/author/Anonymous

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The proverbial benevolent uncle turns up in a village and finds his nephews and nieces and their friends playing in a hut with toys and make-do twig-and-rag dolls. 'Why play with these?' he asks. 'Outside is the kalpa-taru, the Wish-Fulfilling Tree. Stand under it, and wish. It will give you anything you want.'\n\n The children don't believe him. They know the world's not structured to give you whatever you want. You have to struggle very hard for the smallest reward - and, of course, others always seem to get the plums, for they have what is known as 'connections.'\n\n They smile knowingly. The uncle leaves. \n\n No sooner has he left, however, than they rush to the Tree, and start wishing. They want sweets - and they get stomachache. They want toys - and they get boredom. Bigger and better toys - bigger and better boredom. \n\n This worries them. Something must be wrong somewhere. Someone is tricking them. What is this unpleasant unsuspected unwanted extra that tags along with the sweets and the toys? \n\n What they have not realized yet is that the Wish-Fulfilling Tree is the enormously generous but totally unsentimental cosmos. It will give you exactly what you want - 'this world is your wish-fulfilling cow,' says Krishna - and with it its built-in opposite. The tragedy of the world is not that we don't get what we want, but that we always get exactly what we want, along with its built-in opposite. Wish it, think it, dream it, do it - you've got it! - and literally, you've had it. That's it - having and being had.\n\n So the children grow up and become, euphemistically, 'young adults.' They really are just a bunch of over-grown kids, all trapped under the Wishing Tree. Instead of sweets and toys - childish trifles! - they now crave Sex, Fame, Money, and Power, the four sweet fruits that hang from the tree. Bittersweet fruits. There are, truly speaking, no other fruits. There is nothing else to be had.\n\n They reach out and bite each of these four fruits and get the same bitter after-taste of disappointment and disillusionment. But they go on wishing, because there seems to be little else that one can do under the Wishing Tree. Creatures come and go; the Tree is always there.\n\n Then they grow old, and are stretched out under the tree, lying on their death cots. Pathetic old men and women, kindly referred to as 'garu-jana', 'respected elders.' They lie huddled in three security-seeking groups. The first group whispers, 'It's all a hoax. The world's a farce.' Fools, they have learnt nothing.\n\n The second huddle whispers, 'We made the wrong wishes. We'll wish again. This time we'll make the right wish.' Bigger fools; they have learnt less than nothing.\n\n The third group is the most foolish. 'What's the point living? Nothing makes sense. We want to die.'\n\n The obliging tree quickly grants their last desire. They die - and they get the built-in opposite of the death-wish - they are reborn - and under the same tree, for where else can one be born or re-born but within the cosmos!\n\n There was also a young crippled boy who hobbled to the tree, but was shoved aside by his more agile friends. So he crawled back to the hut and gazed at the marvelous tree from the window, waiting for a chance for him to go and make the wish that lame boys make. What he saw from the window awed and almost unnerved him. \n\n He saw his companions wanting sweets and getting stomachache, grabbing toys and getting bored. He saw them scrambling for Sex, Fame, Money, and Power, and getting their opposites, and agonizing - and not realizing the cause of their anguish. He saw them divided into three groups - the Cynics, the self-appointed Wise Men, and the hope-bereft Death-wishers. He saw this clearly, with the poignant brilliant sharpness of naked truth.\n\n The spectacle of this cosmic swindle so impressed him that he stood stunned in brief, lucid bafflement. A divine comedy, a divine tragicomedy, the panoramic cycle of karma, was being enacted in front of his eyes. A gush of compassion welled in his heart for the victims of karma, and in that gush of compassion the lame boy forgot to wish. He had sliced the cosmic fig-tree with non-attachment.

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There is no constancy in the man who runs after pleasure and power, whose reason is robbed by the fool's flattery.

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For death is sure of that which is born, and of that which is dead, birth is certain. Why do you grieve over the inevitable? All beings are unmanifest in the beginning, manifest in the middle, and again unmanifest at the end. Is this a cause for grief?'

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Heat, cold, pain, pleasure - these spring from sensual contact, Arjuna. They begin, and they end. They exist for the time being. Endure them. The man who these cannot distract, the man who is steady in pain and pleasure, is the man who achieves serenity.'

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In killing my brothers, Krishna, I cannot see anything noble - I do not want this victory, this glory, this happiness. What is glory to us, Krishna, what are pleasures and life, if those who from us deserve glory, pleasure, and life, are ready to fight us, having given up the world's delights - our uncles, our sons and our grandfathers, our eldest kinsmen, acharyas, our fathers-in-law and our grandsons.\n\n I would not kill them, not for the three worlds, let alone the earth. I had rather they killed me, Krishna.

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One's own dharma, however imperfect, is a safer guide than the dharma of another, however perfect.

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The joy which is first poison but in the end nectar, the joy enjoyed almost as a habit by the transparent mind is sattvika. \r\n \r\nThe joy of sense pleasures, first nectar, then poison, is rajasika.\r\n \r\nThe joy of self-delusion, bred by sloth and folly, is tamasika.

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The discipline that organizes the mind, the life-breath, and the senses is sattvika.\n\n The discipline that leads to wealth, success, and honor is rajasika.\n\n And that which breeds sloth, fear, grief, worry, and conceit is tamasika.

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When a clod of earth, stone, and gold become alike, serenity is achieved. Serenity is achieved by a man who considers impartially his friends, his lovers, enemies, judges, kinsmen, even the wicked.

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Restlessness is the product of sensual joys, joys that are impermanent, joys that begin and end. The wise do not seek pleasure in them.

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Even this world is not for the man without discipline; how will he gain a better one, Arjuna?

11 quotes by Anonymous