it, from five hundred feet up: "I can fly! Listen! I CAN FLY!"
By sunrise there were nearly a thousand birds standing outside the circle of
students, looking curiously at Maynard. They didn't care whether they were seen or
not, and they listened, trying to understand Jonathan Seagull.
He spoke of very simple things - that it is right for a gull to fly, that freedom is the
very nature of his being, that whatever stands against that freedom must be set
aside, be it ritual or superstition or limitation in any form.
"Set aside," came a voice from the multitude, "even if it be the Law of the Flock?"
"The only true law is that which leads to freedom," Jonathan said. "There is no
other."
"How do you expect us to fly as you fly?" came another voice. "You are special and
gifted and divine, above other birds."
"Look at Fletcher! Lowell! Charles-Roland! Judy Lee! Are they also special and
gifted and divine? No more than you are, no more than I am. The only difference,
the very only one, is that they have begun to understand what they really are and
have begun to practice it."
His students shifted uneasily. They hadn't realized that this was what they were
doing.
The crowd grew larger every day, coming to question, to idolize, to scorn.
Replies
Oh! No!!
It’s going to finish!
And according to mathematical forecasts, it means that you will leave here again.
Then, let me say from this time:
“Have a nice holiday”
Yes we can apply this freedom when we feel we are able to be free as a seagull like him. But first of all we should ask "Are we ready to be like him ?Are we strong enough to do all the things he's done ?"
Or we are thinking about us as all other seagulls there. fighting for food , a piece more ... more than others ....Oh I'm lucky !
Nice mention!
I agree exactly.
“Are we ready to be like him?”
Let me say something about this part of your comment.
Let’s consider your profile’s photo. I mean Farshchian’s painting.
The first thing that may attract our attentions is the man in the middle of the picture and he is trying to achieve the light that is shone on the painting.
After more notice some beautiful girls will be apparent who are just seeing that man. Whatever we see more, the number of those beauties will be more too. They can be the symbol of two things:
1-They are the man’s lovers because of his high theosophical grade.
In this interpretation, that holy man doesn’t pay attention any of them despite whole of their beauties, because he has found the real beauty. And he is just trying to get it. In the other hand, those beautiful girls have found that light in the man and they are just seeing him.
2-Those girls are the symbol of word’s beauties for humans and they are the man’s interests. When the man found the real love he was inattentive about his interests. Here, the light is the real love and those girls are the symbol of his interests. As we are seeing the man is old and it means that finding the real love has taken much time for him.
The second interpretation is what we are discussing about freedom here. The man in the painting could find his real goal and now he is ready to devote everything that he got in the past in his life despite their attraction.
Jonathan is a free person because he could find his real goal correctly and understand it well. And then he could be inattentive about all of his interests easily. Finding the real goal correctly is the main stage for achieving freedom.
What is freedom?
It means that we don’t have any dependence.
All of us have some interests in our life and there is something that we like or love.
When we feel that we are able to leave those interests arbitrary (not by obliging), we can say that we are a free person.