FIRST BIRDS: A SHORT STORY

His first meditation of the day was at "first birds," as he called it, when the canyon wrens outside his window whistled at daybreak.  He considered the whistling his call to prayer, and a reminder to him that he must maintain the advanced state that he had achieved if he was to reach the next level.

His morning meditations, and subsequent meditations throughout the day, were, therefore, so he could get to that next stage, even as he knew that the distractions of the outside world, the world of the senses, the thinking mind, the egoic self, could foil it.

The Atman in him had come too far, he reminded himself always, for him to lose the way now.  The next level, he knew, was moksha, liberation, nirvana, samadhi, union with God, and the only way that this would not happen was if he did not let it happen.  He must let it happen.

Outside, all the while, the wrens whistled.