Seeing the Tree Through the Ripe Fruit

Seeing the Tree Through the Ripe Fruit

An Exercise in Viveka

«"Do you judge of an apple tree and the taste of its fruits by the unripe, undeveloped, worm-eaten ones that strew the ground, large even though their number be sometimes? If there is one ripe developed fruit, that one would indicate the powers, the possibility and the purpose of the apple tree and not hundreds that could not grow."

Swami Vivekananda, Letter to H.H. the Maharaja of Khetri»

Swamiji's analogy is an invitation to cultivate viveka, the capacity to distinguish the essential from the incidental, the permanent from the changing, and ultimately the Ātma from the anātma.

Ordinarily, our attention is drawn to imperfections. We define a person by a few mistakes, a family by its difficulties, an institution by its failures, and often ourselves by our upādhis. This habit of thought arises because we identify entirely with the realm of anātma, the world of body, mind, personality, circumstances, success, failure, and the countless conditions shaped by karma and prārabdha.

Vedānta asks us to reverse this orientation.

The ripe fruit reveals the true potential of the tree. The fallen fruits merely reveal that many fruits never reached their fullest expression. They do not define the nature of the tree.

Likewise, the realized sage reveals the true possibility of human life. Such a person is not an exception to our nature. Rather, the sage reveals what our essential nature has always been.

This is the importance of Ātma-Anātma Viveka.

The defects belong to the anātma. They belong to the body, mind, guṇas, vāsanās, and prārabdha. They arise, change, and disappear. The Ātma remains ever free, ever complete, and untouched by all these passing conditions.

This discrimination is not only the gateway to Brahmajñāna. It is equally the foundation of abhyudaya, a life of wisdom, strength, and harmony. One who constantly identifies with the changing upādhis becomes anxious, reactive, jealous, and discouraged. One who increasingly abides in the vision of the unchanging develops clarity, resilience, compassion, and steadiness. Such a person naturally relates to the world with greater balance because the world is no longer carrying the burden of defining who they are.

The same vision transforms how we look at others. Instead of reducing people to their present upādhis, we learn to recognize their highest possibility. We cease judging the tree by its fallen fruits. We learn to see the tree through its ripest fruit.

The lives of Bhagavān's great devotees, the ṛṣis, the Gurus, and the jñānīs are therefore of immeasurable importance. They are the ripe fruits of humanity. They demonstrate what is possible when ignorance is removed and the ever-present fullness of the Ātma shines unobstructed.

The practice of viveka begins with oneself. Learn to distinguish the Self from the non-Self. Gradually, that vision extends to everyone and everything. Then the world ceases to be a collection of imperfect fruits. It becomes a manifestation of limitless potential, resting upon the one limitless Reality.

That is the vision Swamiji invites us to cultivate. Judge the tree by its highest fruit, and judge onself by our svarūpa - that sampradhaya reveals to us - nitya śuddha,  nitya buddha, nitya mukta (changlessless and eternally taintless, pure awareness and infinite). Unless we endeavour to recognize our svarūpa as such, we will treat others also with the same defect in vision. 

May AmbāL grant us that thriving Viveka🙏