A DYING TREE

A DYING TREE

     Chanting the Mahamantra in the Tulsi garden in the morning after a good rain during the evening is delightful. All the plants, Tulsi devi and the other plants and trees, so refreshed after a good soaking. The night before they were all limp and pale, now they are invigorated and deep green.

     As usual the sound of the Holy name is only background to the chatter of the mind. After four rounds the chatter subsides and a kind of fidgeting begins. Aware of the body, it is uncomfortable to sit this way or that, restlessness. “Four rounds is enough. Let’s go do something else.”

     Continue chanting. Then the agitation comes for sense gratification. Keep chanting. I have been here at this juncture enough times to know this is where the victory lies. But it is real. The senses demanding. The mind scrambling to put out the fires. The intelligence lazy not knowing exactly what to do. Ignoring the situation. ”I’ll put off dealing with it and maybe it will go away.”

     Been here so many times before. There is no question of giving in to the mind and senses. It is out of the question. This is where the realizations come. This is what I pray for…more surrender, more realization, more taste for chanting… Krishna is there in the heart and guru deva is giving instructions. And there it is after two more rounds of restless fidgeting… the breakthrough. The insight. The nectar. I am so thankful.

It is not something I did not know, or have never heard before. I have been hearing this for most of my life. But now it has a new dimension in my consciousness. It has life.

     This body is like a tree. I am like a bird in the tree trying to taste the fruit of the tree in the form of sense gratification. But it is a dying tree. The more I try to taste and enjoy the fruits the more I plant seeds for getting another dying tree when this one finally dies. This fruit tasting is going on perpetually. But the fruits are limited and temporary and my desire is never fulfilled. Tree after tree…material body after material body, lifetime after lifetime. I have been doing this for eons.

     But there is another bird in the tree with me…trying to get my attention. There is another type of fruit to taste. There is another type of body. A spiritual body. There is another life that does not end.

As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, similarly, the soul accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones. BG 2:22

     And there is Tulsi in front of me...the Pure Devotee in a transcendental tree form. And I am wearing a garland of her manjaris from yesterday’s offering. The fruit She offers is Krishna prema. Her tree form is not material. Her body is not temporary. Her appearances and disappearances are not subject to the modes of material nature. She is the same person appearing wherever there is service to Krishna. She is not changing Her body.

I look forward to when I can sit again in japa meditation.

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare

Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare