At the conclusion of the recent post in the series ‘The Art of Personality’, on the subject of vanity, Hazrat Inayat Khan makes reference to ‘the plant of desires.’  He has been describing the power of vanity as a plant growing in the garden–a magic plant that returns in a finer form each time we cut it down.  Perhaps it begins as a thorn bush, but then it might regrow as a tree bearing fruit, and if we cut that down, we might be rewarded by the sweet perfume of roses.  If we go far enough in the process, we may come at last to the ‘plant of desires.’ But what is that?

Hazrat Inayat is referring to a traditional story which he sometimes told (and which is presented in this audio tale), which says that there exists somewhere a tree of desires, or a tree that grants wishes. When we find it at last, if we merely think of mangos, the tree will be filled with mangos, and so on. In relation to the theme of the plant of vanity, it means that when the plant has been sufficiently refined, it will be able to fulfil all desires. But, we might ask, whose desires? Our own?  Or could it be the desires of those around us?

As the plant of vanity is renewed, the nature of our own wishes, and the clarity of our consciousness, will also change and evolve, and there will come a stage in life when we recognise that we are not separate from others: that we cannot be happy if they are unhappy. Then it becomes our happiness to see their happiness, and insofar as we are able, to grant their wishes–not indiscriminately, of course, for not all wishes lead to happiness.

This is the highest level of vanity, in which our vanity has dissolved into the Divine wish, and it might make us think of this beautiful pair of verses in the Vadan, Ragas:
Let Thy wish become my desire,
Let Thy will become my deed,
Let Thy word become my speech, Beloved,
And Thy love become my creed.