From a tiny seed to a mighty tree

We see a huge tree and wonder about its mighty size. As time passes, the tree would continue to grow. But for a moment, if we go back in time, we would realize that once upon a time the tree that has us amazed was just a seed. 

A seed, so puny, that we would not have taken notice of it. And here it is in front of us, after having grown for all those years.

After a certain time, this tree will bear seeds of the future. There might be numerous seeds but not all of them would grow to become huge. 

Some of them will just be carried away by the wind and get destroyed. 

Few may become food for insects. Only a portion would survive the travails of nature to slowly flourish in a conducive environment with the required nutrition. 

That resulting enormous tree will again through the same cycle. That is the way nature works. 

But it does not mean that greatness is only associated with the tree being mighty. The true greatness is to realize the humble beginnings of such an enormous entity and respect the rules of nature. 

In a similar vein, a person of great stature will not take pride in his achievements when he has grown rich or gained power in the society. A true savant would realize that in pride is his fall and instead gets stuck to his roots.  

Let us never forget that however big a tree might be looking right now, at one point in its life cycle, it was just a minuscule seed.  

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Life’s Four Important Words

Nature has its mysterious ways of working. A mere individual like you and me will not be able to apprehend its course however we can only be observers. And instead of struggling & fighting against it, we need to learn the lesson of surrendering to Mother Nature. 

The basic notion prevalent in nature is change. There is nothing permanent. It is as though nature is announcing it very clearly in various forms. Seasons change, flowers bloom & fade, living creatures keep growing until death. We can see how nothing is constant.

But have we really acknowledged this fact? Maybe the answer is a rigorous nodding of head to signify acceptance. However this question has to be understood in depth. We see around us people who are always interested in the material world. 


They are too obsessed in their gains, wealth and the goody stuff they possess and have turned blind towards one of the fundamental principles of nature. They often resort to hoarding, try to increase their already overflowing wealth and in the process would forget the most important words of life: “This too shall pass”.

As nothing is permanent, even the riches, good stuff that one enjoys will not last long for a lifetime. Similarly the unfortunate situation that has befallen one will not continue to create misery. 

One should not boast of the great things in possession maybe it is in terms of wealth, followers, youthful energy and health. It is just a matter of time when these are lost in the lap of nature. 

Here's a video explaining this through a short story.

We should imbibe this important lesson in our mind and realize that whatever we have been going through has a certain time associated. Be it a happy or unhappy situation, it shall pass after taking us along through its course. 

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Mind – Stop monkeying around!

Have you ever observed a monkey? It becomes evident within no time that the animal constantly engages in some kind of activity be it chattering aloud, starting off a fight with fellow beings, performing mischievous acts, doing somersaults. To summarize, it acts restless.

Well, before we just dismiss this as a non-intelligent being that does not have any better thing to do, we need to introspect a little. The learned ones point out that our mind is just like the monkey, being constantly involved in unimportant stuff but which is interesting. 

Our mind has been habituated to behave thus. We look at the world and cry about not having the riches that someone else enjoys. We gossip around about what others do, what they possess and how will they spend their lives. We brood upon the past and get lost in nostalgia. We are engulfed about our own good and bad times that we experienced. We keep planning for the future; make lengthy to-do lists to accomplish our goals. However we fail to understand the importance of living in the present!

Swami Vivekananda quips on this topic, “The human mind is like a monkey which is drunk and bit by a scorpion. It is incessantly active by its own nature; then it becomes drunk with the wine of desire. After the turbulence caused by desire takes possession, comes the sting of a scorpion. It brings jealousy at the success of others, and finally the demon of pride enters the mind, making it think itself of all importance.”

This animal metaphor that exists in many philosophies including Buddhism, Chinese, Zen, Tao provides some real food for thought. It is indeed hard to control such a monkey and thus our own mind. Let us find our ways to deal with it. 

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Path of self-destruction

Aesop narrates the story of a frog that destroyed himself because of his egomania. One of the frog’s friends once tells him that she had seen a huge animal as big as a mountain with horns on its head. Apparently she had seen a wild buffalo. 

However the silly he frog made up his mind to convince her that there could be none as big as himself. So he starts blowing himself up to grow in size. “Was he as big as this?” he asked. The young friend immediately replied “Oh…no! Much bigger…”. He continued to swell himself without realizing the truth until he burst and lost his life. 

Many times in life, we think & act similar to the frog. We put lot of efforts to convince someone about something just to satisfy our ego. Pride will let us down. More often than not we end up losing a perceived battle that never existed and it is then we realize how our past actions were so meaningless. 

Contemplation would reveal that there was never a chance for us to win. The sheer insanity with which one reacts to various situations would sometimes be even fatal as we have seen it happening with the silly frog. 

Is it not better to get away from this path of self-destruction as quickly as possible? We should constantly be wary of self-conceit getting in the way of our own growth. What can be termed more foolish than treading the path of self-destruction due to one’s own stupid deeds? 

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The rich beggar’s pride

Life brings us face to face with situations of varying difficulties. It will not always be the same. It is the very nature of life to be cyclic. A person who is rich today may become poor tomorrow and a beggar this day may turn rich next day. 

Wealth in terms of possession of money and material items is just another transition in one’s journey of life. Keeping this in mind, we should always strive to be on the path of righteousness. But unfortunately the moment a person gets possession of such material wealth, a false sense of superiority creeps into the mind. 

If it is not curtailed in its initial stages of development, it will grow to become a monster known as pride. An egotistic feeling gets attached to any deed that is performed. The “I” factor becomes prominent in the behavior of such a person. The person would take it for granted that his possession will be with himself forever.  

It is well known that being excessively absorbed in oneself by preening about one’s richness is bound to result in one’s downfall. Learned people often draw a simile in terms of a beggar who becomes rich. 

If a poor man becomes wealthy he would order a servant to hold an umbrella over his head at midnight. It may sound insane but such is life’s way of subjecting one to maya. The monster in beggar’s mind would play vicious tricks and drag him to his ruin. Before he understands the reality, he would have returned to his inferior status. 

We should constantly remember the ways of nature and refrain from becoming egotistic. When fortune smiles on us, we should be poised in our behavior and have control on our mind in order to stamp out the pride before it becomes a monster.  

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Pride comes before fall

We have heard this popular saying that suggests us not to be braggers. It indicates that if a person keeps boasting then eventually that person will face downfall. And that is a certainty. But what constitutes "pride"? Neuroscientists have painstakingly studied the details of different cognitive aspects of human brain and theorize that pride is one of the social emotions. This means it is a resultant of representation of mental states of other people with whom we interact. It is about how we perceive other’s admiration for us.

 

Now why is pride such a bad thing that it causes one’s journey down the hill? As one becomes obsessed with one’s own achievements and craves for acclaim from others a false sense of confidence creeps into the mind which plays its own tricks on the person’s behavior. The person becomes a slave of his emotions and goes to the extremes to strengthen the position by committing irrational actions. He fails to see faults in his deeds. In such a condition one would only want to hear that he alone is great and be surrounded by followers who would be interested in fueling his idée fixe. And this leads one far away from the absolute truth. The moment a person deviates from the truth, the downfall is inevitable. 

A stanza from Sri Adi Shankaracharya’s Bhaja Govindam says:

Do not boast of wealth, friends and youth. Each one of these will be destroyed within a fraction of time. Free yourself from the illusion of the world of Maya and attain the timeless Truth. 

Once we get involved in the clasp of Maya, we fail to observe the reality. Our pride makes us fallacious. We lose our mental faculties to reason and keep boasting our own abilities, achievements, and belongings. We don’t realize that it is just a matter of time when each of those that we would pride upon could just crumble. They would not be with us anymore! So it is important for us to be aware of the illusion, the Maya that surrounds us. Let us be humble always and remember that pride comes before fall.                

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