The Tree of Life 2-5. Swami Krishnananda.

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Friday, November 04, 2022. 07:00.

Discourse 2: The Search For Wholeness-5.

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Chapter 15 – Purushothama yogam :

The Yogam of the Supreme Divine Personality : 

Lessons from the Analogy of a Banyan tree :

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This tree of life is, therefore, a beautiful analogy. But the Bhagavadgita gives us a caution at the end of this analogy that we should not be busy eating the fruits of this tree, an analogy going further into a mantra in the Veda and a passage in the Upanishad where it is said that in this vast tree two birds are perched, perhaps on different branches. One bird is enjoying the beautiful berries, the fruits of this forbidden tree, and is sorrow-ridden, while the other bird is merely looking at the beauties of the various fruits of this tree and eating not. The mantra of the Veda says the blessedness of this indulgent fruit-eating bird lies in the turning of its attention towards the other bird—merely looking at it, gazing at the presence of the bird which eats not, participates not, does nothing whatsoever, but merely is. To give another analogy, it is just as the success, greatness and power of Arjuna lay merely in being conscious that Krishna was seated there in the chariot; but if Arjuna were to forget it, woe unto him.

There is also another beautiful analogy which might have missed the attention of readers of the Srimad Bhagavata. In the great story of Daksha Yajna, which occurs in the Fourth Skanda of the Srimad Bhagavata, Virabhadra is said to have rushed to the sacrificial ground of Daksha and attacked him, wanting to sever his head, but he could not do it. However much he tried, he found that it was not possible for him to sever the head of Daksha. Then he remembered Lord Siva who sent him, and at once he succeeded. There was an individuality-consciousness, as it were, a confidence in his own power, which defeated the very purpose for which he had gone.

The whole secret of the success in life seems to be in the knowledge of the presence of something which is behind the varieties of the world experience, and not in the foolhardy pursuit of our intention to eat the fruits which the tree of life yields. The various experiences of pleasure, satisfaction, and grasping by the senses are the bondages of the individual. That is the bird. Every one of us is this bird.

Ishvara and jiva, God and the individual, are both seated on the same tree. This tree is this body, our family, our community, our nation; this tree is the whole of mankind, the whole universe. All these are but the same tree manifesting itself in various degrees of expression. There are not many trees; the tree is one, but the degree of its expression varies according to the stages of the development of experience. The whole is present in every degree, in every stage. I have been saying again and again that the whole human being is present in the baby, in the adolescent, in the adult, and in the mature person. In every stage there is a wholeness of the human being. Likewise, the whole tree is present in the seed, in the tendril, in the plant, and in its vast expanded maturity. The whole is present everywhere in every degree, only in different degrees of expression, so that the whole of God is present in us; but it is only in one degree, which is not sufficient or adequate.

Because of the inadequacy of the consciousness of the presence of this wholeness in us, we are pursuing the experience of this wholeness according to the knowledge with which we are endowed. Action is preceded by knowledge. Knowledge comes first, action comes afterwards. We have already an idea of what to do, and then only we start doing it merely as an outward implementation of this idea that is contained inside. We will never do anything without having an idea of it. First we think, and then we act. So the action is nothing but the form of the thought that is in our mind.

Hence, the search for wholeness, which can be equated with the search for happiness, is manifest in our lives as a search for an external object. The tree moves up in the direction of the sun in the high sky for this purpose alone. It seeks completeness of its life and imagines that this completeness can be experienced only by manifesting itself through an outward ramification in space and time.

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To be continued

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