HARMONY

Each morning for the last few days, I have watched the leaves unfold on a beautiful Abrico de Macaco tree that sits outside my window and marvelled at the harmony displayed. The leaves are now fully open and are the lovely, delicate green that new leaves the world over display. It may seem strange that a tree is coming into leaf when we approaching the end of summer here in Brasil but the weather has been so hot and dry this summer that the leaves fell off from lack of moisture.

The harmony of which I speak is not just that the fresh, green leaves harmonize perfectly with their surroundings but also the fact that the tree itself is in such perfect harmony with Mother Nature that it allows her to work her magic by making itself freely available. The tree is content to be. It does not seek to be an oak or a palm or a jacaranda, it merely provides the means whereby nature can disclose her splendour to all through the tree’s leaves, blossom and fruit. It is in balance, as though it is fully aware of its role in the scheme of things and knows its contribution is important.

It makes me think how much better our world would be could we as human beings, accept that each one of us is “important in the plan of Him who framed this scale of beings”*. If instead of envying the talents of others, we could recognise we too have talents and strive to make the best use of them; if instead of trying to bend the will of others to our own, we could accept that variety in all things really is the spice of life, and allow tolerance to rule our thoughts; if instead of fighting what we often describe as ‘fate’, we could accept that everything happens with a purpose and co-operate with it; if instead of being in conflict with those with whom we disagree, we could seek for harmony; if instead of worrying and becoming stressed, we could be still and allow the “peace that passes all understanding” to enter our hearts and souls.

Then would we be in the same harmony with the natural world and our fellows as is that tree outside my window; the same harmony as the rose and the jasmine who freely give their wonderful fragrance to saint and sinner alike; not for them any discrimination on grounds of colour, social standing, race or religion. If only we could learn to give, to give from our hearts, expecting nothing in return we should learn that in giving, we automatically receive. What is more, we receive in proportion to our needs instead of our wants. It is without any doubt, ‘more blessed to give than to receive’ and this is due to the Law of Compensation. Unfortunately, all too often, we seek to circumvent this Law because we are ego driven. The ego convinces us we must have more and more, without reference to our needs, only to our desires.

Were we in greater harmony with our surroundings, we should learn that all life contributes to the life of all other life – there can be no separation. We should learn that the deep, slow energy of the tree for instance, is available to us, if we only learn how to ask; if we only learn how to blend our inner selves with the inner self of the tree, the flower, the bush, the animal, the mountain, the stream, the ocean or above all, our fellow human beings. Were we willing to change our ways and seek to do these things, I believe the world would be transformed. All inequality, all envy, all hatred, all conflict, other than that needed to grow and strengthen ourselves, would disappear. There is much ignorance amongst us but it is not intellectual ignorance or lack of scholarship, it is lack of insight. The blindness that causes us not to see the obvious; the blindness that refuses to see that ‘all are parts of one stupendous whole, whose body nature is and God the soul”**


*Francis Thomson ** Alexander Pope