If trees had souls, perhaps the quality most attributable to them would be gentleness. Gentleness is not a lack of strength, but a quality which doesn’t disturb, doesn’t push, yet knows its power and can provide shelter. Trees. Enormous structures capable of destroying within seconds with massively complex systems of growth and decay. No wonder humanity has picked the image of the tree to illustrate its own history: the tree of life. And yet, so simple, so gentle.

Wherever the seed falls, regardless of atmosphere, even suitability often, it just grows, stopped by nothing except human violence. And it never tries to be anything other than what it is, which is the tendency that most disturbs. Oaks won’t suddenly lose their oakishness, unless cross-pollinated or equally something unnatural. Nor does it hurt. Though towering over an animal or insignificant tangle of bushes, a tree won’t touch. In fact, it provides shelter.

As far as we know, trees don’t have souls. But there are souls who are like trees, enormous in their thinking and yet totally gentle. This isn’t the gentleness of insecurity. That can fool sometimes. I remember a girl at my school like that—very clever, and yet her writing lacked stridency and her poems were always perfect, until the last line, when the rhyme was wrong. It seemed to be her gentleness that was keeping her just a touch off brilliance. But now, I think she was just afraid or did not know how good she was.

Real gentleness in her person is a great power. The power that sees, understands, but never interferes. Like the branch of a tree, just touching the earth but never taking root in it. Never to take root in someone else’s mind, but to help, that’s gentleness.

It is hard not to refer to God when thinking of these things. Imagine, the being in the universe who sees and understands everything and yet the One who remains completely apart, impinging only on invitation. Her relationship with God is an ideal one, because life is dramatically influenced and yet only as good as it would be by standing next to someone completely still who was just teaching you how to look. Not saying: ‘Look at Me. I will show you,’ but just: ‘Be here and you will see how to work on your life.’ We all need that gentle tree to sit under.

Excerpted from Inner Beauty published by Brahma Kumaris, Literature Department, Brahma Kumaris, Ishwariya Vishwa Vidyalaya, Mount Abu

Brahma Kumaris is the largest spiritual organisation in the world led by women. It was the founder, Prajapita Brahma Baba, who chose to put women in the forefront. Founded in India in 1937, Brahma Kumaris has spread to over 140 countries and has had an extensive impact in many sectors as an international NGO. However, their real commitment is to helping individuals transform their perspective of the world from material to spiritual.

Painting of a person meditating under a tree by NITA AGARWAL