ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS a giant tree; it had grown to great heights and soared in sky like a bird, yet its branches had spread wide and bowed down to ground like the arms of a mother, pregnant with love and compassion. Countless small branches were born from the great branches and were dressed in infinite green leaves, a home to many birds and their songs, a soothing roof to many sun tortured travelers. It existed with such a grace and peace that its name had crossed the boundaries of the wilderness and its glory hummed in the tiny villages and through their bygone and budding generations.

Every little plant wanted to exist and flourish like that tree. Some were jealous of it and some were simply amazed by it. The ones that were jealous wrote theories and epics about how wretched the tree was.

When we are belittled by something great and we do not want to see it, we build many reasons to deny that fact. Such is the misery of mind and such is its fate.

The plants who adored it, theirs was an altogether different story. They wanted to be like that tree, to soar high in the sky and become shade-giver to many. It was because they had heard that giving shade and space for the troubled ones was a greater joy than actually enjoying the shade and space.

This is the misery of borrowed knowledge, of conditioning, of all the great universities and philosophies. So much is spoken regarding beauty, greatness, heights, depths of spirit and truth, that the budding minds are already pumped with this borrowed knowledge. Even before they could dive into the shallow waters of life, they have already completed a PhD in the nature of water. That is what's done with our minds, too. We are pumped full of so much knowledge about right and wrong, left and right, bad and good about light and darkness that we simply lose direct touch with life and are only connected with the superficial "about life" theories.

The little plants started to study that great tree. They used to watch it, they used to record its strong points, they used to write down and repeat its merits. They used to even try to practice its movements; they used to imitate the way its branches waved to the winds and the way its countless leaves whispered to the gentle touch of the breeze.

One of the most unfortunate events in the history of consciousness is that we have mostly lived on a superficial level, and most of our observations are superficial. We are very much concerned about how Buddha moved, how Buddha rose, how Mahavira remained silent, how Jesus laughed and spread his arms, how Krishna played the flute and how he raised the charka or stole the butter. These are absolutely personal responses of these great individuals, entities. They are not hard and fast rules, for these great men themselves were beyond all the rules and so was their mode of expressions. Their response to a moment was totally in accordance to the need of that precise moment. Buddha never spoke about god and Krishna has spoken heavy volumes on the topic of god, but that does not make Krishna, Buddha right or wrong.

The little plants took great effort to behave like a tree. Not that their effort had a bad intention - in fact, the intention was too pious - yet they had missed the whole point. They started to bend their branches like that great tree's branches, but they had been unaware of one of the most important facts: the great tree had grown not just horizontally but vertically, too. The higher it was above ground, the deeper had traveled its roots, and only because of those deep and strong roots was the tree above the ground able to manage to bow in the wind, for the roots were holding it firm to the ground.

We never see and we never care about the roots - whereas the roots are the whole path. The tree above the ground is a mere outward expression of the struggle of the roots - the battle they have done with the rocks and stones beneath to find their way to the nurturing waters. I would like to say battle with the ground (not against the ground), for even this battle of the roots is a play of existence itself. Existence wants us to struggle in beginning, for us to enhance our strength, for we have gone on living like lifeless and powerless beings for a long time. Whenever you set foot on a path of spirit - or light, or whatever you choose to call it - existence always wants us to warm up, for the journey is long and our feet are weak. The sky is vast and we have never opened our two tiny wings.

The plants started to behave like that giant tree and started to imitate it, trying to follow what was written in Holy Scriptures of the trees. Everything was going fine; they were exactly following what was taught them by the scholar trees, the tree universities, and tree professors. But, something was still missing: the true growth, the natural growth.

Without the natural growth we can never live naturally.

The plants began to seem disfigured. Their branches had forgotten to be themselves, their stems had never grown in the way they were meant to grow. The whole plants seemed handicapped. Everyone saw that something was wrong - drastically wrong. The tree-scholars thought their tree-scriptures could not be wrong, maybe there was something wrong with the practice, something wrong with the effort.

I have heard that the tree-professors are still trying to find out the ways to enhance the practice, and we are seeing today that what is happening to the little plants.

This is exactly what we produce with the burden of knowledge that we go on pumping into minds that are not ready for it. Children that have not even learned how to toss a ball or jump or play are fed with the divine knowledge that this world is made by god, to behave well, to be compassionate towards their fellow beings. "Thou shall not do this and thou shall not do that." Even before the quest for knowledge could arise in the mind, the answers are already fed in their minds by the parents, teachers and the society. All of them go on thinking they are building a great civilization, and we all know how civilized we are today. We are living on borrowed knowledge, on theories and answers which are not a part of our own experiences and I would like to say that they are not wrong.

A Buddha or a Jesus or a scripture cannot be wrong; wrong is the effort of the society to paint these on our minds even before we are ready for them, even before the question has arisen, the answer is already given. This kills the natural instinct of the quest. It becomes a borrowed knowledge, and borrowed knowledge is the greatest burden. What Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, Tilopa, Jesus went through were their own experiences and their own expressions and that, too, in regard to those specific environments.

If Buddha had been born in Bethlehem, he would still be Buddha. Yet, his mode of expression would be in accordance with the specific mindframe of the people who were receiving his teaching. These expressions come from ultimate compassion. They are given, keeping in vision the strength of the people to whom they are being given. Mankind has been simply stupid in many ways; he has lost great jewels because of following foolish codes of so called morality and humility.

One of the greatest Sufi sages, Al Hillaj Mansoor, was simply put to death because he said An Al Haq, which means "I am God." Now, the foolish society did not understand that this was the most humble statement ever made by any enlightened being. He was put to death by the social engineers who thought that he was arrogant and that what he spoke was blasphemy. In fact, this was the most humble thing to say... Humility has never presented itself in such grandeur before; and, never again has anyone had such courage to be available to such a great humility. Yet, Al Hillaj mansoor was put to death and was termed as arrogant and blasphemous. When he had declared An Al Haq he simply meant "there is no Al Hillaj Mansoor any more, but only God." He said it beautifully... He did not say, "All this is God," for such a statement would still reflect the existence of the dual - the two - the witness and the witnessed. He simply erased himself and declared "I am God," which meant I am not there any more, God is.

Humility is not an effort or a practice or a rule. Humility is a result, an outcome, a fruit of the supreme growth. One does not become great by practicing to be humble. Yes, the great ones have been very humble, but their humility is result of their supreme victory over themselves.

We are born empty, with empty hands and hearts, searching to be filled. Suffering beings, searching for happiness, searching for love, searching to be complete. Deep inside we know of our poverty. We can fool the whole world; yet, deep within we cannot fool ourselves. One can be financially poor or rich; it does not matter. Each has his own miseries. Until one is empty within, one is always a beggar. There are beggars in streets; there are beggars in penthouses; there are beggar sleeping on waterbeds; there are beggars flying in their private jets. And, deep within we know that we are not complete. And so we go on and on proving we are something and this is the real cause of arrogance, the deep awareness of the fact that we are not yet blessed within. The song within still remains unsung. The colors of the rainbow within have not yet soared in the sky of consciousness.

That is the only misery of our souls; the rest of all the problems are just offshoots of this root misery. We are well aware of this within, so we want to put our head in the sand like that bird. We do not want to face it, so we go on proving to ourselves and others that we are this and we are that. Even a small so-called achievement becomes a reason to flaunt our pride. This is not just the case of normal people, but this same is the fate with the so-called holy men, too. They go on holding big flags, on which is written the line "I am holier than thou." They think that they are something higher for they are in quest of something higher by sacrificing the usual everyday needs. One saint is famous for fasting, one is famous for celibacy, one is famous for standing on one leg and one is famous for sitting motionless for months. Now what stupidity is this? How far does an ego go to fool itself?

The ego fools itself, and we go on living in misery. Deep down we are simply empty and it is one of the greatest acts of courage to accept our true face, this is the greatest war. The greatest war is not that they do in the battlefields with swords and guns and nuclear weapons. This is simply superficial. Even if the world is destroyed tomorrow and some of the people remain they will still carry the emptiness within; they will still roam around this misery; they will still infect the coming generations with their same stupid values. The greatest conflict is somewhere within - deep within - deep within our souls. One of the hardest things to do is to see our emptiness and accept it; only then can the journey ahead approach completion or bliss or enlightenment whatever we call it.

Unless we are not rich and complete within, we will go on searching for completeness, bliss in things it does not have. So many times we have knocked on so many doors. We have knocked upon the doors of wealth; it opened for some and it didn't for some, but that makes no difference for both are still seen knocking on other doors. The one who has no money goes for money; the one who gets it goes for power; the one who gets power goes for name and fame; the one who gets fed up of name and fame goes in knocking the doors of solitude. The one who enters this doors knocks upon the doors of spirituality... they got everything but yet could not be happy so they reached for the ultimate riches they might find in heaven.

No matter what we get we still go on searching.

One of the greatest miracles that can happen to a being is not in its material or so-called spiritual feats and achievements. Rather, it is in its ability to simply stop and watch what is going on, to stand aside and watch, to simply watch the whole game, the antics of ego. When one sees the whole futility of this game one starts to move away. This is the true meditation. I do not mean that he moves away from money or starts living in caves or drops his clothes and sits in lotus posture... one simply leaves the foolish game of filling our emptiness with things that cannot fill this infinite void. This infinite void can be filled with something infinite only. Nothing finite can fill it. You cannot fill it with all the riches of Bill Gates; you cannot fill it by pumping the whole oceans of the world, nor can you fill it with the entire galaxy.

Understanding the cause of the disease is the half of the cure and I would like to say most of the cure, because once you see this stupidity you cannot go on doing it again and again. This is the most auspicious event in the life of a consciousness, the arising of awareness, awareness of the futility of this whole game. Once this awareness has arisen, then the stream shall go and meet the ocean easily and surely - may it take days years or lives. Once the lightening has struck in the dark night and we see the truth (even for only a few seconds), the miracle has happened. Now you cannot forget it; now you cannot go on fooling yourself; now we cannot go on resting. Now you simply are not the same person anymore. Now we know we are lost and to accept it is the first step towards home. Now there is no war anymore; now there is no more misery, but an utter longing. This longing is painful. Not painful as misery, but like the sweet pain of the lovers, the sweet pain before the lovers meet.

One day the heart arrives at its home, a celebration, a deep gratitude arises. It is blessed; bathing in colors, soaring high in the limitless sky on its wings of love. In such a state all one can do is feel is gratitude; there is no war anymore, none to defeat anymore, none to belittle or to show down. Neither there is anything left to achieve or reject. The greatest conflict is over and now there is no enemy anywhere. Love and love everywhere, breathing in love, waking in love, dancing in love watching love, bathing in love... Love not for someone special, nor for the so-called suffering, but love for simply love, love revolving around its own axis. Every foolish effort to imitate before attaining to this state is mere fakery, a fooling of oneself. Only when one arrives home is gratitude born and Humility becomes the body of this love - an utter gratitude, a silent song of deep within, bow towards existence.

What happens within radiates outwards, too; even the blind can see some glimpse of it. Even the deaf can hear that song; even the limp can walk some steps with such great heart; even the dumb can sing glory of that utter grace as the awakened one passes by. One cannot escape it. Then the awakened one utters, out of overflowing love, "What rests in me rests in you, too. I am not special for there is no I, there Just IS."

And, in utter humility Bows.

© Sahil, 2007

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sahil is an artist and a new contributor to PlanetLightworker.
Visit him online at: www.luminousimpressions.com/sahil.asp.