We Are Like Silkworms

Election Day 2020.

Person, family, nation––every manifestation of humanity operates the same.

❦

We are like silkworms; 

we make the thread out of our own substance

and spin the cocoon,

and in the course of time are imprisoned inside.

But this is not forever.  

In that cocoon we shall develop spiritual Realization, 

and like the butterfly come out free.

This network of Karma 

we have woven around ourselves; 

and in our ignorance we feel as if we are bound, 

and weep and wail for help.

But help does not come from without; 

it comes from within ourselves.  

Cry to all the gods in the Universe.   

I cried for years, 

and in the end I found that I was helped.  

But help came from within.  

And I had to undo what I had done by mistake.  

This is the only way. 

I had to cut the net, 

which I had thrown round myself, 

and the power to do this is within.  

Of this I am certain: 

that not one aspiration, 

well-guided or ill-guided in my life, 

has been in vain, 

but that I am the resultant of all my past,

both good and evil.

I have committed many mistakes in my life; 

but mark you, I am sure of this: 

that without every one of those mistakes 

I should not be what I am today, 

and so am quite satisfied to have made them.  

I do not mean 

that you are to go home and willfully commit mistakes; 

do not misunderstand me in that way.  

But do not mope

because of the mistakes you have committed, 

but know that in the end

all will come out straight.  

It cannot be otherwise, 

because goodness is our nature, 

purity is our nature, 

and that nature can never be destroyed.

~Vivekananda