A king is not of any worth if he has no contact with himself

Beloved Osho,

Prince Charles, the heir to the English throne, recently spent three days on a small Scottish island with a local family, helping on a croft. Earlier this year, he spent some time in the Kalahari Desert with Lawrence van der Post. He said on television that he talks to his plants to help them grow. The future King of England seems to be interested in spiritual matters. Have you any comment to make on this?

Prem Yatro, Prince Charles is deeply interested in meditation. He is also interested in exploring the inner world. But in the West, unfortunately, such people are thought to be a little crazy – a little loony.

His statements – that he talks to his plants to help them grow – have created almost a scandal all over England. They don’t think that their future King should talk such nonsense – although it is not nonsense. But from a man from the Royal family, and particularly the man who is going to be the King, England must be feeling very insecure. His going alone in the desert or to small villages to find peace of mind is very disturbing to the British traditional, orthodox Christian; it is disturbing to his family, to the Queen and to his father, Prince Philip.

When he was in India, he had specially called Vimalkirti and his wife, Turiya – they both were my sannyasins. Vimalkirti was one of his cousins. Vimalkirti was the great-grandson of the German emperor, and he was directly connected to Prince Philip; Prince Philip was his mother’s brother.

He talked for hours about me, about meditation, about what is happening here. Vimalkirti and Turiya both invited him to come; he was very interested, but very afraid of the royal family. He was specially told by Queen Elizabeth not to go to Poona. He went to see the Shankaracharya, he went to see Mother Teresa, but Queen Elizabeth was more afraid of Poona than anything.

In the East, kings were sent – particularly future kings – to the great seers and mystics to learn the ways of inner life, because a king is not of any worth if he has no contact with himself. If he is just an extrovert, he cannot be a blessing to his people. For years in the East the princes used to sit at the feet of the masters to learn silence, to learn compassion, to learn meditation, to become aware of the mysteries of existence. The king should not only be aware of the mundane world, he should also have his roots in the sacred – only then is he a complete man. And only then can he look after his people in all aspects of life. But in the West, it is totally a different thing.

Prince Charles is being thought of as if he is a little crazy, and England is worried because he is going to be the King. He has already started throwing his weight; he insists on his way of life.

It is a well-known scientific fact that you can talk to the trees, and you can help them to grow faster, you can help them to bring bigger flowers, juicier fruits; you just have to be in a friendly, loving relationship with them. They are very sensitive people, more sensitive than man himself.

The latest research about trees and their sensitivity scientifically proves strange phenomena. Scientists have developed some instruments, something like cardiograms, which can graphically depict the exact emotions of a tree.

On a silent and beautiful morning, with the sun rising and the birds singing the graph is very harmonious. Then suddenly, the scientists bring a woodcutter with the intention to cut a tree. And immediately – the man has not started cutting it, he has not expressed his thought even that he is going to cut it – the graph starts wavering, loses harmony, shows fear, anxiety, tension; the tree has lost its joyous ecstatic interiority.

It seems that the tree is capable of reading the mind of the man, because he has not said anything. And if the same woodcutter is brought to the side of the tree without any intention to cut it, the graph goes on harmoniously, there is no change. The tree is not worried; the man is not dangerous, he is not going to harm it.

Not only that, but when a woodcutter comes with the intention of cutting a tree, a certain tree, other trees surrounding it all start showing anxiety, fear, anguish; their graphs start losing the harmonious beauty. They are not going to be cut, but one of their friends, one of their neighbors, a colleague for years, is going to be unnecessarily killed.

It was in the East with Mahavira, that the first insight came into the world that trees are living beings, and they should be treated in the same way. Vegetarianism is just a by-product of that intuition. But it remained a philosophical hypothesis.

Then another Indian man, Sir Jagdish Chandra Bose, scientifically proved that trees are living beings. He was given a Nobel Prize for his great exploration and opened a new door for future explorers. But since then fifty years, or more than fifty years have passed; nobody has gone beyond Jagdish Chandra Bose.

But recently, many scientists around the world – in the Soviet Union, outside the Soviet Union – have gone far beyond Jagdish Chandra Bose and his discoveries. The trees are not only alive; they are also conscious in their own way.

Man should not think that he is the only conscious and intelligent animal in the world, and he should not think that his is the only type of consciousness that exists. The researchers show that animals have a different kind of consciousness and a different kind of sensitivity.

A few birds… particularly bees have been found to have a certain language, and trees have been found immensely sensitive. When the gardener comes to water and to nourish them, the graph on the cardiogram attached to them starts dancing in joy, shows some ecstatic welcome. Perhaps soon we may be able to discover that they have their own kind of language that we don’t understand.

But Prince Charles talking to the trees in England will not be acceptable. He is being condemned as a little crazy. Actually, according to me, and according to all the scientific research too, what he is doing is absolutely sane – more sane than your ordinary people are.

I had an old gardener who won every year a competition in the city because he used to bring roses so big that people could not believe it. He was a poor man and his secret was that he treated trees not as trees, but as his own children. He would talk to them, he would inform them before-hand, “I am going for a competition; don’t let me down. You have to produce the biggest flower possible.”

For almost the twenty years that he was with me, he was winning every year. But his secret was not better gardening; his secret was a deep respect for the plants, bestowing on them a dignity, communing with them as if they also were human beings. He was offered many other jobs by richer people because they wanted to win the prizes.

I told him, “You can accept if somebody is giving you more money – don’t be worried.”

He said, “That is not the question. The question is that everywhere I will be thought mad. It is only you who has never said to me that what I am doing is nonsense. You have supported me, and in my whole life you are the only person who has.”

When I came to Poona, the gardener had become very old, but he was sending messages through sannyasins that he would like to come and take care of my garden. He was worried that nobody else could take care of my garden the way it should be taken care of.

What Prince Charles is doing is perfectly right. He should be supported, but he is being condemned all over England. We are so blind towards existence that it is not surprising.

Have you ever said, “Hello,” to a tree? You yourself would think that you are going out of your mind. Have you ever touched a tree with love, the same way you would touch your beloved? Have you ever hugged a tree? You are missing a whole world of sensitivity that surrounds you, that is available.

Slowly, slowly, you will start feeling that when you say hello to a tree… of course, it cannot respond in language, but it will respond in some way. It may start swaying even though there may be no wind. When you touch it lovingly, just a little acquaintance is needed, and you can feel that on the other side there is not something insensitive, but something which is far more sensitive than people are. The tree will be sending its energy, its warmth to your hand.

If you hug a tree, the world is going to think you mad. But all the trees will know that there is still hope for man; there are still sensitive people. And hugging a tree, you will find more sensitiveness, more lovingness, than you can find even hugging your friend or your beloved, because your friend, or your beloved are full of tensions, anxieties, agonies. Trees are absolutely innocent; their consciousness is as pure as the purest sky, unclouded. We are not living in a dead world.

Although it has not been discovered yet by science, it is predictable that even in rocks you will find a consciousness deep asleep. Nothing is dead anywhere; it is whole, alive, sensitive. We are unnecessarily confining ourselves to human beings. We should spread our hands in all directions – to the animals, the trees, the birds, the rocks, the oceans…. By this expansion of your experiences, your own consciousness will be evolving more and more. This universe is not a graveyard, it is full of rejoicings; you are just deaf. It is full of beauties, but you are blind. All the birds are living in a different dimension of consciousness; you can have a communication with them.

Man’s future evolution is to expand his own consciousness in all dimensions, so that he can find the oceanic life and sensitivity that constitutes the universe. To me, this sensitivity and consciousness that makes up the whole existence is the only God, not to be worshiped, but to be loved.

Create more friends, and as your friendship goes deeper into different dimensions, you will find yourself becoming richer and richer; your own heights will start reaching Everest, your own depths will start reaching the Pacific.

The new man, of which I consistently dream, is going to deny God and to accept the world. But his world will be full of godliness. The old man has been a worshiper of dead gods in the temples and mosques and synagogues. The new man will find his living god in the trees, in the birds, in the rivers, in the ocean, in the mountains, in the stars. He will transform the whole universe into his temple.

Prince Charles is moving on absolutely the right lines. He needs encouragement from every nook and corner because England will not support him; it is one of the most dull countries in the world, the most serious, long-faced, dead in the soul. But he should continue his meditations in deserts, in deep forests, in mountains. Let the whole world call him mad, but the new man will accept him as a pioneer.

Osho, The Golden Future, Ch 35, Q 1 – 29 May 1987