“Living as a tree, not a leaf”

The wine of life is oozing drop by drop,
The leaves of life are falling one by one.
  – Omar Khayyam

Easwaran muses: Like leaves, we come into this life, are here for a few days, and then are gone. Nobody remembers us, and nobody misses us.

As long as we believe that we are separate, we inevitably have to die. Our immortality is in the whole, which never dies. In living just for personal profit and pleasure, no matter under what philosophical name we may call it, our real personality withers away. It cannot be otherwise.

redwood-trunk

When you become aware that you are not a leaf but the tree, something amazing happens in your life: you are able to act spontaneously, almost effortlessly, for the good of all.

This is the proof of your awareness that you are the tree: everywhere it will motivate you, everywhere you will see what contribution you can make. You won’t have to deliberate the pros and cons. You won’t need a computer to provide you with a plan of action. You will know instinctively, intuitively, the needs of those around you. What’s more, it will seem natural to change even long-established habits, to drop something that before would have given you pleasure, if it means the tree may flourish.

The life in the Spirit, putting on the mind of Christ, walking in His will, is our nourishment. He provides, He motivates, He leads.

He is the Logos, the Word…and “Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.”

This is abundant, eternal life…here, now.

May I seek this life and not the temporal things that the world seeks to draw me into.

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