The Bird of Happiness, a Spiritual Tale

In a distant land, every household possesses a mysterious bird-of-happiness locked inside a golden cage. Yet one man’s bird remains silent despite all his efforts. This tale speaks of happiness, of the things that try to replace it, and of that strange inner music that sometimes awakens only through contact with what is truly alive.

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The Bird of Happiness, a Spiritual Tale

Once upon a time

Long ago, in a distant land among all the others, there lived a man. Like all the other men of that country in those days, he possessed a bird-of-happiness in a golden cage.

Every household, every family owned a bird-of-happiness in a golden cage, and this bird sang wonderfully well. Its song enchanted all who heard it, to the point of making them happy, and that was precisely why it inspired such enthusiasm.

This bird came with the house: when its inhabitant entered for the very first time, he would find the golden cage there, with his bird-of-happiness inside. It sang and sang to its heart’s content, and hearing it was pure joy. It continued singing until the inhabitant moved to another house, which took more or less time, but inevitably happened.

A Problem

Our hero had a problem: his bird of happiness did not sing, and he could not remember ever having heard it sing. No matter what he did — feeding it the finest seeds and giving it the purest water — the bird remained silent. The man felt a deep sorrow because of this silence, and that sorrow became his unhappiness.

To try to forget the silence, the man hired a musician who came to play her instrument whenever the grief became too heavy. The musician played the viol, and her music was beautiful, but happiness never came. The bird-of-happiness remained silent, and happiness itself seemed impossible.

And so the years passed, in that despair.

Then one day, after a long and bitter winter, the sun shone outside so brightly that it seemed to open the window itself. And that is what our man did: he opened the window. The air from outside suddenly filled the inside of the house, along with the light and the rustling of the wind through the trees.

The man leaned against the edge of the open window, his face turned outward, and savored that magical moment... The bamboo swayed and rustled in the dancing caress of the spring wind, making a soothing music for the bitter heart of our unhappy hero.

A Bird in the Branches

Then another music could be heard: the trills of a bird. They came from no one knew where, from outside, entering within. Their melody was so beautiful and so captivating that soon the man heard nothing else, and something new appeared upon his face: a smile. An unfamiliar feeling came to fill him: happiness.

In a blossoming cherry tree, a bird was singing its heart out, its beak lifted toward the sky. It was a bird-of-happiness living free. The man marveled at it and tried to call the singer to him. He cried out, “Bird of happiness, come to me!” But the call frightened the creature, and with one swift movement it flew off into the sky, to the man’s great dismay.

But what a surprise awaited him: behind him, a music like that of the bird could now be heard, like a delayed echo rising from the depths of the house. The man turned around and saw, inside its golden cage, his bird-of-happiness — silent until then — singing with its beak raised toward the ceiling. From that blessed day on, the bird sang every day, and happiness came to dwell permanently in that home which had been deprived of it for so long.

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