The Tree of Life : Srimad Bhagavad Gita : 1.4.

10/10/2018
The Tree of Life : Srimad Bhagavad Gita : 1.4
Chapter- 1: The Twofold Character of Cosmic Life-4.
Post - 4.

There is, therefore, a need to be serious in our pursuits and not to continue to behave like babies or children asking for toys, which are only a temporary relief for their tears. We give a toy to the child, and it stops crying. Why it cries, nobody knows. These toys are temporary contrivances to suppress the outward expression of the sorrow of the child, but the inner difficulty persists whatever be the outer adjustments we make in the various walks of life.

The various outer adjustments are well known. The gaining of wealth, making money, increasing the bank balance, getting a good job, enhancement of status of oneself in human society, dainty dishes, palatial houses, vast gardens, and so forth, are the avenues of approach of the mind that seeks immediate relief. We have seen people with large areas of land. Are they happy? We have seen people with large bank balances. Are they happy? We have seen people with everything that the world can give, but they are grief-stricken for a cause they cannot explain, and nobody can explain.

In the commencing verses of the Fifteenth Chapter of the Bhagavadgita we have a complete picture of the whole of life in every one of its aspects. The way in which the Fifteenth Chapter of the Bhagavadgita starts is the way in which we have to start thinking if our thinking is to be right thinking. We are used to thinking in terms of family, relations and properties, but in these verses of the Fifteenth Chapter, the Bhagavadgita does not think in terms of family and relations, of I and mine, of my property, my belonging, my friend and foe. There is a magnificent picture before our mental eye. The whole world is placed before us in a nutshell.

The analogy the Bhagavadgita places before us to explain the nature of life as a whole is the well-known analogy of a tree. The whole of life is compared to a large tree spreading itself in every place, in and out of things, and extending from heaven to the nether regions: urdhvamulam adha?sakham (B.G. 15.1). We have never seen a tree of this type whose roots are above and branches are below. It is an unthinkable tree. How can the roots be above in the skies and the branches be below on the Earth? But such is the tree which life is.

This tree is taken as the example of the structure of life because of the way in which the tree grows. Life is a growing process and a movement with the power of the waves of an ocean rumbling within its own bosom, urging itself forward in a direction which is spread out everywhere, in all places. The growth of life is not in any particular linear direction. It is an all-round movement, like the growth of our own body. When we grow into an adult from a baby, we do not move only vertically or horizontally, but in every aspect—inwardly and outwardly—in a balanced manner.

To be continued ...