we are but leaves

We are but leaves

Falling from a tree

We humans tend to have a very high opinion of ourselves. As a species we tend to think we're the best, despite being the species that's really made a big mess of the world. And then individually, we often like to pump ourself up, have a big ego, think we are wonderful. Or the opposite: perhaps we have very low self esteem, feeling ourselves to be inadequate and unworthy. And quite often both these are within us: a deep sense of inadequacy and a desperate attempt to cover that up, compensate for it. We like to think we are in control of our life. And yet many people feel themselves to be victimised. And again, many times both of these are within us, the control freak and the victim consciousness.

Either way there is a subtle self-aggrandisement going on. I don't really see it this way myself, though, and that's why I love this analogy. I love to watch leaves falling from a tree. They dance in the wind, each taking its own path, until they eventually settle somewhere. And to me this is what our human lives are really like. We're not really in control of anything, just as that leaf falling from a tree is not in control. It has been detached from the tree, by a gust of wind. Now it is blowing in that wind, twisting and turning, going down and up, hither and thither. There isn't much direction. And this is what our life is really like. We are buffeted by the winds of life, taken in directions that we never expected.

And we can fight against this, but that is as futile as that falling leaf fighting against its fate. The wind will carry it where it will, and it has no way of changing that or resisting it. So we should have the humility to see this, that we are like these leaves falling from a tree. And instead of being upset about that, instead of falling into a deeper sense of victim consciousness, perhaps we can see that there's a great beauty in it. As the leaves are falling there is a wonderful dance occurring. And why cannot the leaf enjoy its journey, the sense of freedom as it is carried through the air by the wind. Sure for this short time it has lost touch with the tree and the soil. It is an in-between phase, just as our life is an in-between phase between birth and death.

For me, the time before birth is like being part of a tree. You can call that tree god, the source, existence. The words do not matter. During that time, we are part of a whole, and we have no individual self identity. And then comes life, when we are floating, being carried along. And we can be frustrated and upset about that, or we can simply relax and enjoy it. Either way we will, soon enough, land on the earth and be consumed back into it, into the roots of the tree once more. And as we settle on the ground at the moment of death, we will lose our little individual sense of self once more. We will simply be part of the whole. We will have returned to the source. And for me, the journey of the spiritual seeker is to see all this, to sense all this, and even to live it, whilst we are still living this human life, even as we are but leaves falling from the tree,