The Leaf on the Tree. (Original date of writing this is now forgotten in the mists of time) Given that science believes, and teaches their belief to the young as facts, that we are an accidental epiphenomenon of an unexpected outcrop of creation; and given that the spiritually inclined do not know quite what to believe, then I offer the following, and for both aspects of the community to give some thought to; if they wish to think on more. To rip something down without putting anything in its place, leaves a vacuum. But to merely fill a vacuum with yet another unsubstantiated story would be no better, indeed even worse than the vacuum itself. For at least in a vacuum of knowledge and understanding one would thence seek for a truth until found, and irrespective of what that truth turned out to be. But where does one look for truth? And to where does one look for the truth of this or that thing? Well, that which I offer, and only in symbolic form here, is proved to us to be true by life itself. So I offer here a mere analogy, and one which both science and many religions like to use themselves the tree of life. Imagine then that you were a leaf on a tree. Observation initially suggests that you grew on the branch: an end product of a long series of mysterious forces which results in you, the leaf, perilously attached by a thread to the tree of life for your short term sustenance for existence thereon. One day the wind will blow and your connection to the tree of life will end; and you will revert back to the oblivion from whence you came. You, the conscious leaf, can see many other such leaves on that tree, and see also the body of the tree itself. But where is it all going to: what is it all for; is there any point or meaning to the tree and all the little leafs on it? The leafs come, and the leafs fall and go, to rot on the ground. Indeed, why does even the tree of creation exist? Is it simply to bring forth little bits of foliage that make a colourful show for a short while and then pass into the void of nothing? Thus it is that the leaf sits firmly attached to the tree for a season and simply blows around in the random actions of the wind; and sometimes wondering as to why it has to be made conscious to fulfil this silly cosmological function at all. But one day something very strange and different happens. A different kind of wind blows; and the little leaf is very disorientated for a while. For instead of the leaf looking outward its perception is turned inward. It sees not the tree and all the other foliage, nor the sky nor anything of the outer world; but only that of an inner well of blackness and void. But vision is suddenly restored, taken over by some other eye, an eye unknown to the leaf hitherto, and one which begins to move inward and downward through `nothing'. Down and down, onward and onward down into an abyss of blackness, but which is interspersed with some visions along the way, light and colours in visions not understood by the leaf at that time. That which the leaf `was' travels into the leaf, down into the branch of the tree; down the inside of the trunk of the tree, down, down through the roots of the tree itself and thence beyond the tree and into the ground itself; the very ground from which the tree itself grew. And the leaf knew that it was home; the realm from whence it came and has its origin and eternal existence. And the leaf realised that it was not a leaf at all, but rather the very sap which gives it existence; and which pays no resemblance to the leaf at all; for the leaf was always nothing more than a dead thing, a vehicle, a shell for the sap to view the finished product of the tree itself. So too is it with consciousness. Consciousness is not a man or a woman, or an animal or bird, it is a primordial cosmic energy, and the very first emanation from the point of no duration or extension; time cannot whither it nor custom stale its delight. Before the tree ever was, the sap existed; before time ever emanated into existence, the mind was. That which they call spirit, is consciousness. That which they call the soul is the tree trunk, the universe of time and space. That which they call the personality is but a seasonal outcrop of the sap of eternal life. And when the sap returned back up through the tree and back into the leaf from whence it had been, then it smiled at its neighbouring colleagues who were oh so worried about being blown off the tree of time . "Not to worry, for you are not from this universe at all; know thy self; for you are the first thing ever brought forth from no created thing, and long before the tree ever existed". And the sap of the leaf also knew as to why it existed, for it had been home and remembered what it was for and from whence it came and why. But all the other little bits of foliage creased themselves laughing until just prior to their leaf being blown off the tree and the sap within it had left, and had begun its journey back down through the vortex of the tree of creation, and on its way back home, from whence it came beyond the mists and vortices of time and change. Only that which is made in eternity can return to eternity, and all things return to from whence they came in due course. As it is with matter then so too is it with Consciousness. Not a theory, but an experience. It happens. A great Miracle is Man the meeting ground of inner and outer dimensions. Dick Richardson.
