Learning to listen to the trees. Hermann Hesse.

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth… So, the trees rustle in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have longer thoughts, long breathing and restful, just as they have longer lived than ours. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy.

Dear ones, in the Bhagwad Gita, chapter 15, verse 1—4 explains the entire material existence or Samsara as a temporary and upside-down entity, where the roots are in the divine (above) and the branches are in the material world (below).

Roots above and branches below: the roots of the tree represent the Supreme Lord/Brahman which is the source of all existence. The branches represent the material world, including various life forms and planetary systems.

Leaves are the Vedas: The Vedic hymns, which teach both ritualistic, material enjoyment and spiritual knowledge are considered the leaves of the tree.

Me in front of an ancient tree in Mexico

Nourished by the Gunas: The branches are sustained by the material nature (Sattva, Rajas and Tamas), which represent the qualities influencing all life.

The goal is to cut it down: The purpose of this metaphor is to explain that the material world is a perverted reflection of the spiritual world and that one must use “the axe of detachment” (Asanga shastra) to cut this tree down. By severing the attachment to material objects, one escapes the cycle of birth and death returns to the Supreme. Extracted: Pratham Pant.

Trees are our greatest teachers in living with authenticity. – Walt Whitman

The tree which moves some to tear of joy, is in eyes of the others only a green thing which stands in the way. – William Blake

Let us take these writings to heart and be empowered by the trees all around us.

Aim Hrim Klim

Photo by John Mccann on Unsplash