By Christopher Greenwood
Day 125 Lesson – Going beyond the ordinary
In the past, I’ve shared messages about how Mohanji’s vision really encompasses all aspects of an activity or a platform. For example, each Mohanji founded platform has a very distinct vision, purpose, set of goals, and clarity on where it could potentially reach. Plus, we have the pace at which activities are moving. This is a deadly combination for good things to come into the world.
What I wanted to share today was a new initiative, which has been founded by Mohanji, which I think is fantastic. And that’s the fruit tree plantation drive. Besides being a great initiative itself, for me, it’s a good reminder of how, when you have something, an idea, if you look at all of the options and the possibilities of how that could be taken to its highest potential, you can come up with something great. Because many people plant trees, but very few people have said – actually, we’re going to plant fruit-bearing trees.
This is a good reminder for me because as the to-do list grows, what can be a common fallback is to quickly complete tasks as fast as I can, which means things get done. But then the time is also not taken to see if anything could have been done better, anything improved, whether something could have actually been something much greater.
I’ve seen many tree planting initiatives across the world where people will plant trees in an effort to combat the effects of climate change or CO2 emissions. You could even pick these up when you were able to travel by air, not that we can do much of this at the moment, but on some plane tickets, you could tick a box and say that you’d like to offset the carbon emissions by planting trees. But what I hadn’t thought about and has come out from this initiative is, what trees are being planted.
Here in India, there’s a popular way to plant trees or regenerate forests, and that is being done with Acacia. Actually, I learned here that this is terribly hungry for water; it sucks it all out of the ground, which means the surrounding areas are left devastated. So on the face of it, planting a tree is a good thing, but if it’s at the detriment of something else, it isn’t so good. Also, sometimes not many people look after the tree, so it will never grow to its full potential.
With this initiative, the perspective has shifted. Because by planting fruit-bearing trees only, it’s sharing a message that this will give fruit for generations to come and the generation now. So all the animals, beings, and even people will benefit now and in the generations to come. There are five countries where this will be active at the moment: the UK, South Africa, Serbia, the USA, and India.
India has set the goal that by the end of 2021, they’ll have planted 100,000 fruit-bearing trees all across the country. And depending on the region, they’ll have the most appropriate tree for that location, including maybe some spiritual trees or ones where you have some other significance if fruit-bearing trees are not possible, like sandalwood or something like this. I think that’s a fantastic initiative. The teams are pulling all material together to start raising CSR funding, sponsorship branding and acquiring key volunteers.
Using that analogy of planting a fruit-bearing tree, I’m wondering now what more I can do, especially as part of this platform, to be contributing and plant something that will give fruit for the generations to come. Because Mohanji has always shared that this platform will benefit many people, and what we set in place now, what we do now, and what we plan now won’t just be good for us, but it’s going to be helpful and benefit all of those who come after us. So now I’m thinking of which type of trees have I been planting and can I give more focus from water soaking trees to fruit-bearing trees.
“Fruit tree plantation is not just an act of kindness; it is a social responsibility. This is giving the fruits of kindness to the coming generations beyond species. Fill the forests with fruit trees. Plant more fruit trees in and around your city. It brings sweet grace to our lives beyond time.” Mohanji
Day 126 Lesson – Loyalty
This morning when I went to speak with Mohanji, he was finishing recording his 4 am Club message. He records this every day without fail. The 4 am Club has about 200,000 members now across the world. It’s a Malayalam speaking community. Mohanji’s friend and the Club’s founder, Robin, asked Mohanji to record this message daily. So even when we travel, no matter what’s happening or where we are, Mohanji will record it. There’ll be a message sent that this is the topic, and then he speaks something.
After finishing today, he just mentioned that this is out of the ordinary because usually, he wouldn’t do something like this every day. And that’s because most of his speaking comes spontaneously. For me, this shows what he’s doing for his friend. He’s said before that the reason he’s there is because his friend Robin asked him to. Since he’s been entrusted with this task, he does it complete justice without fail. For me, it’s a clear sign of his loyalty. In fact, extreme loyalty to all his friendships.
Mohanji said before as well that when somebody trusts you, you shouldn’t give up on them ever. This is also powerful coming from Mohanji because he has experienced many betrayals in life; his business partners took away his company. Many people who were very close to him ended up betraying him, saying bad things, character assassinating, and all sorts have happened to him. But still, he’s extremely loyal to people when they show trust in him.
Today for me, was a reflection on the lessons which come from how Mohanji interacts with people in friendships and relationships. For example, he’s always 100% clear on his relationship with a person. It’s his connection with them. And he wouldn’t let anybody influence that or sway it. Even if someone says this person is not good, or they’re bad, or they’re doing this, he wouldn’t be interested. Because what’s important for him is his connection with that person.
What he’s demonstrating, I can see through his life, is that loyalty is worth something. And when you look back at all the betrayals that he’s had, it’s quite amazing because I think many other people probably wouldn’t trust anybody again after they experienced those things.
From time to time as well, there’ll be meetings arranged with his close friends from school days. He still has a really good group of people who he went to school with, both in his younger age and also in college. During our time in Kerala, we visited quite a few of these people. It was really nice to see that despite everything which has outwardly changed for Mohanji, in who he is, what his position is now in the world as a public figure, a recognized humanitarian, they’re still the same; they still have their connection, their jokes, very, very, very familiar. He even attends all the reunions and gives them real importance.
A part of the theme for this year is friendships. I think it was a good reminder this morning.
|| JAI BRAHMARISHI MOHANJI ||
Edited & Published by – Testimonials Team, 15th May 2022
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