BENGALURU : In temperate regions all over the world, deciduous trees shed their leaves during fall. It makes for an amazing and spectacular display of colour across slopes of forests at these latitudes. The sight of these fall colours of deciduous trees makes me wonder about the life cycle of the leaf and the half of the colour spectrum that is seen during fall.
If you see the colour spectrum, it is GYOR - only the right half of the spectrum, the upper half of the rainbow - this is the path towards an eventual freedom from colour. Leaves are green because of chlorophyll which captures sunlight and converts it into food energy for terrestrial life forms to survive.
As fall approaches and the days become shorter, the flow of life from the tree to the leaves begins to get blocked off and in sunlight, chlorophyll gets used up without being replaced by new reserves of chlorophyll that can keep the leaf green and active.
As the chlorophyll content of the leaf is diminished, the leaf starts becoming yellow, then orange and then red before it falls off. The orange is the mid stage of this brief vaanaprastha of the leaf, showing itself off in a mesmerising and charming colour before withering.
Perhaps one of the reasons for choosing orange for sanyaasa is this. It denotes glory, and cognition of its eventual detachment. Thus orange becomes the colour of sacrifice and detachment.
In fact this orange is always there in the leaf but is clouded by the amount of chlorohphyll that a young leaf has. As it ages and the chlorophyll is withdrawn the orange becomes visible. Perhaps it is that detachment is hidden within each one of us and it becomes visible when our consumption cycle comes to an end.
Even within human blood, iron which is remarkably similar molecule to chlorophyll carries oxygen and makes the blood red in colour. The plasma is yellow, the oxygenated haemoglobin is red - and the in between colour is orange - it is the colour you see when you look at sunlight through closed eyelids. This orange colour of detachment is everywhere within us - hidden between the neutral yellow of the plasma and the driving force of an oxygenated stream of haemoglobin.
When we learn to balance these aspects of a supreme neutrality and an active and invigorating life, true detachment emerges. Without an invigorating life, or without a supreme neutrality in the application of our intelligence, it is impossible to achieve detachment, impossible to live the high ideal of an orange. It is apt that this colour therefore comes during the season of fall. It is not just a season for the fall of the engine of plant life and beginning of a period of conservation and hibernation, it is a season for the fall of that which artificial within us and a beginning of a period of conservation and cognition of our true and essential nature bereft of worldly demands.
The tree survives every fall and emerges glorious again with young red shoots turning green at the beginning of spring. This withdrawal is necessary every year even for the human being as he makes some time to quietly contemplate his own nature and his natural role in the universe.
There is a strange strength in this giving up. My guru used to give the example of a mother who when she comes to the table always first serves her family and keeps the least of what is available to herself. This is a natural instinct of giving up for the sake of those whom you love.
She sees her family as an extension of her own self and without a second thought does this act of giving up something of herself to the family. If we must show our gratitude for our existence, it is this same giving up we have to practice for the sake of the mother from whom we have sprung. We must give up a little as an act of thanksgiving.
In this cycle of life something is always given up for the sake of something else. This endless natural cycle is yajna. When Lord Krishna said, ‘Whatever you do, whatever you enjoy, whatever you offer as a sacrifice, whatever you give, whatever penance you perform - offer them unto me”, I used to wonder what it meant.
I realise that it is meant to tell us that He resides deep inside and whatever we seem to do or be doing in the outer world, our consciousness must be withdrawn from them just like the chlorophyll is withdrawn from the leaf, and in
that residual and glorious orange of the mildest attachment to the physical world and a shimmering detachment from all that drives the external world, we must return our consciousness to that universal
truth within us - this is what offering to the Lord is.
What must fall is our expectation of fruit for ourselves, expectation of recognition from others, and an investment of our consciousness into a world that is ephemeral. Every season of fall signifies this divestment of something that defines us on the outside for the sake of light that burns a little brighter because of this giving up. Have a great fall!