The Tree of Life: 1.2- Swami Krishnananda

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Sunday 23, Aug 2026, 07:55.
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Bhagavadgita & Hinduism
The Tree of Life: 1.2- 
1.The Twofold Character of Cosmic Life-2.
Swami Krishnananda

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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: ūrdhvamūlam adhaḥśākham (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.

The creative evolution of life, into which great research has been made in modern times by philosophers such as Bergson, is a tendency to move in every direction, outwardly expressing its power of vitality for a purpose which the human mind cannot properly envisage. When we grow, we do not know what we are growing into, and to what purpose. Why should we become an adult? Who has written this, in which scripture? Why should we not remain as a baby? What is the harm? Let us all be babies and never grow, or let us be born as youths. Why should we be born as babies and then grow into youths, and then have this agonising decrepitude of senile ataxia? What is all this mystery? Why should there be this growth of anything or everything? What is the direction which things are appearing to take? Why should the tree grow? Why should man prolong his life up to a certain limit and then disappear from the Earthly scene, not knowing even the time of his disappearance? What is this tremendous impulse in us which keeps us expecting something noble in the future, though that future may be cut short in one moment by the icy hands of nature?

We know very well that our Earthly life can come to an end at any moment, but we never take it very seriously. We can take it seriously if it goes so deeply into our hearts that we will not be able to breathe even for a few seconds. Something in us overpowers this instinct of the awareness of the impending discontinuity of life, and we are instinctively compelled to brush aside this immanent catastrophe of what we call death that may descend upon us at any moment of time.

While there is on one side the instinct of the consciousness of death and destruction, there is also another kind of instinct which keeps us completely forgetful of this phenomenon of life. We would very much wish to forget that there is such a thing called death. Nobody would like to think there is such a thing as that because it hangs before us as an ominous horror.

Now, a reality cannot be forgotten. If the death and destruction and annihilation of Earthly existence is to be an end of all things, if that is a reality by itself, there cannot be another reality overcoming it. But there is something in us which somehow or other overwhelms this instinct of destruction and sorrow, and tells us that life need not necessarily be equated with all sorrow. If it is concluded once and for all that life is only sorrow and an ocean of suffering, and there cannot be anything else but that, then there cannot be any such thing as the instinct of hope for a better future. But who does not hope for a better future? So we have in us a mysterious and tremendous impulse for what we may call an immortal pursuit of the ultimate success in life, though what is visible to our eyes is only darkness and pain.

The comparison that the Bhagavadgita gives is significant. The growth of the tree is from the seed towards its trunk and branches and the various ramifications thereof. There is the impulse of external expression in the tree. It moves towards the sky, if we can take the example of our own trees on Earth. The seed of the tree bursts forth in the direction of an external expression of itself. The tendency of the seed is not to hibernate but to develop the roots and the tendril of the large tree that it is to become later on. The sap which is hidden in the seed urges itself forward in external forms, searching for the light of the sun in extended space. The impulse that is within the tree is the cause behind its manifestation. The tree is in the seed in the form of an impulse, and this impulse seems to be towards diversification. It wants to manifest itself in as many forms of expression as possible, branching off into minute details which cannot be counted.

This urge is present everywhere, not merely in the vegetable kingdom but also in animal life and in human existence. Multiplicity is the objective behind the vital urge of nature as a whole. We cannot understand what this drama is. We want to multiply our wants, multiply our needs, multiply the gadgets that can satisfy our desires, and we ask for an infinite number of things in the world. Infinitude in the sense of a multiplicity of arithmetical computation is perhaps the nature of the impulse that is hidden in life.

This is explained in the very first verse of the Fifteenth Chapter of the Gita. There is the expression of this tree into various branches. What are these branches? The knowledge that we seek, the intelligence that we have, the perceptions which give us satisfaction are the branches of this impulse for self-expression—chandāṁsi yasya parṇāni (B.G. 15.1). Chandāṁsi are various types of knowledge, natural as well as supernatural, and it is so because the tree spreads itself not merely in this world of physical experience, but also even in the heavens. Adhaś cordhvaṁ prasṛtāstasya śākhā (B.G. 15.2): The branches of this tree spread themselves not merely here on Earth but also above in the heavens. Na tad asti pṛthivyāṁ vā divi deveṣu vā punaḥ, sattvaṁ prakṛtijair muktaṁ yad ebhiḥ syāt tribhir guṇaiḥ (B.G. 18.40): Not one thing anywhere, neither in heaven nor on Earth, can be found which is not an expression of the gunas. Guṇapravṛddhā viṣayapravālāḥ (B.G. 15.2): The gunas are the forces of externalised expression; the power that drags us outside of ourselves, which pushes us out of our own house and into the space outside, that is the guna.

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Continued

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