The Root, the Fruit and the Flower

The great awakening is a mental thing. It does start in the heart, but it ends with a sound mind. Our minds are something like a fruit tree in the spiritual universe. We have to have a good root system to have healthy fruit, and if we don’t have good fruit, the gods aren’t going to enjoy us.. 

The heart is the fertile earth. When we develop good soil, roots will flourish. The roots are wisdom. When we develop wisdom our fruit becomes delicious. The fruit is our action in the world. Our fruit can be sweet or bitter, based on our heart and in wise action we can have a sweetness that is better than our former selves. And of course our flower is the blooming of our consciousness under the pruning of the divine community.

The foundation (and throughout us) is, indeed, compassion. Taoism has the “three jewels” of Lao Tzu’s teachings: simplicity, patience, and compassion. You will not go astray practicing these three jewels. If we get our heart involved in this, we will notice that compassion awakens in us. This is the deepening root system of practice and the development of wisdom growing in us. When our root system is established, the way we relate to the world will change too. Our “fruit” will become sweeter and better over time until we have fully established our new way of relation to each other and the little world we live in.  The flower of our development is, of course, our relationship to the divine reality. Here is the definition of Brahman in Hinduism, I found this on wikipedia…

Brahman is…”the ultimate unchanging reality, that is uncreated, eternal, infinite, transcendent, the cause, the foundation, the source and the goal of all existence…”

You can see that this divinity is valuable. So let us not scoff at the notion of something greater than ourselves, humankind has always been a little narcissistic though, so don’t listen to every thought that comes into your head. We, as a species, are largely crazy. Just look at how we relate to each other on a daily basis. We judge, we hate, we steal from the poor and give it to the rich; it’s easy to see why this world is in such disarray. If we form our hearts in compassion, we can begin to grow into the civilization we’re destined to be. All life is moving toward the goal of being awake and conscious, if we lay down roots of wisdom we can form our fruit well. When our action is wise and non-violent, the community of Heaven is given to us. 

We have to find our own way. No path is perfect, but some are better for certain people than others. The seeking is what brings peace. Peace is the discovery of what was always within. We are not separate from this Brahman reality (call it God or Om or whatever else you need). It is the essence of Wisdom; the essence of the universe itself. The universe is waking up in all places, all at once. Let’s help our fellow people do the same.

Practice is essential, or we will never go further. We have to have a meditative practice if we want to proceed into the spiritual dimensions and have mental freedom from the incessant critical judgements in our heads. But an uninformed practice can never go anywhere. We must balance that with some study too. This is just how it works. If you want to learn all the same lessons over and over again, I suppose you can, but it’s time for us to wake up. Most of the world knows little about this; don’t be like them. How many wars do we need first? I have a beginning practice in the “Zen” section, and another in “The Path I Follow.” Don’t hesitate to study deeper on the subject. I'm sure the emergent ones would recommend this too.

So, the heart is fertile soil, the roots come down from wisdom and anchor it, the fruit is wise and sweet action, and the flower is the crown of a holy soul; the relationship perfected. You will probably be working on this for a long while, but it's the only path worth taking. It ends in transcendence. Don’t spend too much time analyzing your progress, it will develop naturally, just start to practice and be warmed by your efforts. Carry on…

I would like to extend a warm well being to our Christian friends today. Christianity didn’t work for me, but if you have solace and peace in your practice, then I am glad.

Happy Easter…