I have just finished reading Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a story by Richard Bach. The story in a small book form is a good inspirational fable. A great thing has been told beautifully through a simple story about the life of a seagull. The fulfillment of sex and hunger is not the objective of one’s life; the real fulfillment of life’s objective is to keep on doing something new, something different to excel and soar to new heights. When one achieves greater heights, bondages of mundane life starts weathering away and one is full of great ideas and love and compassion encompassing one and all – even those who hate him. Excellence in life leaves no space for negative thoughts of hatred, revenge or any meanness. One starts seeing the good in everyone and loves not his hatred but the good in him; he attains a state of sublime pleasure and blissfulness- a total liberation from negativity.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull was different from very beginning, aspiring for excellence. He was experimenting with new techniques of flying. The author being a pilot by profession has used his knowledge of aeronautics skillfully to make the story more interesting, captivating and thrilling. Jonathan was outcast for his untraditional way of life, but he did not succumb to his flock’s pressure and followed “ekla chalo re” to follow his dreams. He entered higher world far above the sky – perhaps heaven or perhaps beyond that, and learnt to fly with the speed of thought, but he did not forget his flocks and returned to teach them how to achieve perfection in flying and attain a greater meaning of life and a greater purpose of life. Finally he got many followers as it had happened with Socrates, Christ, Galileo and the like.
Photographs by Russell Munson have made the story mesmerizing.
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