Life cycle of a butterfly - One of the early lessons in Biology. When I did read that lesson, all I did was try drawing the life-cycle diagram as accurately as possible. The diagram carried maximum marks was what my teacher said. It was another lesson to get over with. Another diagram in my record.
But recently, I had the time to look at this life-cycle with interest. This interest started with my curosity on how silk was made. I have watched documentaries on how silk was made in doordharshan. The egg-like pupae of the silk worms are boiled in hot water and sik threads are made out of them. Till many years, I did not perceive anything violent in it. I liked wearing silk paavaadais (long traditional skirts) and sarees too. Though Sankaracharya has asked brahmins not to wear silk saree (the traditional maroon nine yards) during muhurtham, I had never looked into his request deep. I remember lamenting too that my nine-yards did not have lot of zari....:-( I grew up and so did my likes and dislikes. I now know that a lot of silk worms are boiled in their pupae stage to make silk. I stopped wearing silk.
The caterpillar is a repulsive looking worm. And so are many other worms. A slimy body with hundreds of legs crawling on wet surfaces. But these worms build a cocoon around themselves when they are fully grown and transform themselves completely into those colorful flying butterflies. I was interested more in this transformation that happens. The cocoon is called as a pupa. It is a white cotton like casket that completely masks the caterpillar. And all this is woven out of the worm's mouth! The worm goes into silence for around 2 weeks! without food, or maybe air too? It sheds its skin and numerous legs. It grows it wings and colors itself completely.
After two weeks what comes out is a colorful creature that does not have any semblance to the creature that went into it two weeks earlier. The same cycle holds good for any worm that belongs to the caterpillar family (if there is one). I recently saw a similar happening in Animal Planet where a worm under water became a moth which flew in the air. The water was home to the worm but for the moth that came out of the cocoon, the water was a grave. Their lives were so different that it tough to even perceive that they share the same heartbeat. But these moths came out of the water and flew into the air only just to mate, lay eggs in water, and then die...Their beautiful flying lives end in such a short span of time. The lives of the silkworms are even worse. We end their lives even before they find their freedom. What could be happening inside the cocoon when it is boiled in water?
How does a fully grown caterpillar know when it is time for it to build a cocoon around itself?
How does the caterpillar stay inside with all its pain without food or water or air too?
How does the worm choose its own death for the birth of another creature completely?
Are they more sacrificing than the humans around who, with their brains would even kill their kith and kin rather than sacrifice their precious self?
What kind of transformation is happening inside the pupa?
We can explain this scientifically saying that skin and legs are shed and wings are grown and so on...But there is something so profound happening in this silence. The change of forms... The letting go of the past and breaking away into the future... The act of supreme sacrifice of one form in favor of another...
Is this why the saints go into silence? Is this the form of meditation for those worms?
Or is this the enaction of Gita in front of us where Krishna tells Arjuna about the form and the formless?
All I can understand is that the silence was needed for those worms at that period. The silence to break free from their form so that another one can be born. The patience was required to wait for the right time to break free. The fasting from food, water, and air was needed to give birth to another life that can experience another level of joy...
Try damaging those spongy balls, and you will have released a butterfly with no wings. A butterfly that will not flit around the flowers dancing to the tune of the divine.
I don’t think those worms teach you a lesson on their life cycle. They teach you the art of letting go, the magic of silence and patience, the wisdom of form and the formless...
I surely wouldnt have gotten a pass mark for this inference. But I might have paved the way for my mind to break free...:-)
Aching to break free
Kalps :-)
