Everything is God; there is nowhere He is not.
From the book Divine Stories
SWAN AND DUCK
One day a duck asked a swan, “We two are
of the same kind but why do people only praise you? They compare the walk of a
beautiful young lady with your walk. They make fun of my walk.”
The swan replied, “We two are of the same
kind however our behavior is different. You always live in dirty water and eat
dirty mud, always dirt. I am swimming in pure water. I can fly higher, if they
mix milk and water. I separate the milk and drink it. I am the vehicle of
Saraswathi Devi who is the Queen of Knowledge.
I am pure!”
The swan and duck are both birds but are
different in many ways. In the same way, all human beings are of the same kind
yet one man lives like a wild beast, while the other lives like a saint, a
Mahatma. How is it? Two men are the same; both have two hands, two legs, two
eyes, one nose, all is the same. The limbs of the body are the same. Yet, one man
becomes a Mahatma and one becomes a wild animal. One man discriminates between
good and bad and chooses the good. Like the swan, he omits the bad and takes
only the good. The swan separates the water and drinks the milk. This is why
they call saints Paramahamsas*. I say, “Why reject the water? I will make the
water into milk and drink it.” First man must live as a man. Then he must
become a Mahatma. Then he becomes God.
*Another name for Swan
is hamsa.