Two banyan leaves are lying on the table in front of me. To the physical eye one color one size and one kind of pattern appears, exactly the way the hands of four billion humans look similar. But when we read the past and present written upon the hand, it presents a map of a new world. The lines of the population’s thumbs reveal to us four individual minds, and each revelation is different from the other.
Just as the children of one father possess different colors, forms and features, the millions of leaves of a single tree are also different. The patterns inside each leaf do not match. Place two leaves of a tree side by side and test it.
Trees also talk among themselves. They are influenced by people of good or bad character. Soft or loud music affects trees. It is no longer hidden that within a human two kinds of senses work at all times. One kind of senses keeps him confined in time and space, and through the second kind the boundaries of time and space lift from over him and the human observes the worlds that dwell beyond space. In every creature of the universe these two kinds of senses are active. Meaning every creature possesses a sixth sense.
When the sixth sense or inner sight inside the leaf saw me thinking within myself, the leaf spoke as if alive. “O child of Adam, I have heard from my ancestors (trees) that Adam is the noblest of creation. He possesses a specific gift of power. A gift from which the other creation of God is deprived, and this deprivation is of their own making.”
After the creation of the universe, when the Supreme Creator wished to make all creatures of the heavens and earth His trustee, God addressed the heavenly and earthly creation asking if there is any who would carry Our trust upon their frail shoulders.
The heavenly and earthly creation replied with one voice. “O Lord, we are very weak and frail. We are not capable of this.” But Adam, without thought, lifted this trust onto his shoulders. Today that same Adam who was declared honored above all creation in the skies and the earth is groaning in suffering and distress and has become an enemy to his own self.
When trees discuss this honor among themselves, they laugh heartily at the ignorance of Adam’s descendants and say that Adam, who considers himself the most intelligent among us, is the most foolish creature. Our ancestors were wiser than Adam’s ancestors. They understood that accepting God’s trust and then neither protecting it nor using it is ingratitude of blessing. And ingratitude is thanklessness. And nations that are not grateful become a burden upon the page of existence. Heavenly afflictions poison their lives. Their sense of dignity becomes stained. Such nations become symbols of humiliation and defeat.
Hearing these words of intellect and awareness from the tongue of a banyan leaf, I sank into the ocean of absorption. My tongue could not find the ability to say anything. The twelve trillion parts of the mind’s computer became still and frozen. The light in my eyes dimmed so that I could not fully witness understanding and insight.
At last I asked a foolish question. “Do trees also possess intellect the way the children of Adam are adorned with intellect?”
Both leaves quietly laughed, then burst into a sarcastic laugh and said, “The denial or acceptance of anything is itself proof of intellect and awareness. If our ancestors lacked intellect, they would not have said that they cannot bear the trust.”
The history of millions of years born from the womb of the earth, filled with savagery, bloodshed, killing, prejudice, dishonesty, selfishness and injustice, tells us that compared to humans we are more intelligent and more aware. We know that no creature has a more inferior intellect than the child of Adam. Is it not oppression and foolishness that food is piled in the house yet the human starves? Is it not ignorance that the entire universe has been subjected for Adam, yet the child of Adam is dragging his heels in the prisons of limitation? Instead of spreading light in the world through his inner light, the child of Adam wants to fill the world with darkness.
Hearing this dialogue from the leaves of the banyan tree, my eyes filled with tears. The liver bled and the heart shattered. A sigh escaped and in my ears a voice echoed:
“If only I were a leaf of a tree upon which dew would rest like a pearl, and birds sitting on the branches would praise God. At dawn their songs would create such ecstasy in my soul that I would lose myself in the vastness of the sky and bring back the honor of being the noblest of creation.”
By Khawaja Shamusddin Azeemi RA, From his book, The Voice of the Friend