THE SPEAKING TREE


A symbol of knowledge, wisdom, and enlightenment, The Speaking Tree talks about the philosophies, beliefs and values of the past - and their relevance today. 

The Speaking Tree encompasses reverence for a universal religion and love, and exhorts people to take refuge in spirituality to alleviate stress and resolve conflict in their lives. It is a step towards attaining purity of the mind, body and soul through introspection and through adopting traditional values. 





Good And Evil Are Relative Concepts
Evil has no absolute existence of its own. The Bhagavad Gita says: "The good will never perish; evil can never exist". Evil doesn't exist as a 
separate entity; it is only an appearance. As such, it has only a relative, not absolute, existence. Just as darkness does not have an existence; it is not an entity or a substance but only a lack of light. In the same way, evil is simply lack of goodness. Moreover, according to the Puranas, even the demons finally merge into God: Ravana dies and merges into Rama. 

This approach avoids the dilemma about evil and the omnipresence of God. Most religions are of the view that God is Omnipresent, Omnipotent and Omni-scient. If God is Omni-present, then there is no place for evil to exist outside God. If you recognise separate existence for evil, then you have to forgo God's Omnipresence. If evil is another power that is outside, or challenging God's power, then God is not Omni- potent. If He is not Omnipresent and Omnipotent, He can't be Omniscient. God loses his essential qualifications to be God if evil exists as a separate force. 

Vedanta holds that evil cannot exist outside God, because God is the material cause of the universe. The example is of the spider weaving its web from its saliva. The spider, the cause, is not different from its web, the effect; just as Brahmn is not different from the universe. 

Islam considers that everything is God's, but does not consider God the material cause of the universe. This basic philosophical difference means that according to Islam, evil can theoretically exist outside God. But if God is not the material cause of the universe, then Vedanta would hold that it is impossible for God to possess the essential qualifications of omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience. 

Vedanta discards a separate existence for evil and considers evil to be only a relative viewpoint. For example, poison is generally considered to be bad; but it is also good in a certain context: many life- saving drugs are poisons. Likewise, vitamins may be good, even lifesaving; but consumed in excess they can be fatal. 

Therefore, good and evil are only relative. All is an appearance, including evil. And the enormous positive energy gene-rated in you can make you go beyond evil and see the truth as advaita, as the one non-dual reality. Sufi saints had to go through great ordeals in making people understand this principle. 

Advaita philosophy is close to quantum physics. For both systems, the basic proposition is the same: that the universe is made up of one substance. In this sense, only a scientist can understand the true Vedantic concept of divinity. Vedanta says that God is energy and intelligence, and that the world, which is matter, is nothing but a part of God. 

A scientist also knows there is nothing absolutely good or evil in existence. Every-thing is relative. Whether it is a poisonous metal such as mercury or lead, or a vitamin, the scientist does not assign any predetermined moral value to it. He just knows them as they are; that they are useful in different places for different purposes. Usage alone makes something good or bad. Therefore, Vedanta's approach to evil, as well as its concept of divinity, is consistent with scientific thought. 




Nehru’s Letter To Children

Dear Children, 

I like being with children and talking to them and, even more, playing with them. For the moment I forget that I am terribly old and it is very long ago since I was a child. 

But when I sit down to write, I cannot forget my age and the distance that separates you from me. Old people have a habit of delivering sermons and good advice to the young. 

I remember that I disliked this very much long ago when I was a boy. So I suppose you do not like it very much either. Grown-ups also have a habit of appearing to be very wise, even though very few of them possess much wisdom. I have not yet quite made up my mind whether I am wise or not. 

Sometimes listening to others I feel that I must be wise and brilliant and important. Then, looking at myself, I begin to doubt this. In any event, people who are wise do not talk about their wisdom and do not behave as if they were very superior persons... 

What then shall I write about? If you were with me, I would love to talk to you about this beautiful world of ours, about flowers, trees, birds, animals, stars, mountains, glaciers and all the other beautiful things that surround us in the world. We have all this beauty all around us and yet we, who are grown-ups, often forget about it and lose ourselves in our arguments or in our quarrels. We sit in our offices and imagine that we are doing very important work. 

I hope you will be more sensible and open your eyes and ears to this beauty and life that surrounds you. Can you recognise the flowers by their names and the birds by their singing? How easy it is to make friends with them and with everything in nature, if you go to them affectionately and with friendship. You must have read many fairy tales and stories of long ago. But the world itself is the greatest fairy tale and story of adventure that was ever written. Only we must have eyes to see and ears to hear and a mind that opens out to the life and beauty of the world. 

Grown-ups have a strange way of putting themselves in compartments and groups. They build barriers... of religion, caste, colour, party, nation, province, language, customs and of rich and poor. Thus they live in prisons of their own making. Fortunately, children do not know much about these barriers, which separate. They play and work with each other and it is only when they grow up that they begin to learn about these barriers from their elders. I hope you will take a long time in growing up... 

Some months ago, the children of Japan wrote to me and asked me to send them an elephant. I sent them a beautiful elephant on behalf of the children of India... This noble animal became a symbol of India to them and a link between them and the children of India. 

I was very happy that this gift of ours gave so much joy to so many children of Japan, and made them think of our country... remember that everywhere there are children like you going to school and work and play, and sometimes quarrelling but always making friends again. You can read about these countries in your books, and when you grow up many of you will visit them. Go there as friends and you will find friends to greet you. 

You know we had a very great man amongst us. He was called Mahatma Gandhi. But we used to call him affectionately Bapuji. He was wise, but he did not show off his wisdom. He was simple and childlike in many ways and he loved children... he taught us to face the world cheerfully and with laughter. 

Our country is a very big country and there is a great deal to be done by all of us. If each one of us does his or her little bit, then all this mounts up and the country prospers and goes ahead fast. 

I have tried to talk to you in this letter as if you were sitting near me, and I have written more than I intended. 

Jawaharlal Nehru December 3, 1949 




True Friends are God's Angels
by Janina Gomes  

In the alienated and fragmented world we live in today, the human heart cries out for friendship or affirmation from others. That is because we are meant to see in the human faces we encounter, the face of God. 

Tell someone that I am here, is the cry of the human heart. Fernando Silva, who runs a children’s hospital in Managua, reports the incident of a lonely child in the hospital in search of a human hand to grasp. One Christmas eve, when he stayed in working late into the night amidst revelry, he heard footfalls behind him. On turning, he recognized the sick child who had no one in the world. Fernando drew close to the child and touched him lightly with his hand. The child whispered: “Please tell someone that I am here”. 

Not everyone experiences such loneliness and heartbreak. But we all experience the need for a healing, empathetic presence in our lives. We relate to a friend to whom we can truly reveal ourselves. That is because, as Carlos Valles says, we all go around with thick veils on our faces, afraid to expose our reality. 

Friendship calls for a removal of all masks. Explaining the need for sharing our personal stories, Carmen Caltagirone says: “All those persons who have impacted our lives, those who have loved us and those who have refused our love are within us. In each of us there lives a mother, a father, a betrayer, a childhood friend, a teacher. The deepest realities of human life cannot be defined in intellectual terms. We can at best, touch on them through stories”. 

Human stories can only be shared through intimacy, which is a psychological necessity of life. Friends complete us, they define us and act as chisels that shape our lives. Friends build us up through affirmation and gentle confrontation, filling a space in our lives. This space is filled not only through intimacy but also by respecting an affective distance from those we are closest to us. There are times for talking and interaction and times for silence and reserve. 

Closeness invites friends to act as personal prophets in our life. Friends are also like messengers from God of unfailing, timely and constant love. They come to us just in time and when we need them most. Abraham Heschel, the great Jewish theologian, narrates how a child responded to the story in scripture about the sacrifice of Isaac. Upon hearing that the voice of the angel stopped Abraham from killing Isaac, the child began to cry. Puzzled by the tears, the rabbi said: “Why are you crying? Isaac was saved.” The child replied: “But, rabbi, what if the angel had come a second too late?’’ The rabbi comforted the child by saying: “An angel can never come too late”. Friends are sent by God when it is never too late. 

There is the story of two Moabite women married to two sons of Naomi in the Old Testament who both died leaving them widows. Whilst Ruth remained by her mother-in-law’s side, when her husband died, her sister-in-law, Orpah, parted company with the mother-in-law on her husband’s death. In life, as Carmen Caltagirone says, some people journey only part of the way with us as did Orpah. They reserve the right to leave, while others like Ruth prefer to stay. 

The life of Jesus on this earth was one of deep and staying relationships. Jesus always called people by name. And to call a person by his or her name is to enter into a deep relationship with them. The less we package the gift inside us, the more lasting and durable the friendship will be




How to Manage Your Relationships
by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

When you live in this world, there are various types of complex interactions happening. As your field of play increases, the complexity of interaction also goes on increasing. 

If you're just sitting in a cubicle, working on your computer with only one other person, you need only a little understanding; but if you're managing a thousand people, you need a vast understanding of everybody. 

If you want all these people to understand you, then you're not going to manage anything. You need to understand the limitations and the capabilities of these thousand people and do what you can; only then will you have the power to move the situation the way you want it to go. 

The closer the relationship, the more effort you should make to understand them. A man was slipping in and out of a coma for several months, with his wife staying at his bedside night and day. When he came to, in those few moments of consciousness, he motioned for her to come closer. 

As she sat beside him, he said, "I've been thinking... you have been with me through all the bad times in my life — when I got fired, when my business went down the tube, when I got shot and when we lost the house in that legal clash. You were right there beside me. Now my health is failing, and you're still by my side. On consideration, I think you only bring me bad luck!" 

This is exactly what you're doing to yourself and to your relationships. With your understanding you can create situations where the other person would be able to understand you better. 

If you're expecting the other to understand and comply with you all the time while you don't understand the limitations, the possibilities, the needs and the capabilities of that person, then conflict is all that will happen. 

Unfortunately, the closest relationships in the world have more conflict going on than there is between India and Pakistan. 

India and Pakistan have fought only three wars. In your relationships, you have fought many more and are still fighting, because your line of understanding and theirs is different. 

If you cross this Line of Control (LoC), they will get mad. If they cross it, you will get mad. If you move your understanding beyond theirs, their understanding also becomes a part of your understanding. You will be able to embrace their limitations and capabilities. 

In everyone, there are some positive aspects and some negative aspects. If you embrace all this in your understanding, you can make the relationship the way you want it. 

If you leave it to their understanding, it will become accidental. If they are very magnanimous, things will happen well for you; if not, the relationship will break up. 

If you want to be the one who decides what happens to your life, you should enhance your understanding to such a point that you can look beyond people's madness also. 

There are wonderful people around you, but once in a while they like to go crazy for a few minutes. If you don't understand that, you will lose them. 

Whether it's a question of personal relationships or professional management, you need understanding; otherwise, you won't have fruitful relationships. 


Universal religion is moral behaviour
15 Feb 2009, 0000 hrs IST, ACHARYA MAHAPRAJNA


The word 'religion' is ingrained in our psyche. It is because of over-familiarity that people feel less inclined towards religion. 



Universal religion is moral behaviour (Getty images)


Today religion is acceptable only on the basis of experimentation. At one end are people who want forever to keep to tradition. They do not want any change. At the opposite end are those who reject religion. Both these extreme viewpoints are incapable of creating a balance. 
If acceptance of the hereditary character of religion is not desirable, its rejection is altogether undesirable. No one who thinks in the language of unity, harmony and love can ever reject religion. In the absence of understanding the distinction between institutionalised religion and religion as spirituality, people make the mistake of rejecting religion. 

Both rationality and spirituality have given rise to society. The first signs of non-violence arose when human beings started living in communities. The first principle of living together is acceptance of the other person's existence and adherence to ethical self-restraint, of people not transgressing into others' houses or robbing others of their possessions. 

Ethical self-restraint prevents people from becoming a hindrance to others. It has its origin in religion, non-violence and non-possession. Our sense of discrimination enables us to distinguish between obligation and non-obligation, edible and inedible, nectar and poison. It is made possible by religious awareness. 

A religion divorced from spirituality is shackled by externally imposed rules and instead of developing religious awareness, frustrates it. Don't abandon rules, just don't be a captive of artificial rules uninformed by spirituality. Religion ought to be the culmination of independent awareness and not an imposition. When people regard themselves as Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs, they do so because of genealogy, not religiousness. Genealogy can be a source of inspiration to religion; it cannot be its soul. The soul of religion is spirituality. Only that person is religious who experiences spiritual awakening, irrespective of genealogy. 

No system of government can pose a challenge to a religion that is spiritual. The question of protecting religion arises only when religion is supposed to have an existence separate from that of the religious person. Bliss and spiritual alertness are the soul of religion. They constitute the most attractive face of religion. We are seldom aware of them because we use introversion very little. Religion should spring from within, even as a well is sustained by its internal springs. The well digger should only connect the external world with the inner springs. He who is not aware of his inner riches remains deprived of prosperity. Mental conflicts result from the acceptance of the external and the rejection of the internal. 

Morality is a relative term. If socially approved mores are deemed morality, their form can never be unchanging. Morality as end-result of religion is assessed not by social beliefs but by personal purity. There is no place for exploitation, oppression, arrogance and frenzy in the behaviour of a religious person. Propriety, truthfulness and simplicity constitute morality. 

Shall we call him religious who does not reflect the spirit of religion in his behaviour? Just as whenever there is smoke there must be fire, wherever there is morality there must be religion. Encountering moral behaviour we can infer the religious spirit inherent in a man. Religion is first reflected in morality and only later in worship. Will a mansion without a strong foundation endure? Can a structure build on worship without morality be able to afford proper protection? In the absence of morality, the place of worship will tumble and religion will not be safe on this Earth.