The Rain Bird

Sant Kabir was walking along the bank of the Ganges, when he saw a rain bird fall into the river after having fainted for lack of water. He watched the poor bird closely, to see what it might do. Even though it was a hot summer day and the bird was dying of thirst, it would not drink the river water of the Ganges.

“When I see this little rainbird’s devotion to nothing but the purest rainwater,” Sant Kabir said to himself, “and that even when it’s dying, it will not save its life by drinking the river water, it makes my devotion to my Master seem very small in comparison.”
_{Adapted from Tales of the Mystic East}

As a fish cannot live out of water, and as the thirst of the rain bird can be quenched only by the raindrop, so Saints yearn for the Lord; only the sight of Him can quench their thirst for Him.
_{Sant Kabir, as quoted in Tales of the Mystic East}