Author: Balbir Mathur

The sun was just rising over the Iowa plains when I saw them—two figures walking slowly along the shoulder of the highway. Each carried a heavy backpack and a rolled-up bedroll. The woman’s gray-streaked hair was pulled neatly back despite the wind. The man’s oversized jacket flapped against his thin frame. Their faces were worn, yet there was a quiet dignity in their steps that caught my attention.

I slowed, stopped, and opened the door.

“It’s no time to be hiking,” I said. “Get in.”

They tossed their packs and bedding into the back of my small station wagon. The man helped the woman into the rear seat, then climbed in beside me, still shivering from the cold.

For nearly ten miles we drove in silence. Then they began to talk.

He’d been a truck driver in Texas but had lost his job. He’d seen an ad for work in Minnesota, so he and his wife hitchhiked north—only to find the position already taken. Now they were heading back to South Texas, hoping for better luck.

It was the early 1980s. The recession had left thousands adrift, their livelihoods gone with the factories and freight.

“I’m going to Wichita,” I told them. “That’s halfway to Texas. I can take you that far. But first I need to make a short stop in a town about twenty miles off the highway to see a friend. If you’re willing to wait an hour or so, I’ll take you farther afterward.”

The woman nodded, then asked, “Are you from India?”

“Yes,” I said.

Then came the usual questions: Where in India? What language do you speak? What’s your religion? Is your wife also from India?

I smiled politely but was too tired for conversation.

To change the subject, I asked, “Ma’am, do you know anything about grapes?”

She smiled. “Certainly. What would you like to know?”

“Anything,” I said. “Tell me anything about grapes.”

I expected a few casual remarks—but she began to speak with quiet authority about grape varieties, the soils they loved, sugar content, fertilizers, climates, markets, and how to protect vines from wind damage. It was as if she had received a PhD studying grapes her entire life.

How could a hitchhiker, wandering the highways, know so much about grapes?

She talked almost the entire way to my friend’s town.

When we arrived, I gave them a few dollars for coffee and pie and asked them to wait for me at a nearby café.

At my friend’s house, his wife told me her husband—a physician—was still at the clinic but would be home soon. She had lunch ready, and as we talked, time slipped away. Three hours passed before I remembered the couple waiting at the café.

I asked my friend’s wife to pack some food for the road. “Please make enough for three,” I said. She smiled and packed the goodies for me.

When I returned, they were still there, sitting near the door, glancing up each time it opened. The woman smiled when she saw me.

“I was afraid you might’ve left without us.”

“No chance,” I said.

Back on the road, I asked, “How did you know so much about grapes?”

She smiled softly. “I don’t know anything about grapes,” she said.

I stared at her. “But you told me everything.”

“Your Devtas told me.”

A chill ran through me. I knew that word—Devtas, the Hindu term for divine guides or angels.

“My what?” I asked.

“Your guides,” she said simply.

Then she added, “Would you like me to tell you what else your guides said?”

“Sure,” I said. “But I’m exhausted. Can your husband drive while you talk to my guides, and then tell me what they said when I wake up?”

Her husband smiled. “I wanted to offer earlier but wasn’t sure you’d agree.”

We switched seats. I leaned back and drifted off almost instantly.

When I woke an hour and a half later, I stretched and asked, “Well, what did my Devtas say?”

She smiled. “They said to shut up. They’ll talk to you directly when you wake up.”

I laughed. “All right then,” I said. “I’m awake. What do they have to say?”

“Would you like to know why you asked me about grapes?” she asked.

“That seems like a good place to start.”

“Because you didn’t want to talk,” she said gently. “But you didn’t want to be rude. So you asked a question that would make me talk instead.”

Her words hit like a bell. She was right.

Then she said, “Would you like to know why you came to visit your friends yesterday?”

I nodded slowly.

“Because your friends were having marital problems. They needed your presence. That’s why you went.”

I froze. She was right again. No one—not even my wife—knew the real reason for that trip.

“What do my guides say about them?” I asked.

“They’ll play their parts,” she said. “Then they’ll go their own ways. But your visit helped them both. It was necessary for all three of you.”

The hum of the tires faded. The car seemed suspended in stillness.

After a long pause, I asked, “If you know so much, why are you suffering in this cold? Why are you here?”

“When we didn’t get the jobs in Minnesota,” she said, “we understood why we were sent on this journey.”

“Why?”

“Your guides sent a message for you.”

I hesitated. “What is it?”

She spoke softly. “You must continue what you’ve started. Don’t give up. You’ll face many hardships, but help will come from unexpected places. Many people are waiting for you to succeed. Look to the North.”

Her words struck deep. My wife and I had given everything to the cause—our new social initiative, Trees for Life—and we were nearly out of strength.

We stopped by the roadside and shared the food my friend’s wife had packed. The air felt lighter afterward, as if something unseen had shifted.

When we reached my destination, I drove them to a shelter for the night. I gave them what money I had. They refused anything more—never asked my name, address, or phone number.

Our goodbyes were warm and lasting, as though we had known one another for lifetimes.

Even now—fifty years later—I still remember their joy.

For them, happiness meant one thing: the task completed, at any cost.

---

Postscript: The North Star

Early spring—perhaps three months later—I was in Chicago for meetings. Between appointments, I wandered into a small bookstore tucked along a quiet street.

Turning a corner between shelves, I nearly collided with a striking young black woman, well-dressed in her mid-twenties. She looked up, startled, then said softly, “Ah, you’re here.”

Before I could respond, she touched my shoulder and said, “You must not give up. You must continue. You must look to the North.”

And then she was gone.

Months later, while visiting friends in Kalamazoo, we were talking after dinner when my friend’s wife—whom I had just met that evening—set down her cup and said quietly, “Someone is telling me you must not give up. Many people are counting on you.” She didn’t explain, and I didn’t ask. I didn’t need to.

Sometime later, back in Wichita, I literally ran into a woman entering an office building. She stopped, looked at me for what felt like a long time, and said, “You are on the verge. People are beginning to know about you. Don’t give up. Keep going.” Then she pulled me aside to learn more about our work—and moments later made a generous donation. We remained good friends for a long time.

In building Trees for Life, my wife and I had given everything. Many times, we ran out of gas—in every sense of the word. Then, out of nowhere, funds arrived from cities to the north of Wichita.

Each time, I remembered the two hitchhikers—and the others who somehow found me—delivering the same message: You must not give up. Look to the North.

They became my North Star.

Even now, I sometimes wonder if they were real—flesh and bone, or something beyond.

I can comprehend only a small part of reality, but of one thing I am sure:

We are all connected.

And the North Star still burns bright for all of us.

The sun was sinking — not slowly, but like something wounded — when I first saw them.

Two figures on the shoulder of the road. Still. Watching.
Something made me ease off the gas.
Some instinct — or mistake — told me to stop.

I opened the door.
They didn’t move.

Both were wrapped in rough, hurried bandages.
One had his head swathed so tightly that blood had begun to seep through — a dark thread winding down like something alive.

They stared at me first.
Not grateful.
Not desperate.
Suspicious.

Only when they were certain I wasn’t a threat did they enter — one beside me, the other in back, each moving with the careful stiffness of the freshly injured. Their politeness felt eerie, almost ceremonial, as if they were holding themselves together from the inside out.

We drove in silence for several miles. The road stretched on, empty and indifferent. Finally, I asked how long they had been waiting.

“Since early afternoon,” one whispered.
“No one stops anymore.”

I nodded — people fear hitchhikers now.

He turned toward me, slowly, like it cost him something.
“You think only drivers are afraid?” he said.
“Hitchhikers are just as afraid of the ones who stop.”

The thought hit me harder than I expected.
I had never considered that they might fear me.

“Why?” I asked.

His answer came flat, without anger or self-pity, as if the words were just facts that no longer belonged to him.

“This morning two men picked us up. We thought we were lucky. A few miles later they pulled over, beat us with baseball bats, and took everything. Someone eventually found us and dropped us at a small clinic. After they bandaged us up, we came back. We have nowhere else.”

The car felt colder after that.
The road darker.
And every mile carried a quiet echo: violence does not always wear a warning.

I took them as far as I could and left them in a place where they could sleep, or at least stop bleeding into the bandages that had already given too much.

Before I drove away, one final detail surfaced — one that made everything heavier:

They were Army veterans.
Men who had survived war
only to be ambushed
on an American highway.

And long after I left them, I could still feel their eyes — tired, stunned, and searching for a world that made sense.

The first thing I noticed was the coat—too heavy for the heat, too fine for the roadside. It seemed to carry a story before a word was spoken.

It was October 17, 1986, a warm autumn day on Highway 54. The sun blazed down on the endless Kansas plains, the sky a bowl of blue so wide it seemed to swallow the horizon. Heat shimmered above the fields as I drove west toward Liberal for a Rotary talk.

And then I saw them.

A middle-aged couple stood by the roadside. The man had his thumb out, but it was the woman who stopped me in my tracks: she wore a long, brown fur coat, unbuttoned, heavy as winter, hanging awkwardly in the glare of the sun. Against the baked asphalt and bright sky, the coat looked surreal, almost defiant.

I slowed, curiosity pricking me, but drove on. They were facing east, and I was heading west. “There’s nothing I can do,” I told myself, though the image lodged in my mind.

Four and a half hours later, after my speech in Liberal, I headed home. The light had shifted; evening shadows stretched long across the fields. I wasn’t thinking of the couple at all—until, as the road bent near Meade, my chest tightened.

There they were.

The woman in her fur coat. The man with his outstretched thumb. Standing in the very same place.

This time I pulled over.

They climbed in—the man in front, the woman in back with their luggage. Silence filled the car, heavy, practiced. These were people who had grown used to being passed by.

“How long have you been waiting?” I asked.

The woman spoke quietly, almost apologetically. “Since last night.”

The words jolted me. I pressed gently, asking when they had last eaten. The silence thickened. Then the man said, his voice steady but lined with shame:

“Three days.”

The phrase struck like a stone to my chest. Hunger is something you can imagine in the abstract, but not until it sits beside you—embodied in a weary man and a woman swaddled in fur against heat and emptiness—do you feel its full weight.

Just then, almost like providence, a Rainbow Bread truck barreled past in the opposite lane. I swung the wheel hard, made a U-turn, and followed until the driver pulled over on a dirt road. Breathless, I told him about my passengers. Could he spare a loaf?

He shook his head—every loaf sealed for delivery—but pointed me toward a Dillon’s grocery in Greensburg, eight miles away. “They’ll help you,” he said.

At Dillon’s I found the manager. I told him I had two hungry travelers, three days without food. All I had was eight dollars. Could he put together a small sack of whatever was on sale?

He disappeared into the back. When he returned, his arms were heavy with a bag: bread, milk, fruit, sandwich fixings—far more than eight dollars’ worth. When I tried to pay, he waved me off.

“The store keeps provisions for times like this,” he said simply.

At a nearby park we sat at a picnic table. They ate slowly at first, almost cautiously, as if they feared the food might vanish. Then hunger overtook restraint. The woman’s hands trembled as she lifted her bread. The man kept his eyes down, his jaw tight.

As they ate, they told me their story.

They were from Georgia. He had served thirteen years in the army, later working as a cook while they raised five children. Every one of their children was now serving in the armed forces. They showed me photographs of nine grandchildren, faces bright with promise.

But fortune had turned. Two years earlier, a tornado had taken their house. Since then he had been unable to find steady work. They had hitchhiked to Washington State in hopes of a caretaker’s job, but the journey had taken twenty-two days. By the time they arrived, the job was gone. With no money left, they had started home on foot and by thumb, carried only by hope and endurance. Their luggage bore the marks of better times.

When the food was gone, the man turned toward me. His eyes were not pleading, not broken—only full of something complicated, gratitude woven with pride. He shook my hand firmly. The woman drew her fur coat tighter around her thin frame and managed a faint, weary smile.

Their road led south. Mine, east.

I left them in the park that afternoon, but I have never forgotten the sight. Not just the coat, though that image has stayed sharp all these years—the fur shimmering under the sun like a stubborn badge of dignity. What I remember most is the moment the man said, “Three days,” and how strangers—one truck driver, one store manager—conspired in small acts of mercy to help two invisible travelers keep going.

It was not the food alone that mattered, but the reminder that they were not unseen. Sometimes kindness is not in what we give, but in assuring someone they are no longer alone.

On the eve of my ninetieth birthday,
as midnight struck—
December holding its breath—
I turned inward and asked
the simplest, hardest question:
How do I summarize a life?

No answer came.
Only silence.
So I waited.

Morning arrived, empty-handed.
Another day passed.
Still nothing.
I reminded myself—
patience has always been
one of my truest teachers.

Then, the following day,
a friend spoke casually of her own dream,
and something stirred,
a faint vibration in the depths of memory.
It carried me back—

to a six-year-old child
in the hills of India,
standing utterly still
as a flute sent its music
flowing through the valley.

The sound entered me
before language,
before knowing.
And in that instant I decided:
When I grow up,
I will live in the hills
and play the flute every evening.

That was my dream.

At fifteen, I tried to learn.
One lesson only.
No training followed.
No flute.
No music.
The dream dissolved,
quietly, without ceremony.

That night, the question returned, reshaped:
What became of that child
who wanted to be the flute player?

I woke near four in the morning,
the hour when truth speaks softly.
And then came a voice
I have learned to trust—
clear, certain, effortless.

It said:
Life turned you into a flute.

The words moved through my body
as a shiver of recognition.
Nothing more was needed.
The answer was complete.

Life had played me into being—
every act a note,
every loss a rest-,
every joy a breath of music.

I rose and danced a small, grateful jig.

For this is the essence:
as a child, I longed to play the flute.
Instead, life shaped me into one,
breathing its song through me—
through joys and losses,
through sound and silence.

What I sought was never missing.
It was always there:
a life, patiently fashioned into music.

Balbir’s friend, Kathy Miller, asked him this question as a follow-up to his “The Shadow of Light” and “The Defining Moments” stories: “What has been the life-long impact of your experience with the little flower?” 

Here is Balbir’s response:

Kathy, thank you for asking this question. It is important. The experience with the little flower was at the beginning of my life, in my state of unknowing and innocence. You are asking me to review that experience when I am 89, perhaps at the very tail end of my life. Thank you for this opportunity. 

A few days before my experience with the little flower, I spoke with my parents and asked them, “What is the meaning of life?” They had done their best to explain, but it was not satisfying to me as a six-year-old child. 

Later, walking on the side of a hill, I saw a tiny blue flower . . . perhaps only the size of two peas, but it radiated life. It was blue at first glance, but when I looked closer, it was an amalgamation of colors with beautiful veins. It radiated an intelligence that attracted that six-year-old boy to ask his most dominating question: What is the meaning of life?

There was an intelligence in the little flower that gave the little boy an answer that satisfied him. The child came in touch with something beyond. The child identified with the flower and, in that moment, they were one. The question never arose in the mind of the child again. 

The child felt small like the flower. Now, as an adult, my scientific knowledge supports that feeling. We live in a universe with billions of galaxies, with trillions and trillions more suns and planets, where our whole galaxy is like a grain of sand, and I would not register even as big as that flower. Looking back, I grasped that intuitively.

And yet, looking at that flower, it was magic. Its veins, its color, and its ability to answer my six-year-old child’s question were magical. That child understood that, even in the smallest of forms, one cannot only experience magic but be magical. One cannot comprehend the magic. One cannot change the magic or improve on the magic, but one can fully experience it. And when one is in tune with that magic, one becomes magical! Such is the mystery.

Egotistically thinking, one might think that the purpose of the little flower was to deliver that message to me. The child did not think that. The flower simply existed. The child stood in awe in front of the flower, unable to even touch it. If the purpose of the flower was to deliver the message, it was not aware of that. It was not worried about what the meaning of its life was. It was not worried about whether spring would come or rain or hot air. It simply experienced all those things. That little flower was born and died, totally content. For the flower, life was an end unto itself. The child learned from the flower that this is how all life is: Life is not a means to an end but an end in itself. 

The flower taught the child the simplicity of life, just to BE–not to BECOME–but to BE. So, my life has not been about changing or improving the world, but experiencing it to the fullest extent possible and participating in the magic. 

I have had many teachers in my life that have taught me many things, but as I grew up and learned new things and later delved into the books of religion and philosophy, I had a smile on my face each time I read something that I felt the flower had taught me at the age of six!

The child’s quest was fully answered: “Life is magical; it is to live and experience.” 

That encounter with the little flower was the seed for experiencing reverence, surrender, and awe. Over time, my soul prayer became “Thine, not mine shall be done.”

###

Life is a bundle of perspectives, and the exact opposite of what I have said is as valid as anything else. It’s not “how it is,” it is what my experience was with the flower.

Memory is highly selective. Take, for example, an event that took place when I was six years old. It was a few days after I raised the question of the meaning of life with my parents. 

I was walking down a narrow trail on the side of the mountain close to our cottage. I bent over to admire a solitary, tiny flower blooming on top of a very small, dark-green plant. 

Today I cannot recall the shape of the flower or the number of small leaves on the little plant. What I do remember are the tiny veins visible in the petals of the flower. From a distance, the flower was solid blue, but when I looked closer, it was an amalgamation of several shades of blue, intermingling in a joyful mood. All of that was taking place in this tiny body. I stood there, enchanted.

Then, with the innocence and tenderness available only to the very young at unguarded moments, I popped the question to the flower: “Can you tell me the meaning of life?” I was conversing with the flower as if I were talking to a new-born baby. I dared not touch the tiny miracle in front of me for fear of hurting it. The wonder in front of me was precious, priceless.

I have tried to look back and recollect that moment. Each time the same image comes back as I experienced it the first time. I can see a child with a flower, but I can only view that scene from above—as if hovering several feet above the scene. It looks like two indistinguishable souls, gazing at one another, each aware of the other.

I could not have articulated my feelings at that time, nor can I pull them into focus today. I just remember how, at that moment, I realized my smallness and vulnerability. One would think that for a child who had been coddled and pampered as if he were the center of the universe, as I had been, such an experience would have been disconcerting and threatening. The effect was quite different.

I remember a gentle feeling dawning upon me. I recall walking home with a big smile, as if walking on clouds. I did not know how to whistle, but there was music in my heart. The journey home seemed so short. 

During my lifetime I have seen thousands of flowers and admired their beauty, but the way I saw that particular flower on that particular day was out of this world.

All of us have experienced such moments—ones we can remember clearly, without memory of the things that happened before or after. There are numerous theories as to why this phenomenon is so common. I throw in one more speculation as to why this is the case. Perhaps some of those moments are when our day-to-day reality intersects with something transcendent. It is quite possible that in those rare and precious moments, when Heaven and earth dance together, we experience something that defines the rest of our lives.

The meeting with the bread company was rescheduled at their office. In that meeting I learned they were about to introduce a new bread. My antennae went up. 

“How about a promotion in which we share the information about your new bread with our supporters?” I asked. 

The president was intrigued. After several meetings, the bread company agreed to donate five cents a loaf from sales of the new bread during a one-month promotion in their region. 

It was a very generous offer and I told the president so. 

“We are a new non-profit start-up and our supporters are not that many,” I said. “The expected revenue will help launch our cash-strapped cause.”

“Your promotion will help identify our bread with a good cause,” he said.

Soon after the arrangement was finalized, the president, along with his vice president, came to our office to check us out. 

“To kick the tires,” the president said. They knew very little about us.

Until their visit, I had met them at their office. It was late in the afternoon. I was there with David Kimble, who had just joined us as a volunteer.

They walked up the flight of stairs to our one-room office in the church building, where a solitary old manual typewriter sat on a folding table. There was nothing else. They looked around.

“Do you have a copying machine?” the vice-president asked. 

It was a peculiar first question, I thought. Yet, with that question, I knew he could not only get to the bottom line immediately, he could convey a much larger message in one line. My respect for him went up a few notches. 

“No,” I answered. 

“Then how do you expect to run a large promotion like this?” He went right to the point.

 “Wait here. I will be right back,” I said. I walked down the stairs and out of the building without realizing what I was doing. A sudden dark fog had enveloped me. 

I got in my car not knowing where I was headed. At an intersection not far from the church, I noticed a business machine sales office. I stopped the car and went inside. I was somewhat out of breath and started to explain to the man on the floor that we were a new not-for-profit organization and needed a donation of a copying machine for the duration of a promotion. 

Before I could finish my fourth sentence, he motioned me to stop. 

“The machine is yours. It will be there in the morning,” he said. The gleam in his eyes baffled me. 

“Do you remember me?” he asked. I did not. He told me that several years before, when he had just joined the business as a salesman, I had purchased the first copying machine he had sold.

“You and your wife were such nice people. Glad to help,” he said. He was the owner of this business. 

“Thank you very much,” I said and immediately got back in my car. 

The two men were waiting, wondering where I had gone. Maybe 20 minutes had elapsed by the time I got back to the office, but for David that seemed like forever because the two guests were confirming to each other their doubts about this deal. 

“We have a copy machine,” I boldly announced as I walked into the room.

They wanted to know what happened and how I got the copy machine. They were so impressed by the story, they agreed to broaden the campaign by also enrolling their sister bread company in the adjoining region.

The bread company suggested we provide each buyer of the bread with some information about Trees for Life. They suggested half a million brochures. An advertising agency donated its services to design a brochure. However, we didn’t have any money to pay for printing.

I went to one of Wichita’s largest printing companies, asking it to donate 500,000 brochures. The man I met with laughed, literally. He cupped his hand behind his ear and asked, mockingly, “How many?”

He was not alone in telling me he had never heard of Trees for Life. Not too many people had. Naturally, I got the run-around and was told to see one person after another. I went to that printing company seven times, knowing well the odds I was facing. Finally, the president agreed to see me.

The president had been briefed ahead of my appointment. He was there with the manager I had first met.

“We are asked by many people for donations of printing,” the president said to me. “We have to turn them all down because if we did such a favor for one of them, we would not be able to turn the others down. We would have a serious problem on our hands. What is so special about your organization that we should help you?”

As I started to reply, I realized someone other than me was giving the answer. I felt a current go through me and instantly saw a spark light up in their eyes. Their faces changed. I knew they had agreed to make the donation.

Afterward, I racked my brain trying to recollect what words came out of my mouth, but to no avail. Years later, I ran into the former manager.

“What did you say to us that convinced us to give you that many brochures?” he asked, still incredulous after all those years. “We had never done that before.”

To keep our part of the bargain in the promotion, we talked to all the grocery chains in town. They all agreed to share the information about the bread promotion through their stores. The president of the largest chain with 100 stores complained that we should have done this promotion with his company’s bread instead. An outdoor billboard company gave us space on 75 billboards, at a cost of $35 for the printing and posting of each poster. I contacted all my friends and had the posters paid for by sponsors. Another company that printed bags offered to print 20,000 posters for our campaign. All the radio and television stations agreed to run public service announcements. 

The bread company was very pleased with the results of the promotion and gave us $23,000 as our share. Their sister company in the adjoining region sent us another $20,000. At that time, those were the largest donations we had ever received.

We were on our way. After that, I seldom heard anyone in the state say they didn’t know about Trees for Life. 

And the grocery chain whose president complained we should have done the bread promotion with his stores later collaborated with us on promoting another product. That promotion netted us more than $500,000 in donations over several years. 

The bread company’s president, an elderly gentleman, had prophesied, “The stars are aligned in your favor.”

Written December 5, 2008

It was September 21, 1958 when I first stepped onto United States soil.

Even after 50 years, I can vividly recall every detail. I can still feel my excitement at first sighting the American coastline and my tears upon landing at LaGuardia airport in New York.

I can picture being ushered through the immigration line by an impatient airline employee and a very patient immigration officer. I recall the jovial customs agent who taught me how to pronounce my destination: Wichita, Kansas. I remember my first New York taxi ride, my first hotdog, and my very first stay in a hotel.

It was one of those rare experiences in life when a dream comes true.

That dream first emerged when, at the age of eight, I had an unpleasant encounter with an occupying British soldier in India. The encounter shook me to my core and left me rebelliously wondering, “What gives that soldier power over me?”

Over the years, my anger was transformed into deeper philosophical questions: “Why are some people more powerful than others? Why are some communities or nations more powerful than others? What is the source of that power?”

My quest for answers to these questions brought me to America – the most powerful nation on the planet. In this new land I became an avid student. I sought out “movers and shakers” and asked them the secret of their success. They were delighted to oblige.

A twist of fate put me in the right place at the right time. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, international business was expanding by leaps and bounds. My knowledge and skills were highly sought after, and I was able to catch the rising tide. Soon I was traveling the world, arranging international business deals as a management consultant.

Along the way, I found a shining soul mate. The arrival of two beautiful children completed our family. The avid student in me had discovered the “formula for power” and made it my own. I was on top of the world.

But then, something happened.

I was on a business flight over the Mediterranean. I looked out my airplane window and was struck by a stray thought: If the Earth looks so small from a few miles up, how must it appear from a divine point of view?

Suddenly, I felt myself floating upward out of my seat – and out of the plane. As if in a dream, I traveled farther and farther away from the Earth, until it became a mere speck of dust floating In space.

From out of nowhere, I heard a voice. It asked me the question: “What do you see?”

Images flooded my mind in rapid succession. Experiences from my world travels fell into sharp contrast. I saw opulent riches and crushing poverty, wasteful gluttony and deadly hunger, extravagant revelry and hopeless despair.

Then, just as suddenly, I was back in my seat, as if nothing had happened. But I noticed an unfamiliar pain in one of my fingers.

Over the following weeks, the pain spread throughout my body. I became disabled, unable to walk. I felt as if my body were ninety years old. Internally, I felt deeply torn – as if my world had been fractured in two. I was trying desperately to reconcile the painful dichotomy I had been shown. But I could not.

Doctors could find no cure for my physical ills. I eventually tried fasting, on the suggestion of my sister. After five days with no food and very little water, something happened for which I have no explanation, no words. Perhaps it was what some call a vision. But at that moment there was a knowing. I knew why I was here on Earth.

At that moment, I knelt and dedicated the rest of my life to fighting world hunger. And, at that very moment, I was suddenly able to walk again.

The rest is history. It’s the story of a movement called Trees for Life.

Outwardly, I am still the same person, traveling around the world – more than 130,000 air miles last year alone. But internally, everything has changed

Now I am no longer seeking the source of power. I feel plugged into it. Each step I take is not taken to get somewhere, but as an act of prayer and worship. They are like steps in a dance.

I am still a kind of management consultant, but now my clients do not pay me handsomely. They have a hard enough time just trying to feed their own children. The young man who came here seeking power has ended up as a servant of the powerless.

So, as I celebrate the holidays for the fiftieth time in America, I shall bow my head in gratitude. Mine will be gratitude for the Mystery that transformed my dance, for the platform that has allowed it, and for all those who have made it possible.

Thank you for the dance.

Love, Balbir

Our daughter Tara was in 9^th grade when I started Trees for Life. It was now three years later and Tara was filling out college applications. She came to our bedroom to talk. It was late. Treva and I were both reading in bed, about to fall asleep. Tara lay down between us and asked if she should file for admission at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.

There was no question in our minds, because that was where she wanted to go. But her real question was different. Where was the money going to come from? We all knew that Trinity was an expensive school.

I told her that Treva and I had discussed it and planned to take a second mortgage on the house. To Tara, that was not practical. She was fully aware of our family finances and knew of our problems meeting the interest payments on our current loans, not to speak of taking substantial additional loans.

She panicked. “I’ll end up going to a university in Kansas!” 

I tried to reassure her, telling her to block all other universities out of her mind and not give any quarter to fear. I told her to build mental pictures of going to classes at Trinity, going to the cafeteria, and her dorm. I talked about the miracle of faith. I told her that I did not know how she would go to Trinity, but if that was what she wanted, then somehow events would make it possible.

Before opening my mouth, I knew I was off base and not responsive to her concerns. Her issues were practical and the only answers I could offer were esoteric. She was in tears and was not buying this faith business. She reminded me that I had assured her the money would be there when she was ready for college. She felt unfair punishment for my unilateral decisions in gambling our resources on Trees for Life. How long can one go on faith after all?

“Dad, two plus two equals four, doesn’t it?” She stalked out of the room, banging the door shut.

Treva went to Tara’s room to assure her of our love. I remained behind because my presence would have further ignited the situation. I was the culprit.

My condition was perhaps like that of a boxer who was pinned against the ropes and being pummeled. I felt the guilt of an alcoholic who had wasted the last of the family fortune. What if she was right?

Several months before, when our cash flow was very low, Treva and I had discussed how we were going to finance Tara’s college education. That evening my faith wavered, and I suggested that Treva might have to find another job. But that was not a real alternative because, without her, Trees for Life would fold. She was the soul. I wondered if I should take another job for a couple of years and let Treva proceed with Trees for Life. That was not practical either. What can a soul do without the body? I could feel the intensity of the struggle within me and sought guidance.

An inner knowing reminded me of the faith Columbus must have felt with his fearful crew on the verge of rebellion.

As Treva was consoling Tara, the silent voice with the power of a million tongues spoke: “You act as if she is your child.”

Instantly, it all became clear. I had forgotten my covenant not to identify with anything on earth. She was God’s child. I was not to usurp that heritage and call it mine.

I turned the lights off before Treva came back. I did not want her to see the big grin on my face. I was like Columbus leading on to a new world. There was no room for fear. Ahoy, mate. Treva would never have understood my lunacy.

There was indeed a feeling of joy. Over the past 50 years, one of the most valuable lessons I had learned was that two plus two makes four only in the most elementary sense. I would have liked to explain this to Tara, but that was not the way. She had to experience it herself. I was grateful that such an educational opportunity had been created for all of us.

This whole situation came flooding back to me soon afterwards when I received a phone call from a good friend, Larry Jones. President of the Coleman Company. We talked about our families, and I mentioned that Tara was applying to Trinity. He was very interested and told me that he was on the committee at Trinity to recommend students for scholarships. “Do you think Tara could come and talk with me sometime?” Larry asked. I was sure we could set something up.

Tara went to meet with him soon after that. A few days later we were notified she had received a sizable scholarship to Trinity—enough to tilt the scales so Tara could attend. I thanked Larry for his help, though I knew I was expressing my thankfulness to the Source behind him.

It had taken me hundreds of miracles before it dawned on me that two plus two, when fused together, can make not just four, but infinity.

Most mythologies contain one or more figures that are partly human and partly animal. In Hindu mythology there are several such figures, including one called Ganesh. This benign pear shaped body is human but the head is an elephant. Ganesh is considered the symbol of wisdom and good luck, and thus most worship services start by first inviting the presence of Ganesh into the gathering—if wisdom is present, good luck shall naturally follow.

So why is this human figure with a gigantic elephant head the symbol of wisdom? Because it is believed that we humans share four basic needs with the entire animal life: hunger, procreation, sleep, and the fight or flight response. Out of these basic needs emerge the secondary traits, such as the desire to acquire, competitiveness, envy, lust, sloth, and killing. 

At the same time, human beings possess traits that are attributed to angels and God. We consider God the ultimate creator. Likewise, humans are highly creative by any standard. We pray to God for solving our problems, yet humans are problem solvers. We associate love, empathy, giving, mercy and compassion with God. Again, we humans possess those qualities in abundance. 

We human beings are a unique container filled with opposing, contradictory qualities and attributes. We are highly creative and yet highly destructive. We are filled with mercy and compassion, and yet we participate in the killing of other people. We are generous and give and share our resources, yet we may acquire by force what belongs to others. The list of these contradictory traits is considerable.

Hindu mythology humanizes these contradictory attributes and creates a metaphor of two opposing armies of equal strength engaged in an endless war. The strife is going on internally within us and we, in turn, project it onto the outside world—just like a small slide may be projected onto a giant screen.

So wisdom is the recognition that we are a fusion of both the animal and the angels—just like two wings of a bird. A bird, however, uses both its wings to rise above the surface and chooses what direction to fly. 

The surface we have to rise above is the tension caused by this fusion. The differences between the paths that are led by our animal instincts and most angelic aspirations are sometimes very subtle and can confound us mortals. Trying to sort this out is where the human tension lies. Therefore, prayers ask for the wisdom to discriminate between the two and for the courage to follow our noble traits rather than the destructive instincts.

It may also be noticed that, in the figure of Ganesh, the body is that of a human and the head is that of an animal. That, too, has a meaning. Traits such as love, sympathy, kindness, and selflessly helping others are elements associated with our hearts rather than with our heads.

I share the above mythology to point out that irrespective of any beauty that one may end up seeing in this narrative, the war-like dance of the opposing dragons of Yin and Yang remains intact within me.