Hereby I convey to everyone the message of Bharat (India). The message of self-realization, the message of salvation, the message of humanity, the message of self-sacrifice. I convey this message through a small story.

Once, there lived a very rich man. He possessed all riches on the earth. There is nothing in this material world that he cannot buy. With his wealth he travelled all over the world, he conquered places, he conquered people, all with his wealth. He was invincible in his wealth. There is no end for his satisfaction, he kept travelling all over the world accumulating new riches to his wealth day by day.

One day, on his way, he came across a very big age-old tree. It stood there as a silent spectator for centuries. It spread itself so much that by being under it anyone will forget even the scorching sun of deserts, soothed by its pleasant breeze.

The rich man thought of taking rest for a while and took the shelter of tree. He forgot time below that tree, he continued to take rest and after a while he started talking to the tree. "See, I am a very very rich man, there is nothing that I cannot possess in this world, every place in this world is under my control, everyone has to obey my orders, there is no such person on earth who denies to work under me, I am invincible. See, even you are giving me shelter although you don't know who I am! I conquered everyone, everyone and everyone. What did you do? just simply stood here for centuries bearing rains, hails, cold winters and scorching sun. See, I have all the comforts on this earth, what do you have?"

The tree very soberly replied the rich man. "My dear friend, you are a very rich man, I did not conquer any one, I don't have any wealth on my name, no body cares about me, I don't have any comforts like you, but I will tell you what I did silently all these years". The tree continued like this, "I stood here from centuries, I saw many generations. Many people came here. When they hit me with stones I gave them my fruits, bearing all the pain in me. When they come here in the scorching sun, I gave them shelter. When they chopped me with their axes, I gave them my wood very happily, overcoming all my pain. When they were shivering, I burnt parts of mine to protect them from cold winds. And when someone on someday uproots me, I will sacrifice myselves to become whatever they wanted to make out of me. My friend, I did not earn anything, not any fame, not any wealth, not any materialistic wealth. I just gave to people what they wanted from whatever I have, all my life. Even now I am happily giving you shelter from the scorching sun, by blowing pleasant breeze with my leaves. My friend, you owned whatever you saw, on your name, but I gave to everyone whatever I owned, I served people without any selfishness and without any pain".

The rich man silently heard all of this and left the place. That night while watching the night stars, he started thinking about what the tree has said to him. He realised the true meaning of those words. His heart was moved. He started understanding the true meaning of life on earth and felt guilty on spending his life just to earn things and never helping anyone wholeheartedly. His ignorance was washed away by the words of the tree. From that moment he decided to spend rest of his life helping people with what he earned till then. He travelled the whole world again, but this time not to earn and not to conquer, but to help people and to give them whatever he had.

After some years of travelling all over the world and helping innumerable people all over the world, he came back to the same place where he took the shelter of the banyan tree before some years, but he saw no tree there. The whole place was flattened down without even a sign being left that there stood a big tree there once upon a time.

Being distressed he started asking people in the nearby village. He found what had happened to the tree. There was a big storm in that village a few months ago and the storm washed away all the houses of people and their belongings. They were spared with nothing. But the big tree sustained the storm. Villagers having no other way to live, uprooted the age-old gigantic tree, chopped it down into pieces and out of the wood that it gave they made houses to the people who lost their houses, made carts to people who lost their livelihood, made cradles to the babies who need to sleep and burnt the remaining of it to protect themselves from cold winds.

The rich man heard this heart-squeezing advantages that people had made out of the tree, which had shown him the right path and gave the true message of life on earth. The rich man did not leave that place. He lived at the place where the tree once stood, for the rest of his life, helping people in whatever ways he can.

After some years, he too died. But he conveyed to others the true message of life. People in that village remembered the tree and the rich man forever. Every person in that village grew atleast a plant in their homes, helped whomever they had come across and lived their rest of the lives happily.

This is the message of Bharat (India) to the whole world. Helping people, self-sacrifice, self-realization, salvation, humanity, humility and kindness.

V Rama Aravind,
2006-01-15.
Posted on: 2006-01-16.