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The king's challenge to his three sons

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The seed is never in danger, remember. What danger can there be for the seed? It is absolutely protected. But the plant is always in danger, the plant is very soft. The seed is like a stone, hard, hidden behind a hard crust. But the plant has to pass through a thousand and one hazards. And not all plants are going to attain to that height where they can bloom into flowers, a thousand and one flowers....

Very few human beings attain to the second stage, and very few of those who attain the second stage attain the third, the stage of the flower. Why can't they attain the third stage, the stage of the flower? Because of greed, because of miserliness, they are not ready to share... because of a state of unlovingness.

Courage is needed to become a plant, and love is needed to become a flower. A flower means the tree is opening up its heart, releasing its perfume, giving its soul, pouring its being into existence.

Don't remain a seed. Gather courage--courage to drop the ego, courage to drop the securities, courage to drop the safeties, courage to be vulnerable.

A great king had three sons, and he wanted to choose one to be his heir. It was very difficult, because all three were very intelligent, very courageous. Whom should he choose? So he asked a great sage, and the sage suggested an idea....

The king went home and he asked all the three sons to come together. He gave them each one bag of flower seeds, and told them that he was going for a pilgrimage. "It will take a few years--one, two, three, maybe more. And this is a kind of test for you. These seeds you will have to give back to me when I return. Whosoever protects them best will become my heir." And he left for the pilgrimage.

The first son locked them in an iron safe--because when the father comes he has to return them as they are. The second son thought, "If I lock them up just as my brother has done, these seeds will die. And a dead seed is not a seed at all. And my father may argue that "I had given you live seeds, there was a possibility for them to grow--but these seeds are dead; they cannot grow." So he went into the market and sold the seeds and kept the money. And he thought, "When my father comes I will go to the market, purchase new seeds, and give him back better than the first."

But the third was the best. He went back into the garden and threw the seeds all over the place.

After three years, when the father came back, the first son opened his safe. Those seeds were all dead, stinking. And the father said, "What! These are the seeds I have given to you? They had the possibility to bloom into flowers and give great perfume--and these seeds are stinking. These are not my seeds!"

He went to the second son. He rushed to the market, purchased seeds, came back home, and said, "These are the seeds." The father said, "You are better than the first, but yet not as capable as I would like you to be."

He went to the third. With great hope, and fear too: "What has he done?" And the third took him back into the garden and there were millions of plants blooming, millions of flowers all around. And the son said, "These are the seeds you had given to me. Soon I will collect the seeds and give them back to you. Right now they are getting ready to be collected."

The father said, "You are my heir. This is how one should behave with seeds."