A group of friends recently had a conversation regarding this saying from the Bowl of Saki for the month of December : Man himself is the tree of desire, and the root of that tree is in his own heart.  Readers may well recognize a connection here with a Sufi story that was sometimes told by Hazrat Inayat Khan, of a seeker who found himself lying beneath the branches of a tree that seemed capable of offering him fruits and flowers and whatever came into his mind, until he permitted the seed of doubt to lodge there. When he wondered if this phenomenon was only his imagination, the tree vanished like a dream at dawn, never to be seen again.

We spend our life in search of the fulfilment of one hope or another, but often we seek outside of ourselves, looking perhaps for a figure with a magic wand, or maybe a winning lottery ticket, not recognizing that it is we ourselves who have the power to make our wishes come true.  If we are not aware of this, it is only our lack of familiarity with the art and science of wishing. The roots of a tree serve to anchor it against the storm, and whatever we wish for must face trials and tests before coming to realization; if we are not wholeheartedly committed to our wish, if we lack patience, the winds of opposition may blow it over.  Then we will suffer disappointment, and perhaps retreat into the erroneous and barren belief that wishing for anything is pointless.  

To grow and give fruit, a tree must be fed and watered, and if it is rooted in our heart, it is our love and sacrifice that will sustain it.  Depending on what we long for, if it is a fruit that is slow to ripen, for example, we may also have to feed the wish with our blood and water it with our tears.  To raise the most precious crop, we will have to give everything we have, but the harvest will be worth it.

A careful gardener also knows it is necessary to prune the tree, for if it is left untended, it will soon produce an undisciplined growth of interweaving branches, with side-shoots reaching in all directions. The energy locked into this growth and the lack of sun reaching the fruit means the crop will be small, difficult to harvest, and perhaps susceptible to pests and diseases.  Pruning our own tree of desire must be done with wisdom, choosing the strongest, most central yearnings and removing others to ensure success.  If we care for the tree of wish properly, it can grow all the way to heaven – which would take us into a related story, one full of mysticism that is universally overlooked, that of Jack and the Beanstalk.

Finally, implicit in the saying from the Bowl of Saki is our attitude towards our wishes.  We can understand that if a wish is truly rooted in our heart, our attitude should be positive and productive.  Then we will make a reality of this saying from Vadan Talas: Make of them big things if you wish to do small things; and make of them small things if you wish to do big things.