Mystic Mantra: The tree of life

“Khamemi savva jeeve, savve jeeva khmantume,
Mitti me savvabhueshu, vairam majh na knayi”
(I beg forgiveness to all living beings and I forgive all,
Every being is a friend of mine and nobody is an enemy.)
 
This is the most important teaching of the 24th Tirthankara, Mahavira. It is about love for all and no enmity towards anyone. This feeling of friendliness can be called a universal prayer. Friendship is central to all the positive feelings as it is not limited to our small family, it can be as vast as this whole humanity and the whole of universe. And it is always needed as we can see that friendship is almost disappearing from the world.

We certainly have many aquaintances but very few friends, as it has become very difficult for the modern man to understand the idea of friendship. We read ancient tales about great friendships, but we simply think of them as stories or folk tales. We believe that acts of selfless love and sacrifice cannot happen in reality, because such things are not occuring in and around our lives. In today’s world, love is turning sour and bitter. Love is turning poisonous as it lacks the soul of friendliness which is as vast as this universe.

There is a beautiful Jataka katha told by Gautam Buddha.
Once, in a forest, an elephant, a rabbit, a monkey and a partridge were fighting over the ownership of a tree where all of them had fed.
The elephant claimed, “Well, this is my tree because I saw it first.”
The monkey replied: “Now, elephant do you see any fruits on this tree?”
The elephant agreed that the tree was without any fruit.
The monkey continued: “That’s because I had been feeding on the fruits of the tree long before you ever saw it.”
The rabbit spoke up: “I fed on the leaves of this tree when it was just a small sapling before the monkey ate its fruit and way before the elephant ever saw it.”

Finally the partridge asserted: “The tree belongs to me because the tree wouldn’t have grown if I hadn’t spit it out as a seed. I helped plant the seed that grew into this huge tree before the rabbit fed on it, or the monkey ate its fruit, or the elephant saw it.”

The elephant, monkey and rabbit conceded that the partridge was the first to know the tree.

The four animals worked together and with their combined strength each one benefited and no one went hungry.

Swami Chaitanya Keerti, editor of Osho World, is the author of Osho Fragrance