A wing and A way

Two birds perch in a branch. One consumes the hanging fruit, both bitter and sweet, while the other simply observes. Eventually the first bird tires from eating. Having gotten its fill of pleasure and suffering, the creature turns to its joyful counterpart. The second bird has no need for the fruit. It has another source for nourishment: Wisdom.
 
The story of two birds, one of the earliest and most well-known in Hindu scriptures, appears in the Rig Veda and the Upanishads. But what are we to make exactly of this parable? Well, the tree and its fruit supposedly are metaphors for the body and sensations, respectively. Feeding on the fruit is the bird, which represents a person’s soul, referred to Hinduism as the jiva or atman. The other bird, the content one watching nearby, is the world soul, known as the paramatman. Once the jiva is finally ready, the paramatman is available to guide the individual soul from its ignorance and suffering.