Fruit-Ladden tree

"The tree ladden with fruits

Always bends low.

If you wish to be great,

Be lowly and meek."

                                   - Swami Ramakrishna Paramhansa

Nature is always "The Best Teacher"

There are many living beings created in the Universe by the Almighty Authority. Of all the living beings, trees and plants play the most important role. Trees provide fresh oxygen to all the living beings for breathing. Trees also provide food for all the creatures - all animals and all human beings. They provided additional necessities such as shelter, medicine and tools. Today, their value continues to increase and they provide more and more benefits to all the creatures present on the Earth. The carbon-dioxide released by all animals and human beings is utilized by the plants for preparing their own food through the process of photosynthesis.

The trees prepare food for themselves utilizing things from the nature -

1.) Chlorophyll, the green pigment present in the leaves;

2.) Carbon-dioxide - from the nature exhaled by human beings and animals;

3.) Light energy - from the sun

4.) Water - from the soil through the roots

There are several additional benefits that trees provide to all the creatures living on the Earth. Trees improve air quality by acting as natural air filters removing dust, smoke and fumes from the atmosphere by trapping them on their leaves, branches and trunks. Just 1 hectare of beech woodland can extract 4 tonnes of dust per year from the atmosphere.

Trees reduce the 'Greenhouse' effect by removing carbon dioxide from the air and releasing oxygen. Each year a mature tree produces enough oxygen for 10 people.

Trees are also an effective sound barrier and can limit noise pollution. Recent research shows that trees also help reduce the stress of modern life.

Trees in themselves benefit the environment and the landscape, but they are also an integral part of the ecosystem providing benefits to wildlife and biodiversity.

The benefits that all creatures derive from the trees are endless.

What trees provide us are really endless in terms of matter, materials and many more such things which we use for benefiting our needs.

Above all materialistic needs, trees provide us such immortal values and divine lessons in our lives which can fill our lives with immense aroma of divinity, pious love and complete bliss towards all other creatures.

Nature is the best teacher for all creatures. We have a lot to learn from various elements of nature. Trees are also one of Nature's Best Teacher. Trees teach us to be selfless and sacrifice oneself for self & other's benefit. Trees teach us various qualities and values to imbibe within our lives so as to fulfill our lives with moral values. We are known about the 36 divine virtues which human beings should imbibe within themselves to lead a truthful and righteous life. We can recall those 36 divine virtues.

A brief description of these 36 divine virtues can be -

1.     Good wishes – Have good wishes for all.

2.    Generosity – Be generous towards all.

3.    Honesty – Be honest in your work and in all your relationships.

4.    Humility – Be humble towards everyone.

5.    Lightness – Be light, stressfree and burdenless.

6.   Mercy – Be merciful towards all creatures.

7.    Obedience–Be obedient towards God, elders, other respectable ones and most important towards YOU (yourself).

8.    Patience – Be patient towards circumstances, relations and Yourself.

9.   Purity – Have pure thoughts towards All, use pure words, show pure actions for All including YOU.

10.  Royalty – Be royal in your thoughts, words and actions.

11.    Self-confidence – Have 100% self-confidence on yourself and your GOD.

12.  Simplicity – Believe in “Simple living and High thinking”.

13.  Sweetness – Maintain sweetness in your words and relationships.

14.  Discipline – Let Discipline be your most adorable and admirable Ornament.

15.  Carefree – Leave everything high-up in the hands of the most beloved God.

16.  Cleanliness – Have clarity in your vision and cleanliness in your thoughts, words and  actions.

17.  Cheerfulness – Always be cheerful irrespective of the situations and circumstances.

18.  Contentment –Always be satisfied, as, THE BEST IS ALWAYS FOR ME (given by MY LORD).

19.  Courage – Be courageous in all situations because GOD is always your COMPANION and GUIDE.

20. Cooperation – Cooperate with everyone irrespective of the situations as it’s The Lord who is my companion, colleague, guide and mate.

21.  Tolerance – Try to tolerate other people’s words & actions, develop and intensify Tolerance Power within.

22. Tirelessness – Don’t get tired, Life is not tiresome but Life is a tireless journey, it’s a pilgrimage and you are the pilgrims.

23. Accuracy – Be accurate in your words and follow them accurately in your actions.

24. Appreciation – Appreciate others even at their minutest good works in order to uphold others dignity and motivate them. On the other hand, don’t expect appreciation or praise for yourself even at the highest achievement.

25. Benevolence – Have good and pure feelings for everyone irrespective of others’ goodness or evilness.

26.Detachment – Be detached in all of your actions. While performing actions, do not think of the output or the result. Most important, don’t associate yourself much with the result rather be focused on the input and processing.

27. Determination – Have firm determination to always follow the path of truthfulness, honesty and dedication.

28. Easiness – Let things around you go on at an easy pace, don’t make the surroundings complex for you and others to breathe in.

29. Egolessness – Uproot ego from within & get rid of the idea – I am Superior to others.

30.Energetic – Always be full of positive energy in your thoughts, words and actions. Derive this positive energy from the only source of positivity – The Almighty Lord.

31.  Farsightedness – Have greater, higher vision – which will be beneficial for all. You will observe Lord is your all-time Companion and Guide.

32. Fearlessness – Don’t be afraid of the up-sailing storms in your life, for God is your sailor.

33.Maturity – Only mature actions yield sweet fruits, the immature actions never bear sweet, edible and easily digestible fruits.

34.Politeness – Be polite towards all whomsoever you come across.

35.Introspection – Talk to yourself and Your Lord about your everyday thoughts, words and actions. “Are they as per the directives given by your Lord?”

36.  Orderliness – Firstly, keep your things in order. Try to be organized in managing your daily things and activities. Then automatically, the incidents in life get placed in order (By the grace of The Almighty).

Out of the above 36 divine virtues, trees exhibit maximum of these virtues.

We focus on a tree which is ladden with fruits i.e. a fruit-ladden tree.

  1.    When any tree is ladden with fruits, it always bows down towards the Earth. This feature can be compared as a virtue -"Down to Earth" - means that however rich or famous a person is, but he should always be a "down-to-earth" person. Such persons are always kind-hearted, gentle, humble, generous and helpful towards every person / creature.

  2.    Most of the trees have their leaves always bowing down towards the ground. The leaves of tree also define the similar virtue of generosity, humility and discipline. The leaves try to follow the discipline of their parent tree and bow down towards all other creatures living on the Earth.

  3.   When we will observe carefully, the trunk of most of the "trees" is always straight, strong and bears the burden of all its branches, leaves, flowers, fruits & even seeds. The trunk teaches us the lesson to be uphold all responsibilities of our family, the society we live in, towards our motherland (the country) and finally "The Mother Earth". The tree trunk also teaches us to be benevolent and have good feelings towards all irrespective of their existence and importance in our lives.

  4.   The tree-trunk bears the burden of the whole tree with the combined effort of its roots. Subsequently, the roots bind themselves with the surface soil and underground soil. Unless, the roots bind themselves firmly and strongly to the underground soil, the tree can't stand erect and hold all it's parts at appropriate position. So, the roots of the tree teach us to be in Orderliness, develop the feeling of maturity and always be fearless in life irrespective of all terrible situations upcoming in our lives. The roots also teach us to develop self-confidence and strong determination to win the race of life. Because, we are well aware that roots do not know where they are penetrating deeper and deeper into the soil. The roots keep on spreading and scattering the tertiary roots in search of water and food (in form of minerals). 

    5.   The trees are planted because of the greenery and other benefits that they provide for the benefit of all living creatures present on the Earth. The fruit bearing trees are especially planted for the fruits that they bear on the branches. The flowers of the trees teach us to be polite, develop the feeling of easiness, egolessness and get detached from the worldly developments. The flowers on becoming mature shed off the petals and sepals (parts of the flowers) i.e. get detached from their parent tree and undergo the process of reproduction to form fruit.

    6.   We keep watching the trees when will they bear flowers and subsequently the flowers will mature as fruits.The fruits are in different stages - unripe, ripe & over-ripe fruits. These various stages of maturity of the fruits teach us various divine qualities in our own lives. The unripe fruits - teach us to develop obedience, patience as well as far-sightedness. The unripe fruits are obedient towards nature and time, are patiently waiting to get ripen and develop far-sightedness to overcome various upcoming obstacles of life.

   7.    The unripe fruits should not be eaten before hand i.e. before they get ripe. This teaches us that we should not be impatient to achieve the final result of the work done before proper time approaches.        "Right thing at right time in right place and in right manner".

    8.    The ripe fruits are alike the ripe actions in our lives which yield timely result of the actions which were performed in the past. In the past, we have performed the actions; in the present, we are (eating the ripe fruits) enjoying the sweet result of the past good actions performed; in the future, the satisfaction, contentment & sweetness observed (in the present time) will prove as the seed for the future actions in our lives and the cycle will carry on in the same process. The process is a repeated process of "Recycle".  So, the ripe fruits bearing on the trees teach us to develop the virtues of sweetness, satisfaction, contentment, maturity, energetic, courageous, cheerfulness & above all tirelessness and Royalty  in the continual journey of everyone's life.

   9.     On the other hand, the over-ripe fruits are not all good or tasty for our health. Such over-ripe fruits are similar to excess of sweetness in our relationships with few particular persons in our lives. They are alike the over-thoughts which we keep on thinking about our past & present actions and keep expecting about the result. Such over-thinking about the actions and it's expected result creates chaos within our conscious mind and we start developing negative & waste thoughts in our lives. It's always better to avoid eating such over-ripe fruits because when such over-ripe fruits are hanging from the branches of the trees, such fruits are pricked by beaks of birds and sometimes, may even cause some particular diseases within human beings. We learn lessons of accuracy - accuracy for achievement of success in our lives. We also learn lessons to stay farther away from appreciation, praise or criticism.  So, it's better to avoid consuming over-ripe thoughts & actions in our lives.

    10.    After consuming the ripe fruits, we leave behind the seeds. Seeds have a definite role within the fruits. Similarly, the seeds within the fruits can be compared with the human soul present within the human body. As the seed contains all features to develop the next generation tree. Similarly, the human soul also contains all pious thoughts and pious actions to form the human being. The seeds present within the fruits teach us the moral values of introspection, royalty and accuracy. As seeds contain all features of a full-grown tree, we should also go deep within the soul and introspect about the 36 divine virtues present with a (Godly) human being. We need to become royal in our thoughts, words & actions while leading our (Godly) human birth. Lastly, accuracy in developing and emerging the 36 divine virtues within ourselves while leading the (Godly) human birth. 

      Finally, it can be concluded that Nature remains our best and perfect idol / ideal / teacher and preacher. By following, the Mother Nature we can adopt and develop within ourselves all 36  divine virtues bestowed upon us by the Almighty Authority.

   

    James A. Garfied has quoted few words for "The tree" -

    When the Divine Artist would produce a poem,

   He plants a germ of it in a Human Soul;

   And out of that soul, the poem springs and grows;

   As from the rose tree -the rose,

   And from the mango tree -the sweet ripe mango fruit!!

God is Our Perfect Guide

Our Best Guide is GOD

The ultimate source of all divine virtues is God, the Almighty Authority. Knowledge is one of the virtues of God. It’s only by the grace of God that we are able to imbibe God’s knowledge within ourselves. It’s possible only through God’s knowledge to distinguish between truth and false, right and wrong, positive and negative things.

God is an ocean of knowledge. God is always knowledgeful i.e. full of knowledge. He is the only source of positivity on this earth. We, humans have to be firm determined to adore ourselves with God’s knowledge. By and by. we gather and imbibe the precious, invaluable, diamond-like God’s knowledge within ourselves and are rewarded. The reward is to become the “HEIR TO GOD’s FULL KNOWLEDGE” and make oneself seated on the throne of “MASTER KNOWLEDGEFUL”.

As we all know, God is an ocean of knowledge. So, to become “MASTER KNOWLEDGEFUL” i.e. the perfect heir to God’s knowledge, we need to dive deep into the ocean of God’s knowledge.

No matter either of us know swimming or not; let us altogether (all the readers) assign the Almighty Authority, God as our perfect guide and dive deep into the “Ocean of God’s Knowledge”.

Let’s feel and experience moving deep into the ocean holding each one’s hands in cooperation with the Almighty in form of Divine Light or the Angelic form as our GUIDE.

THE DIVINE "POWER TO DECIDE"

"Power to Decide the Right (Perform Righteous Actions)"

• What is the “divine power to decide the right”?
•  Why is the “power to decide the right” needed to develop within ourselves?
•  Why is the “power to decide the right” needed to increase within ourselves day by day?
• When to use the “power to decide the right” correctly in our lives?
• How to use the “power to decide the right” in various situations of our lives?

In our everyday life, we use the “Divine power to decide the right” – decide the right, correct & truthful actions going on in the surroundings in our life. Starting from early in the morning when we wake up till the late night until we go to sleep, we come across various categories of situations/ people in our life. Every moment stands as an EMBODIMENT of situation in front of us. Some of such situations have positive while others have negative impact in our basic life. Similarly, some people have positive effect while some other people have negative effect upon our lives. God helps us to increase the Divine Power to Decide the right, correct & truthful actions for ourselves as well as for others.

The Divine Power to Decide the right is the outcome of the Power to Discriminate right over the wrong. After achieving the Power to Discriminate the right, the good & the truth over the wrong, the evil & the falsehood; we reach a stage when we possess the ability to make the most righteous, truthful, pious, evergreen, beneficial decisions. The Divine Power to Decide the right is the ability to assess the options/ alternatives present in front of us, make decisions and perform actions which result in the betterment of the true self and others.

 This is the power of truth, the power to choose truth, to stand alone in that truth no matter what happens or who accompanies you. It is directly connected to the Power to Discriminate and takes Power to have much of the clarity/ clear vision to know the truth, right & good. Often, we know & understand the truth, right & good but due to lack of The Divine Power to Decide the right, we are unable to stand along, follow and act as per the truth, right or good. 

This power requires me to be completely free from any attachment and be impartial to the outcome of the right decision. I have to take the decision, follow through the action and surrender the outcome/ result of the impartial action upon the Almighty. I need not disturb myself thinking about the expectations of the result/ outcome. I should not have any expectations or intermingle any of my thoughts by thinking about the result. In such case, I create a sense/ feeling of worry, doubt, confusion or even disagreed negative result. I need to understand and imbibe within the true self (Human Soul) that whatever decision I make, after attaining the Power to Discriminate, will be destined (as per my destiny), fortunate enough (lucky) and accurate (perfect as per Divinity). The best outcome will definitely come in front of me and I will have a lot to learn, earn and benefit from such destined clear result.

Act Righteous

The Divine Power to Decide the right allows me to take and make quick, clear, accurate and unbiased / impartial decisions consistently. I am able to make myself free from the attraction and influence of emotions and opinions of others. I am able to adopt a clear understanding of what is right from what is morally wrong. This needs clarity of thoughts. Such clarity of thoughts is obtained and all clouds of negativity is removed when there is harmony of the mind and intellect with a detached vision. I need to keep myself away from all negative perspectives which forces me to look at the defects or shortcomings or weaknesses or the negative actions present within others. I need to assign myself the position of a solution-provider and not stand as a problem- creator. I need to stand as an observer and see/ observe the problem rather I need not jump directly into the problem and get myself inter-twinned with the problem. Always stand aback from a position outside the problem. As when we stand on top of the mountain, the city below looks small and friendly. Similarly, stay outside of the problem and discriminate the actions which will help in making the right decision. Also, when we are lost in any forest, we cannot even see the trees, we keep on revolving round and round and keep on arriving at the same place. This happens because we lose control over ourselves and concentrate on the problem and do not take the hassle-free pain to look outside towards the solution. 

Let's discuss how to use & apply the Divine Power to Decide the Right in our everyday lives/ day to day situations:

Dear Readers, we all have heard the story of a man who lost his gold finger ring under the shade of a tree during the daytime. He searched for the finger ring at many places but could not find it. Later on, when it got dark, he recalled that he might have lost the finger ring under the shade of the tree. After reaching there, he found there was complete darkness and he could not find anything under the tree. Nearby, there was a street light lamp post. So, the man under stress & tension without thinking much, started searching for his gold finger ring under the street light with the hope that he might get his gold finger ring under the light of street light. Basically as a layman, he did so because he thought it would be better to search at a place where there was light instead of the place which was complete dark due to lack of source of proper light. But, the exact place was only under the tree - irrespective of the fact whether under the tree- it was complete darkness or lightened up. In case of complete darkness, it was the moral responsibility of the man to lighten up the place and then move on to search for the ring. (Here, precious gold finger ring is nothing but "Peace of the Human Soul").

As readers and observers, we are reading the story, listening to the problem, observing the situation (problem) by staying outside the problem. Now, we can easily judge the situation since we are detached from the situation or problem. Even small aged children can say that the person was doing wrong act by searching for his gold finger ring under the light of the street light. Firstly, he should search the ring under the tree-shade. Even, if it had got dark, he should light up a candle or a matchstick or any torch or any other source providing light. With the help of a proper source of light, he can easily find the precious gold finger ring under the tree.

What does this story imply in everyone’s life? 

 Summary – I need to use the Divine Power to Decide the righteous act for me after judging the right, truthful & correct action.
All the Divine Virtues and the Divine powers of the Almighty are mine. These Divine Virtues and the Divine powers of the Almighty are my birthright because I am the child of the Almighty and I am born to inherit the entire property of these Divine Virtues and the Divine powers of the Almighty.
I am the "Heir" to these Divine Virtues and the Divine powers of the Almighty. I will always use them wisely as a Trustee with complete unconditional surrendrance to the Almighty Authority.   
Amen.