When The Fruit Is Ripe, It Drops By Itself

                                           

               

When a fruit is ripe, it drops by itself. So does our attachment to things, persons and ideas.

 

Theory after theory, talk after talk, book after book has been written on this subject – how to overcome attachment, for attachment brings pain, self-inflicted pain. But the mind of man is hungry. It thrives on desire. And it is the desire for things, persons, ideas, that finally brings pain. The same thing, that causes, pleasure in the beginning, is responsible for bringing pain afterwards.

 

Saints and holy men, thinkers and philosophers have given their own theories on how to overcome desire. J Krishnamurthy says – look at desire like wind passing through the leaves and branches of trees. However, for a spiritual person, on the path, it is an increasingly disturbing realization that no matter what s/he tries, desire does not leave his mind. These forms of desire keep surfacing in one form or the other.

I have heard a story of a man, who, having taken the permission of his whole family, left home of his last journey – vanaprashtha ashrama. He stayed away for many years in the forest, trying in the process to forget the world he had been in and all that came with it, to find God. Naturally, he wrote no letters, made no phone calls, nor sent any telegrams to his family. Slowly, the memory of his family left him and so did the attachment he had to the images and feelings he had in his mind, for them.

 

Then one day, a young boy arrived. Distressed from a broken love, he wanted peace of mind.

” Show me the way by which I can find peace of mind ”, he pleaded.

 

Suddenly a great flush of feelings rushed out of some corner of the man’s mind. His whole face lit up. Someone had heard of him. Someone had recognized that he had overcome desire. He was at peace. Someone had approached him, for their peace of mind!

 

And the man’s head swelled up.

 

Realizing the bloated attitude of the man, the young boy left. There was nothing to learn from him, he thought. He could see the disturbing characteristics of a man full of vanity and pride over his achievements.

 

The devices of the mind are cunning and numerous. It is therefore called bhavasagar -  the sea of thoughts which one must cross to realize the Eternal. It’s ways are myriad and it is a many headed serpent. Which one will raise it’s when, is difficult to know. Indeed, impossible too.

 

Even if apparently the man had forgotten his family and the attachment he had to the images and memory of them, actually, the attachment had only taken a round about turn. He had become the whole family himself. His attachment to them had become attachment to himself and his achievements, instead. And it only required the young boy to come, to show it up.

 

Indeed, nothing had been gained.

                       

When the fruit is ripe, it drops by itself. There is nothing to do but watch.

 

A sea of thoughts occupies our minds at all times. All these thoughts have an electric charge. Some are strong and dominant, some aren’t. All thoughts give rise to action. Dominant thoughts arise again and again and force us to act upon them. But, just in case, we break the pattern and stop to act on them, then, they will keep arising again and again, getting stronger and stronger every time till finally, they lose their charge on us, because only when we act on these thoughts, we recharge them so to say. If we don’t they will ultimately, drop.

 

Not easy to do however. A persistent thought comes to my mind about my ex-boy friend. The thought compels me to act. Make contact. Check out if I am still on his mind; has he really forgotten me; and even if he has, my reappearance will bring back in his mind, thoughts about me. He will begin to think of me; he will act; he will return to me…..etc, etc.

 

All games of the mind. The more we are attached to our thoughts, the more games the mind will play. The more will be our misery.

 

But, if we stop to “give energy” to these rising thoughts, one day they will die out and fall into the vast sea of thoughts that have no electric charge at all. In fact, they will cease.

 

Both thoughts of good, bad, anger, jealousy, thoughts of rejection, bitterness, happiness, indeed all thoughts keep us attached to the objects of our desire. But, one day, when the time is ripe, the object of our thought drops and with it our desire for it.

 

The tree is never in a hurry to see its fruits ripen. It knows that the flower has come and will be followed by the fruit. And just as the petals of the flower fell when the fruit came, so will the fruit, grow and ripen with age and time. And when it is fully ripe, its own weight will pull it down by the force of gravity. It will fall effortlessly, leaving the branch on which it grew.

 

The tree is not in a hurry. It is intrinsically stable and grounded. It has been a spectator of events when the flower came. It remains a spectator when the fruit falls. It is neither attached to the flower nor the fruit. Neither to the flowers that will come again, nor to the fruits which will follow. And never to the fruits that will finally fall, for it knows that – when a fruit is ripe, it drops by itself.

 

So does our attachment to things, persons and ideas.

 

 

 

 

Art By Smriti Vohra