The city parks are full of fallen dry leaves. Walking almost on a mattress of them to the familiar sound of crunch crunch, I suddenly became very aware of my own mortality. These were the very leaves that were once so bright and beautiful, they glistened with the healthy shine of youth. They swayed and danced joyfully to the warm caresses of the breeze that played through them. Nourished by the tall trees they little realised how dependent was their existence. Only a live tree can suck up the water from way down into the earth and pump it so high up to its tallest branch. The tree sprouts leaves, wooden branches, flowers and fruits. Has one ever thought that a tree can only do all this if there is life in it? The same sacred life that dynamises all plants animals and humans is what dynamises every movement of mine. A dead tree is only matter, and so am I. I watch each shining smooth leaf turning yellow and brown, then crumpling up and falling. One by one they fall and so do friends, associates and family. Why doesn’t this awaken my mind to the realisation of my own impending fall?
Trees stand still and majestic, they are not given to roaming around, they gracefully keep their place as mahatmas who sit alone in meditative poise, in deep contemplation of the supreme Reality. Their thick branches house many a chirpy friends who occupy its shady luxury to build their homes and feed their young. The tree houses them and nurtures them with fruit. They are happy to shelter from rain and the scorching sun any weary traveller who reaches them for help. They provide a ready canopy for the one who decides to sleep the night under its protective roof. Providing fuel for cooking, or heating winter homes, they even give us cotton, rubber, fibre, gum, raisin and all kinds of nutrition that humans so eagerly consume.
Prarthna Saran, President, Chinmaya Mission, New Delhi