How are we to interpret man? If we somehow manage to grasp the essence of man, perhaps even to explain and interpret it, we can take a great step towards defining self-identity and understanding authentic aims in life. It is said that in parallel with understanding our spiritual nature, man also comes to understand God ever better, and draws near to God in his soul.
Parables aid understanding by way of parallels. One such parable likens man to another member of the living world, the tree. The tree is an example of forbearance, self-sacrifice, selflessness. It does not protest when ill-treated or stripped of its fruit, peacefully endures even harsh conditions, grows steadfastly and in almost every part is of use to others – in life and in death alike.
The whole of the man-tree is the organism, man's bodily nature. This tree bears the two fruits of pleasure and suffering, and sinks three roots into material nature: dullness, energy and light. These factors pervade everything in the world, and the workings of the human body are not free of their influence either: the wisdom of goodness, the energy of passion and the inertia of dullness all come into play, forming a kind of dynamic force field around man. The fruits of happiness come in four flavours: virtue, abundance, love and salvation. The tree is bound to its surroundings in five ways, which are the sense organs, and it has six known states: hunger, thirst, sorrow, illusion, old age and, at last, death.
Although a tree is covered only by its bark, the body-tree is clad in seven layers: skin, muscle tissue, blood, fatty tissue, bone, marrow and reproductive cells. Our spreading tree is known to have eight branches, these being the grosser and subtler components that make up the material world, namely earth, water, fire, air and ether, and also the mind, the intellect and the false ego.
The tree has nine hollows, these being the cavities or openings of the body: the two eyes, the two ears, the two nostrils, the mouth, the rectum and the genitals. The ten leaves of the man-tree are the ten breaths, which are, on the one hand, the workings of the senses and, on the other, the kinds of life force that pervade the whole organism.
From the example of the tree we recognise man, while another simile presents the universe as a spreading tree. From the cosmic tree-parable of the Bhagavad Gita we recognise the world. Can we combine the two chains of simile? Can we say that the tree, the common element of the parallels man = tree and tree = cosmos, also sheds light on the parallel between the two facts it is compared with: man and the world? If the tree equals man and equals the cosmos, is it then also true that man equals the cosmos? As with the eternally valid parallel of microcosm and macrocosm, this too is surely true, though their difference is also a fact.
The Exalted Lord said: There is a banyan tree whose roots grow upwards and whose branches grow downwards, and whose leaves are the Vedic hymns. He who knows this tree knows the Vedas. These branches grow both downwards and upwards, and are nourished by the three binding forces of material nature. Its buds are the objects of the senses. It also has roots that grow downwards, and these are bound to the fruit-bearing deeds of human society. In this world it is impossible to perceive the true form of this tree. No one knows where it begins and where it ends, or where its foundation lies. But with great resolve, with the weapon of detachment, it must be felled. Then one must seek out that place from which, once reached, one need never return, and there bow down before God, who is the beginning of all things, and in whom all has been present since time immemorial. (Bhagavad Gita 15.1–4.)
This tree-simile of cosmic scope is a beautiful but tangled, unfathomable symbol of the material world. And as long as there is even a single tree left on our planet, everyone will understand what these two similes speak of.