Roots of insufficiency
Lift yourself by yourself, but don’t condemn yourself. You are your friend, and you are your enemy. ~ Bhagavad Gita
Where are your roots pointing—upwards or downwards? The peepal tree, also known as Ashwattha, symbolises the samsara (worldly life) tree whose roots face upwards. Unlike other trees, whose roots are hidden beneath the ground, the roots of the peepal tree are visible.
This represents a life of deficiency, marked by visible traits such as disorder, ego, frustration, foolishness, jealousy and selfishness. Another interpretation is that the upward-pointing roots of the peepal tree reflect the perspective of an ordinary person rooted in samsara. Such a person might feel that their life is progressing or going upward. However, in reality, the branches point downwards, indicating a decline in life.
This signifies that while one may believe they are advancing, they are, in fact, moving towards deficiency and unprofitable growth. In essence, while you aim to rise in life, the process may actually lead you ownwards, contrary to your intentions.
Sometimes, in the search for the better, you lose the best. We seek money, power, position and status, and we dedicate our lives to this so-called upward growth, do we not? But in the process, we lose the essence of life. We live a life full of tension, chasing money, power and position, so much so that the vitality of truly living is lost in the desire to move upward.
At the time of death, you have to leave behind all of these. Life becomes consumed by the hope of progress or upward movement, but the energy driving this desire is filled with tension. The reality is that life becomes overwhelmed by desire, hope and anxiety. Thus, in truth, rather than moving upwards, you are actually heading downwards.
Hence, one’s life is consumed by the act of ‘becoming’, driven by the hope of fulfilling desires that lie in the future. However, the actual experience of life remains unfulfilling. Are you not, then, going downwards? This is especially evident in a person living a materialistic life immersed in samsara.
From time immemorial and for centuries, the brain of human beings has been lost in ‘becoming’ and, as a result, misses the ‘being’. The human brain has been programmed as though to create problems and then find solutions, and thus, the cycle continues. As a result, the brain remains busy fulfilling desires with the hope of finding fulfilment. But that never happens. Fulfilment is an approach to life, not a destination in the future.
If you understand this disorder, you have understood the order. In samsara, or the life of deficiency, there is nirvana, or the life of sufficiency, to be discovered. If you learn to ‘see,’ not just ‘look,’ then in disorder, you discover order. Hence, this tree of samsara, or worldly life, has to be cut down. Living in the future is like a samsara tree. Nirvana is living a fulfilling life in the present.
The way people are living, life is filled with sorrow. Not that life is inherently full of sorrow, but people live with ego, anger and foolishness, and hence, life becomes full of sorrow. Look into people’s lives; they are so busy complicating life instead of simplifying it, isn’t that so? They are so busy acquiring, and this greed for acquisition comes from being blind to the richness that life offers.
There are two types of desires. One is the desire to be happy, and the other is the desire that arises out of happiness. Just as a mother does everything out of joy for her children, similarly, one should learn the art of being joyful. This is the art of being happy.
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