"The
Supreme Personality of Godhead said: It is said that there is an imperishable
banyan tree that has its roots upward and its branches down and whose leaves
are the Vedic hymns. One who knows this tree is the knower of the Vedas." ................Bhagavad-Gita
Ch 15:1
"This
banyan tree, which has got roots above the soil and branches underneath, is
quite ancient. That (its root) is pure, that is Brahman, that is the eternal
and immortal. On it rest all the worlds. No one goes beyond that. This is that."
............Katha
Upanishad Ch 4:1
If
a Banyan tree is surrounded by water, the pure reflection of the tree will
cause one to wonder which is real. With its multitude of aerial roots, the
connectivity to the real and the reflection defies differentiation. This is
true of any situation where one witnesses a true reflection like the landscape
in the accompanying picture. This is the reason we get disoriented in the polar
regions when there is a white-out, that is snow on the ground and white clouds
in the sky. Man's consciousness has been groomed through referential inference.
We need a frame of reference and the validity of our perception is as good as,
but never better than, the validity of our frame of reference. It is therefore
true that we only perceive illusion as all our references are based on sense
data derived from objective grasping.
This
is the reason that the mythological episode of the garden of Eden mentioned in
Genesis chapter 2 talks of two trees namely; a tree of knowledge and a tree of
life. God's command was to eat of the tree of life but never from the tree of
knowledge and this type of knowledge is amplified as that of 'good and evil'. Every
knowledge which is not life empowering is derived from a judgment resulting
from a reference steeped in duality. Duality is not of Divine nature and thus
leads to corruption and death.
The
unpolluted reflection is the Ashwattha tree the tree of life about which I
wrote in my commentary on the Gospel of Thomas and I reproduce what I wrote for
the reader's benefit: Article
"All
these symbolism of five worlds of consciousness, five levels of awareness, five
members of the mind and five tabernacles are unified in Yeshua’s teaching as
Five Trees of Paradise in keeping with a more eastern symbolism which can be
traced to the Vedic philosophy.
From
the universal viewpoint, the Ashwattha, the sacred tree, is an emblem of the
"Tree of Life," the symbol of the never-ending universe. Here we have
an instance of progress from universals to particulars. This tree has (1)
"its roots above," (2) "its branches below," (3) "the
lesser shoots," (4) "the leaves," and (5) "those roots
which ramify below." Commencing in the unknown, the universal, the
beginningless and endless, the Rootless Root of all-being, the Tree is thus
reversed. The "roots above," generated in Heaven, represent the
"First Cause," the Logos that links manifestation to
Purusha-Spirit-SELF."
The
pure reflection and the cyclic nature of consciousness is again brought to our
attention in the writings of Hermes Trismegistus in his Emerald Tablet, an
ancient document probably dating to the Greco-Egyptian time. The verses 2 and 3
says: "That which is below is like that which is above and that which is
above is like that which is below to do the miracles of one only thing. And as
all things have been and arose from one by the mediation of one: so all things
have their birth from this one thing by adaptation."
Let
us now reflect on this great revelation and love to you all.
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