Author: Balbir Mathur

While Trees for Life was still in its embryonic stage, I was having an array of dreams. Many dreams were short and choppy. A few were long, multicolored and detailed. Some were like a saga over several days—it was obvious there was a thread between those dreams. 

I had a distinct feeling I was traveling to some other dimension where something was being revealed to me, but I was not understanding the message. After several months of frustration, I figured out that I didn’t know the language of the dreams. I needed to learn the language or find a translator, or both. 

Fortunately, I found a small group of dream enthusiasts that helped interpret dreams for its members. The leader of the group was a keenly insightful, intuitive, and wise person, devoid of any self-interest—a seer and a sage. I became a regular.

Soon after joining the group, I was visiting a friend in Des Moines, Iowa, where I woke up with a vivid and powerful dream. Without a doubt, it was a message being communicated to me, and I needed an interpretation. That was also the day our dream group met in Wichita. I drove 400 miles back to Wichita that day and made it to the meeting just as the group sat down in a circle.

My turn came soon. I closed my eyes and related my dream: 

I had an urgent need to relieve myself. I went outside and realized I was in my parents’ home in India. I squatted on the old, Indian-style toilet, and blood started to pour out, along with my innards. It was gory. The blood was bright and shiny red, as if to draw my attention. “It is new blood,” I said to myself.

I stepped out of the bathroom, but now there was no courtyard as before, just an empty room. Something luminous entered the room. I realized I did not have any clothes on and became self-conscious. My body was transparent.

I looked at whatever had entered the room. It “formed” into a woman. She was also naked and transparent. Light was emanating from her body, which was dazzling to the eyes, so I could only see her face. It was white, which reminded me I was in my own home in Wichita. The features on her face left an impression on me.

“Here is power,” the woman said to me.

There were no words … only thoughts were being communicated in total purity. 

The reaction from me was immediate and sharp.

“No,” I vigorously shook my head. The depth and strength of my reaction left no doubt as to my intent. I did not want power.

 The woman just stood there as if she knew the answer even before she spoke. As I looked at her, I woke up from my dream . . . 

Just as I finished the last line in relating the dream to the group, my eyes opened involuntarily and what I saw startled me.

 “You were the woman in my dream!” I pointed to a person sitting across the room from me. It was so sudden that it came almost as a shout. She was a new face in the group that I had never seen before.

“You were the one saying that to me in my dream!” I repeated. 

She laughed.

“Yes,” she confessed. “That is the second time I came to you in your dreams.”

There was a long pause. Everyone was transfixed. 

“However, you did not get the message the first time. That’s why the second dream and why I am here now,” she explained. She continued talking, relaying her message. 

“They are saying you are off by one-eighth of an inch. You are not that far off, but you cannot open the lid unless you make that little adjustment.” She twisted her hands as if opening the lid of a jar.

“It’s very small, but necessary.”

There was silence in the room. Even though all eyes were on her, I felt as if they were on me. I felt a tinge of resentment. She was a first-time visitor to the group and didn’t know anything about me or my background or Trees for Life. I had done everything in my power and now someone had come to lecture me on what I was not doing right. She even seemed to know my inner thoughts—my dreams. Resistance popped up in me, and I sealed my inner thoughts hermetically. She was not about to get any reaction from me. As it turned out, the woman did not need any feedback from me. 

She continued. 

“Your hesitation is about money. You do not want to ask people for money. This is their way of participating, but you are blocking them. You are not ready to receive them. There is some bad experience with money in your past that is stopping you. You must become aware of your blockage and cleanse it. There are many people waiting to join, and you are holding them up.”

I knew she was right. She wasn’t the only one telling me about a possible blockage.

A woman who I had literally bumped into at the door of an office downtown told me she saw something green around me, growing like grass. “Ah! It’s money coming from the grassroots,” she uttered, surprised.

On another occasion, I had picked up a couple hitchhiking on a highway on a bitterly cold morning. The woman seemed to know everything about me and told me not to back out of what I was doing because of money.

“Help is on the way,” she said. 

While visiting a bookstore, a young woman popped up from behind the bookshelves and told me to go north for help. 

“People are waiting for you,” she said. 

Even though this event at the dream group was strange and abrupt, I knew that the woman from my dream was correct. 

She introduced herself as Margarey. She was from Haiti and had come to Wichita a few days before to convey this message to me. Her husband of Lebanese descent was a businessman in Port-au-Prince. Margarey became a part of our group. Within a few days, she enrolled for a course at Wichita State University, got a room at the dorm, cultivated a host of friends, and gave interviews on the radio. We met often, in the dream group and also for lunch and other social occasions. After a few months, she disappeared from Wichita. 

That dream and Margarey’s message was timely and had a great impact on me. She made me realize my attitude toward money: I am not a beggar. My fear of poverty, often disguised as pride, was holding me back.

I was under the illusion that money was something concrete, something somebody had to have and had to give or not give. It was part of the biggest illusion foisted upon human beings—that we are separate individuals. It’slike saying my hands and knees are different from each other and have to take care of themselves, when in reality, they are part of the same body. When my knee gets hurt, it has a guarantee that my hands will respond and my whole body will respond. My knee does not have to go out begging to the hand and say, “Please help me.”

I came to understand that, when anything happens, the vibrations are felt in the universe, and the appropriate response comes. And it is not as individual atoms that this person or that person comes and helps. The help is coming from a Source beyond us. We are all agents of the same sound.

Margarey taught me that power does not come to one who has personal hang-ups. To get rid of those hang-ups is not a genteel, intellectual understanding. As the dream showed, it is a bloody and gory exercise, one I had already experienced by the time I met her.

I felt as if I had been asked continually to jump off a cliff, seeing the earth coming up fast and fearing I was going to crash and die. But something always happened to break that fall. My fear of poverty was so entrenched that this same scenario had to be repeated again and again in close proximity before I got the message: fear is merely fear, with no power of its own. 

I have a friend who was tricked into attending a ceremony in which people walked on fire. Inspired, he took off his shoes and successfully walked on those red-hot coals. To prove to himself the reality of that incident, he walked on hot coals in more than 100 other fire-walking ceremonies.

My condition was similar. A young volunteer once asked me, “How can you work with such poor people and be able to sleep at night?” 

I was not being presumptuous when I replied, “To become a candle, one has to lose the fear of being usurped by darkness.”

December 28, 1986

For me, Christmas is very meaningful. There is something in the air that makes me contemplate and meditate, and a general feeling of happiness envelops me. I go for long walks and dance with my shadow. Christmas bells chime in my mind, and my whole body vibrates. Christmas carols bring tears to my eyes.

These experiences are very personal and as subtle as fragrance. I can experience them, but I cannot describe them in appropriate words. If you try to describe the aroma of a unique fragrance, you will understand my dilemma. I wish I could capture that beauty in my words.

I was ten years old when I first realized that something unusual takes place within me during this season. I did not know what or why. As a child, I used to think that it was because I was born in December.

The feeling is not just one experience that takes place in isolation. It is like a drama unfolding. It is as if I am being presented with a new book to read. It is a majestic feeling.

This year, it was a new lesson–one I had learned many times and had forgotten. This time, I could almost smell the fragrance–almost grasp the essence–of what one would normally call sacrifice. It was as if someone were teaching me about the illusion of sacrifice. There is sacrifice and, yet, there is no sacrifice, ever. It was as if a magician had taken me backstage and was showing me how a mysterious trick is performed.

I was driving west on Maple Street near Town West Shopping Center, in Wichita. Christmas music was playing on the radio. I was in the car only physically where the cells of my body were dancing with the music. Emotionally, I was part of a choir singing someplace else.

At that moment, the ever-so-gentle voice of the teacher interrupted: “Nothing takes place without sacrifice. The source of all happenings is sacrifice.” 

Those who have had such experiences will understand that these were not audible words. It was a complex feeling, but the meaning was clear.

A seed must sacrifice its life for a tree to grow. A sperm must sacrifice its life for an egg to be fertilized. Parents must sacrifice for their children to grow. This universe, as we know it, is an act of sacrifice on the part of that which we call God. The movement of the whole world would stop if there were no sacrifice. This is the law of the universe. There are no exceptions. 

Scriptures of all religions of all times attest to this. The entire universe stands as a witness to this process. Yet illusion prevents us from understanding. We value safety and security, not sacrifice.

In those feelings, I witnessed the world in the time of Jesus. People could not understand why he was not a good tradesman. They could not understand his not raising a family in order to protect the family lineage. To them, he was a failure as a householder, the prime responsibility of any male. Those who knew him realized that he had a sharp mind and had the potential to be rich and powerful. Instead, people thought he was an eccentric who had fallen prey to questionable people and teachings; that his teachings were idealistic and impractical.

I was reminded that had Jesus not been willing to be crucified, perhaps no one would even know of him today. It was the act of crucifixion, an act of total sacrifice, that caused his teachings to take root.

The magician took me backstage and showed me the illusion of sacrifice. In reality, there is no such thing as sacrifice. There is no separation between anything. When the hand sacrifices the food to the mouth, the hand does not lose. It wins. It will only lose if it does not let go of the food. There is really no sacrifice in sacrifice. The word only describes an illusion.

I lived with the beautiful feelings of this experience for several days. Then the magician led me through the illusion, step by step. I had to apply what I had learned in actual practice.

####

It was December 19, and I was worried about the cash flow at Trees for Life. Then in the afternoon mail we received a check for $1,000 from one of our board members. My inner voice said, Send the money to India.

Over the years, I have come to respect the directions of this inner voice. Hard experience has taught me not to question this voice anymore. So, I suggested to Treva that we send the money to India. Her eyebrows went up. No words were necessary.

I knew her pain well. There was less than $10 in the Trees for Life treasury. The two computer printers needed repairs; a stack of bills needed attention; the salary of two part-time employees had to be taken into consideration; we needed to draw a salary. Christmas was here. We were expecting 22 guests for Christmas dinner. During the holidays we were going to have nine house guests.

“Are you sure that is what he intended this money to be used for?” Treva inquired.

“I have no idea what HE intends,” I said.

Treva was referring to Larry, the contributor, while I was referring to someone beyond my comprehension.

There was a familiar contortion on Treva’s face. It was a sign of pain which she could not describe or share in words. She was crying inside and controlling the flow of tears. I could feel every iota of her pain. I had the choice to change my mind. I wavered. An image flashed through my mind. Mother Teresa tells how she had taken food to a hungry woman who had not eaten in four days. The woman disappeared and kept Mother Teresa waiting. The woman had taken that food to feed another person who had not eaten for seven days.

“They need the money in India worse than we do. The planting season is here.” I said.

“I’ve been worrying about that, too.” Treva said, wiping her tears. Soon she typed out a cover letter to accompany the funds to India. 

“Where will the money come from for our other needs?” she inquired. It was a rhetorical question that she had asked many times in the past. She knew my patent answer, and I knew the irritation it caused her.

“There is only one Source.”

I pretended to get busy with the load of papers on my messy desk. Treva needed to get away from it all and left for an errand, taking the outgoing mail with her. A couple of hours passed before she returned.

It was time to leave the office for the day. Treva was drained, and I was helpless, unable to console her. Then the telephone rang.

“What is your tax ID number?” the voice on the other end requested.

I scrolled through my telephone rolodex and gave her the number.

“Who is this?” I inquired.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she apologized. “This is Glenda, Darrell’s secretary. He just asked me to transfer 100 shares of PepsiCo to Trees for Life.”

I knew that the donation was worth more than $3,500.

“Glenda, I will thank HIM personally,” I said. “Will you also please do that on my behalf?”

She thought I meant Darrell—and that, too, was all right. For me, he represents HIM.

Darkness had enveloped the street. In silence we drove toward home. As we passed the same spot on Maple Street, I could hear the Christmas bells ringing. I remembered the lesson on the illusion of sacrifice. I reached over and touched Treva’s hand and said, “There is only one Source.”

Very gently she squeezed my hand. I looked at her. There was a gentle smile on her face, as if to say, “I know that.”

The president of one of the local bread companies had invited me to meet him for lunch. This meeting was important, and I was rushing out the front door of our office at the church when a sigh drew my attention. It was a young woman with her infant daughter.

I recognized her. Previously, she had visited the church to pick up some items from the food bank. This woman was no more than 19 or 20, and her daughter was less than a year old. The church secretary had told me the woman’s husband recently had an operation to remove a brain tumor and that her daughter was born hydrocephalic. The world had crashed down on this young woman.

She was apologetic and wanted to know if the secretary was going to be back soon, because she needed food for her baby. I went to the church office and found a note on the door saying the secretary was on an errand. The woman panicked because there was no milk at their home and her daughter hadn’t had anything to eat in the past 24 hours. She wondered if I could give her a ride to another nearby church, where she was hopeful of finding help.

I looked at my watch. I could not afford to be late for the luncheon meeting. Yet I knew my urgency was insignificant compared to the needs of the hungry infant she held in her arms. I could have told the mother I would take her following my appointment, but how could I ever explain that to the baby? I wished there was someone else in the building to help me out and give this woman a ride. 

Perhaps I could quickly get some milk for the little one. But I realized I had left my billfold on the dresser that morning—not an unusual thing for me to do. We drove quickly to a church which was five minutes away. There was a brown cardboard sign outside saying, “Sorry, we are out of food. No more food expected till next month.” This was only the second week of the month.

We drove to a third church where the doors were fortunately open. Inside was a table set for four. The white linen on the table provided a stark contrast to the four nuns in black sitting around the table. They had just started their fried chicken dinner. I apologized and quickly tried to tell them the plight of the young mother. I was out of breath, feeling rushed, and seemingly made a mess of my presentation.

“Hey! Wait outside. Can’t you see we are eating?” one of the nuns reprimanded me sternly as she got up to see us out. “We will see what we can do after we finish eating.” She literally closed the door in my face.

Nervously, I looked at my watch. I was already 15 minutes late. I shuddered at the thought of the consequences of such a delay. Too much was riding on this meeting and such a delay could be disastrous. My agony was compounded by the fact that the nuns mistakenly thought I was the woman’s husband. I was experiencing the humiliation of a beggar, and it was not an enviable feeling. All my pride and ego had been shattered. I hoped that no one I knew would see me in this situation. The food on the table inside seemed as distant and foggy as a dream. I did not care if I ever ate again. The sun was shining in all its glory, but the rays felt piercing. There was a cool breeze in the air, but it felt frigid.

The young mother seemed to know what I was thinking. She apologized for putting me in this predicament and nervously kept talking before she began to cry. I also understood what she was going through. There were no words in my vocabulary to console her. Never before had I experienced that feeling.

After 30 minutes, another nun came out with a sack full of food. The person with the key to the storeroom had been out for lunch. The nun apologized in a loving and kind way. 

That half hour had seemed like eternity. This experience led me to understand that we must help people so they don’t have to beg. To give, after someone is forced to ask, is not giving. For a loaf of bread, must someone have to strip themselves of all their pride and dignity? True charity must come before—not after.

I understood why the initiates in monasteries in earlier times were made to beg. Even Buddha begged for his meals and made begging a tenet for his followers. Those of us who are blessed with jobs and careers cannot even comprehend the pain and suffering of the poor and hungry. 

I had missed my luncheon appointment, so I went back to my office to call and offer my apologies. There was a message on my answering machine from someone at the bread company, telling me they had to reschedule the luncheon meeting because something urgent had come up.

A smile crossed my face. I should have known.

Soon after that experience with the two women at the church, Treva said, “I’m going to quit my job and join you.”

“But how will we put bread on the table?” I asked. We were living on whatever money she was making working in her father’s print shop.

“I don’t know, but you will die from overwork if I don’t, and then what will happen?” Treva asked.

After Treva joined as a full-time volunteer, other volunteers started showing up. The first was David Kimble, whose heart had been touched by news stories of famine in Ethiopia. Against my advice, he quit his job to volunteer full-time for Trees for Life, even though he had a family to support.

“As you’ve been taken care of, so will I,” he said. David became an important and integral part of Trees for Life and eventually became the Executive Director.

Soon we had 15 volunteers. Sometimes all of them were working in whatever space was available in our small office.

While travels took me out of town for months on end, Treva and David became the hub of Trees for Life. David busied himself in executing the tasks and Treva managed the office. She was multi-tasking from morning till late in the evenings. She handled questions from volunteers, answered the telephone with a broad smile on her face, answered letters, paid bills, thanked donors, made sure there was food for the volunteers, and completed many other tasks. While David would lead the staff and volunteers, it was Treva’s desk that was Grand Central Station for anyone with questions, including me. She was the glue that held everything together.

She easily explained her role by saying that mothers are used to doing many tasks at once. Indeed, she was the mother of the Trees for Life movement. The volunteers would go to her if they had a problem. Her eyes and ears were all over the office. She knew if I might have ruffled any feelings in my abruptness and to whom I needed to apologize. She was also the voice of caution, to make me think and slow down on some of my decision making. 

I led the weekly “Who We Are” meeting, in which we discussed the direction Trees for Life was going and why. Everyone in the office defined my role as the visionary, the man in the ship’s crow’s nest. Sparing me from as many other meetings as possible, David and Treva insisted they could handle the engine room of the ship.

In the United States, my story about planting fruit trees in India fell mostly on deaf ears. 

People would point out that fund-raising in the U.S. was bound to be difficult because Americans seemed to have no emotional bond with India. Whenever I was confronted with the idea that this project was meant for India, I felt as if I were in a dream, shouting at the top of my lungs, but no one could hear me. 

I perceived that the sole reason for my existence was to communicate the vision: All humanity is one body. If one part suffers, the whole body is affected. Cancer in one part of the body will result in the death of the entire body. A large part of humanity is suffering an acute pain of hunger. We have the technology, know-how, and goodwill to eradicate this suffering. I was creating a model of just one of the ways it could be tackled. My work was no different than a laboratory researching a cure for cancer. That cure would not only benefit people in the city where the research was being done, but all of humanity.

The name Trees for Life came to a friend in deep meditation. It was as if somebody was telling her to tell us, and so we accepted the name as a gift. Although we incorporated in 1984, I was doing a lot of work many months before that. I was contacting people and telling anyone who would listen the story about the holy man blessing the first lemon trees. No one escaped. I went to one school after another. I went to the newspaper. I was stirring up dust all over. Some friends distanced themselves from me. Very few donations were coming in. 

At first, I worked from our home. My office was the kitchen table. Soon all areas of the house were taken over.

“This won’t do,” Treva said. “You need to have an office.” 

She mentioned it to the minister of her church. The church board agreed to give us one room in the church for our office. It didn’t have much furniture, just a table and a few chairs.

I would leave the house at nine in the morning and work until 10 p.m. Treva would call and say, “Are you going to come home?” There was so much work to do and it was just me. 

One day my friend Bob stopped by the office. He had invested $200 in stock in a business I started when I first arrived in Wichita in 1958, and he had been a staunch supporter ever since. Now he came to talk some sense into me. 

“You have to get out of this,” he said.

He told me people in America were really not interested in the suffering of others in faraway lands. 

“You have to remember, people are basically selfish,” he said.

Bob, who was about 20 years older than I, had been my friend, philosopher, and guide since I came to America. He told me he was not going to leave my office until he could get a promise from me to give up on my project. Bob settled himself into the chair opposite me and lit his pipe–an indication he was going to stay for some time. There would be no escaping him today. He drove home the point that I had experimented with the idea long enough, and there was ample proof people would not support the idea. He spoke of my suffering wife, my children, and my future. Bob knew me well. He knew all my hot buttons and pressed them relentlessly. I could not come up with a single word to respond because I knew he was correct on all counts. I sat there in awe of Bob’s sensitivity and the fact he was sticking his neck out to take me off the hook of my predicament. Yet, for some reason, I was not ready to give up. Defenseless, I had no answers. I looked down at the floor most of the time, on the verge of tears.

As he was speaking, two women walked into our office. They said they were lost and asked if we knew a certain address. I told them it didn’t sound familiar. They were chatty souls. They informed us that one of them was from out of town and her local friend was driving her around Wichita. They inquired about Trees for Life. They had never heard of it. I was feeling beaten up and ashamed from Bob’s lecture and was in no mood to have the women there. I gave them a quick, two-sentence explanation. 

“Is that so?” the out-of-towner exclaimed, still out of breath from climbing the stairs. Then she pulled out some wrinkled one-dollar bills from her purse. The other woman, Mary, dug into the side pockets of her skirt and did the same. Together they handed me $36. 

I looked at those women. They were middle-aged and appeared absolutely ordinary. It was obvious to both me and Bob that the gift was sacrificial.

The woman smiled as I tried to hold back my tears. Like me, Bob was experiencing something special. His disbelief was made obvious by his gaping mouth and wide eyes.

The atmosphere in the room had suddenly changed. Now there was no talk. Something beyond words had taken place, even in these women. I saw them walk backward out of the room, as I stood there stunned, holding the bills in the palms of my outstretched hands. 

Oh, my gosh, I have to give them a receipt, I thought, and ran down the stairs after them. Not enough time had passed for them to have left by car. Outside the building, I looked in all directions. There was no sign of a car or the two women.

When I walked back into the room, the look on Bob’s face showed amazement, his eyes staring in disbelief. During the next several minutes neither of us spoke. Quietly, Bob picked up his things.

“You will make it,” he said, and left the office.

I sat there realizing I must have entered another zone of reality. I wondered if those two women were an apparition.

I hit emotional lows several more times after that, but I was never as down as I had been before these visitors arrived. They had changed my reality forever. And as for Bob, his characterization of human nature changed for the rest of his life. 

I never saw those two women again.

Feeding the world’s hungry had been my vision, but Treva and our two children were dragged into the effort. When Treva and I first met, I was interested in buying better cars and clothes and living in bigger homes. I wanted to become a billionaire. I would return from my travels with expensive gifts for family and friends.

The vision changed everything. Material things didn’t matter to me anymore. Trees for Life had now become my total focus, and I did not know how I would go about feeding my family. My strong sense of responsibility resulted in many sleepless nights. Fear would freeze my chest, so I could hardly breathe. 

The mere idea of not being able to put food on the table for my children, buy their clothes or books, or provide money for vacations would leave me in a cold sweat. Not being able to give a dollar to the neighbor children for a charity drive was humiliating. Such humiliation was not a part of my plan. In my life dream, poverty was not an option. I felt as if my prayers were not being heard. It was a bad dream in which I was lost and couldn’t wake up.

I had no choice. Something far, far more powerful was pulling me. I was driven and had to complete the journey. On a few rare occasions, when I thought of quitting, I could immediately see the consequences. If I did not follow this journey, I might end up as a wretched alcoholic or worse.

In that dark period, there were two sources of strength: Treva and whatever the force was that was guiding me. 

Treva, whose focus was our children, was far more worried and concerned than I was. With an empty bank account, she had no idea what each day would bring. I did not know how she managed. Hearing her laugh while talking to her friends on the telephone, I wondered where she mustered her strength. She did not look down on me because I was no longer the breadwinner. Scared, still holding on to the last knot on the rope, she continued to encourage me. She did not entertain the advice of some close friends to divorce me.

I have no idea what I might have done without her, or what the future of Trees for Life might have been if I’d had some other woman for my wife.

During this period, many unusual events took place. Money would appear at the last minute in exactly the amount that was needed. I would be left in a state of wonder.

But the money would run out quickly, and the gripping fear would return. What if the miracle does not happen this time? Then another miracle would occur, proving once again the prediction of Sacha Baba: “If you take this path, God will provide.”

Sometimes, in our leanest days, there was hardly anything in the house for us to eat.

One night, Treva cooked two eggs and toast for me for dinner. It was the last food in the house. I had my fork in my hand and was starting to dig in when the doorbell rang. I dropped my fork. Instinctively, I knew who it was.

In our flush days, we had served as “parents” to several foreign students, including a Nigerian student attending Wichita State University. He had gone on to graduate school in Missouri, and recently had called asking me to loan him $500. The Nigerian government was holding up a transfer of money for all its students in the United States. Our friend needed that money urgently. I told him I didn’t have five dollars, let alone $500. I could hear in his voice that he didn’t believe me.

He was at the door at 8 p.m. in brutally-freezing weather, having driven 350 miles from Missouri.

“You came at just the right time,” I said, pointing him towards the dinner table. Without saying a word, he sat down and ate the eggs and toast and told me he hadn’t eaten all day. He was living with two other friends from Nigeria, and there was no food for them. He told us the five-hour trip had taken him 12 hours because his car was malfunctioning. He had come to us as a last resort. 

Treva left us alone. After a while, I went looking for her. She was in the bedroom crying so hard that she had buried her face in a pillow.

“Here we are, so financially strapped we can’t even help someone in need,” she said.

I was at a loss for words. Anything I wanted to say would come out wrong. However, I believed our capacity to give had not even been tested. 

The next morning, our friend’s car wouldn’t start. The engine was frozen. A neighbor we had never had good relations with came over and asked if he could help. At the same time, a friend stopped by. The two of them worked on the car for two hours until it ran perfectly.

Meanwhile, Treva called a few of her friends. Soon after, people arrived with enough canned goods to literally fill up the inside of our Nigerian friend’s car. I called another friend to see if he would loan the young man $500.

“I can’t guarantee that the money will ever come back,” I told him. 

“Just come on over,” this friend said, without questioning. It was two or three years before the debt was repaid. He received a check in the mail.

“I never expected to see that money again,” he told me.

Often at times like these, food was provided unexpectedly and sometimes in unusual ways, exactly when we needed it. One summer day, a friend from out-of-state gave us a surprise visit, along with his family and parents. It was almost lunch time. Treva and I exchanged glances. We had limited food to serve them. Our friend explained they were in town to see their parents, and it was such a beautiful day, they had all decided to go on a picnic. On the way to the park, they realized we lived nearby, and it might be more fun to have a picnic in our backyard. Would we mind? They brought a huge amount of food.

They saw a handmade rug from China in our living room. I had tried several times to sell it, for a fraction of what it had cost me, just to get some cash. I couldn’t find a buyer. 

“Is there anything we can do to make you sell this rug to us?” they asked. “It would go perfectly with our furniture.”

One time, Mother Nature came to our assistance when a windstorm blew in overnight. The next morning, the neighborhood was unscathed, except for our home: our wooden fence had been blown down. We filed a claim with our insurance company. We used the money to buy a much cheaper wire fence for our dog, and there was money left over for essentials.

On another occasion, our son Keir’s bicycle seat broke. We didn’t have $8 to buy him a new one, which was a very painful experience for Treva and me. Riding his bike was Keir’s favorite thing to do. But once again, we were taken care of. Treva’s brother, who knew nothing of this situation, called to ask Keir if he could help out in their print shop for one day.

We were moved nearly to tears when Keir donated $20 out of his $40 wages that day to Trees for Life. When Treva and I talked that night, we agreed that though we didn’t have money, what we were giving to our children was beyond comprehension.

During this tough period, we had a morning ritual, performed before the kids rushed off to school. We lit a candle, and the four of us said a short prayer together. Then each of us dropped a dime in a jar, so that if anyone came to our door raising money, they would not leave empty-handed.

We lived on this razor’s edge for nearly seven years.

Only much later did I realize what this was all about. My fear of poverty was the driving force of my life. Growing up, my family owned a restaurant near a university. We were an island surrounded by a sea of poverty. Being a sensitive person, even at the age of three I could feel the poverty of people around me and its terrifying consequences. 

I was pained and wanted to help “them.” However, I never wanted to go through that pain myself. I wanted to make enough money so the next 100 generations of my family would not have to go through the pain of poverty.

I thought I could live with this dichotomy, but it was tearing me apart. Some force that was guiding me in this effort knew I would not be able to complete the journey with this thorn in my side. I sensed there was someone holding my hand as I walked through the fire of poverty to be rid of the debilitating fear that had gripped me subconsciously since childhood.

After that, the trajectory of my journey changed. I was no longer trying to help “them,” for “they” no longer existed.

Previously we posted the story about my experience meeting a man on the cold, sandy beach of the Ganges River in India. His name was Sacha Baba.

This man did not know me and after we had talked for only a short time, he predicted: “You are going to go in a direction that is uphill.” He raised the palm of his right hand to indicate steepness. “It will seem dangerous and unnerving to you.

“There will be times when you will not have enough resources. There will be times when you may not even have enough food in the house. Remember, you will not be forsaken. You will be provided for in unexpected ways.

“There will be times when people will not believe you. There will be times when people will insult you. However, at no time will you be alone. At no time will you be at risk, because the one who is bidding you will also be guarding you.”

He instructed, “You must write down your experiences. The path you are walking is a lonely one. People who travel this path need to have some mile markers so they know they are on the right track. Write as an obligation for those who will come after you.”

Here was a man who did not know my name or where I lived nor that it was my 45^th birthday. Yet he was confidently making predictions far into my future. I did not know if I should take him seriously, but I did start making notes as my journey began. 

The stories I share in this section from the beginning days of Trees for Life are those mile markers. They bear witness to the truth of Sacha Baba’s predictions — that there would be times without any resources, and I would be tested to the extreme.

During my two years of illness, I had intense misgivings about what I knew I was being called to do. I had an image of a donkey being pulled but refusing to move forward, digging its four hooves into the ground. I had to let go and trust the force that was driving me to where it wanted me to go. That direction turned out to be Trees for Life. 

On the day I signed the incorporation documents for Trees for Life in March 1984, I drove 300 miles to Colombia, Missouri, to meet with a man who had started the Ford Foundation in India and headed it for 17 years. After talking to me over a two-day period, that methodical old man said to me, “You are being led to conduct a social experiment that has never been conducted before. While people will want results and want them now, you will be pouring test tube after test tube down the drain.” That statement articulated exactly how I was feeling. 

I did not have the least idea what this experiment was going to be. Nor did I have the necessary funds to conduct such a test. Whenever such questions arose, I would get a strong feeling, as if I were being told that this would not be “my” experiment. Over time, I came to understand that I was simply a means through which the experiment would be conducted. My task was to create and maintain the platform for this experiment to take place and allow the resources to come. 

Even so, I did not feel I was the right person for the task because I did not have my fingers on the pulse of the poor. I was not poor and did not know how they lived, felt, or thought. If that was not enough, I was not an agriculturist or a horticulturist. I was born and raised in a city and enjoyed reading a nice book more than planting a tree.

During one of my early trips to India, I wrote a letter to Treva stating that for the next ten years I would consider myself a student, trying to feel the heartbeat of the poor. Without such training, I might spend all my life being off the mark.

The tests came immediately, inundating me.  

A few months after my initial trip to India, I returned to the first school that had agreed to plant trees. I discovered that all 300 trees had been destroyed. Papaya trees are fragile to begin with, and the inexperienced teachers had planted those saplings on the children’s playground. At the ashram, the trees died because no one person had been put in charge of watering them.

We found out from this experience that not only are papaya trees fragile, but you cannot tell if a sapling is male or female. If a farmer was given ten plants and nine were male and only one female, he felt cheated to have done all that work when only one tree produced fruit.

There were many other issues we were working out during that time.

To get the trees from the market to the villages for planting, which could be a distance of  40 or 50 miles, we traveled on bicycles and trains. We would get up at 4 a.m. to catch a train, riding in crowded third-class compartments to the next village. I had to get a good feel for how the poor traveled. I didn’t want to drive to the villages in a car, making the statement, “I am from America.” I was wearing native clothes, not in an attempt to deceive the villagers, but genuinely to be one of them. 

Soon fruit trees were being planted in 30 villages. Our tree-planting experiment started to spread beyond the capabilities of our small network. I noticed that wherever we went, new networks of people formed immediately, as if they had been waiting for me to arrive. 

I was spending anywhere from two to six months at a time in India, working long hours. I had learned by this time not to set any goals. There were no time limits, no expectations. I did whatever I could, without concern for whether our efforts would succeed or fail. From childhood I had been taught that I should do the best I could and surrender the results to something beyond my control. Now, I was putting that into practice. 

If I had a gift, it was to play with complex problems, breaking them down into their smallest parts to understand them and then putting the pieces back together in a way that created something totally new. I called it the shirt-making formula. I was like a tailor who cuts a bolt of cloth into pieces using a pattern, then sews those pieces into a wearable garment. I had used this formula in my consulting business to make money. Now, I was using it to serve others. I believed that this formula would work when one was being a keen listener and not trying to tell people what they should do. In this sense, I was in my element.

I felt there was some sort of guidance leading me. I could go to sleep and ask, “Hey, is this really going to happen or am I all wrong?” I felt I would have an answer within a few days. I gained confidence in things working out, even in the most desperate of times. 

I operated on intuition. I had learned to distinguish between a simple impulse and those where I felt commanded to do something and to follow through. There was a sort of language, a vibration I would feel going down my spine. They were not common occurrences, but when they happened, I knew I must follow through with all my might, even if the impulse or feeling seemed irrational. It defied logic, but acting on such impulses never failed me. 

During this time, I was invited to dinner at my friend’s house in New Delhi. One of the guests told me he and his friends were leading a caravan of religious people through a large number of villages to spread their message. I proposed an idea to him: Trees for Life would create packets of papaya seeds, with a picture of their group’s deity on each packet, along with instructions on how to plant the seeds. They would give the packets to the villagers as part of their communion. He presented the idea to his team, and they enthusiastically accepted the program.

A beautiful package was designed and we provided 150,000 seed packages. The villagers accepted them with great fervor. 

A similar arrangement was made with the Rotary Club of Bengal, which distributed a papaya package designed on its behalf.

In both cases, the distributions were highly successful.

The breeze was bone-chilling. I was holding the collar of my topcoat with my gloved hand. It was a typical morning in Wichita, November 1983, within months of the healer blessing the saplings. I had parked my car and was walking the short distance to my office. I was midway across the bridge over the Arkansas River when I heard someone say: 

“If not now, when? If not you, who?”

The crisp, firm voice stopped me in my tracks. Immediately, I turned and looked in the direction of the voice. There was only the river flowing under my feet. I could see a long distance. There were no boats, no people on the river banks. Had I really heard the river speaking? The statement was familiar, but I did not remember ever using that statement before. I stood there in disbelief. However it had been spoken, the statement was clearly directed at me. I was stunned.

It seemed as if my brain scanned my entire life in a split second. I became aware of myself and my body. I was standing there without any movement, as still and steady as the nearby pillar. There was a warm glow coming from inside my body. I was no longer holding my collar with my hand. The cool breeze felt good. I was awake and fully aware of everything around me. I could feel and see a smile on my face. My mind was clear. Everything seemed fresh.

I stood there for perhaps ten minutes, enjoying the feeling. Reluctantly, I started to move toward my office because now I had to make a phone call. The moment I sat down, I called Treva. In one quick sentence, I told her I was quitting my business. There was stunned silence on the other end. I had kissed her goodbye at home just a few minutes ago. Stammering, she sputtered a few words, as if in slow motion, “WHAT? . . . WHY? . . . DID ANYTHING HAPPEN TO YOU?  . . . ARE YOU OK?  . . . WHY ARE YOU CALLING ME AT THIS TIME?”

She was as confused as I was clear. Her intuition told her that her life had just turned on a dime and that this would have a big impact on the lives of our children. I told her I would explain when I came home that evening. I could almost feel the oppressive cloud of apprehension that would hover over her all day, waiting for my arrival, while hoping everything would return to normal before I came back.

I didn’t know what I was going to tell her. I was much more aware of the pain it would cause all of us. The very thought of such a moment had frightened me for a long time. The dichotomy had split me, causing a prolonged illness.

At that moment, I felt an inner glow. This provided strength as I was called to jump into the dark abyss of the unknown.

Treva insisted that I leave for India as soon as possible and get the trees planted on behalf of the students who had made the effort to raise the money for them. It was important to report back to the students while school was in session. 

She reminded me in no uncertain terms that all the students’ funds had to be spent on the trees themselves. Not a penny could be spent on overhead or travel expenses. I agreed, even though there was a problem. A trip to India would cost many times more than the money raised by the students. It was a hard decision, because our finances were depleted. We had no option but to spend our personal funds. 

As I stepped onto the flight in New York, my legs started to shake uncontrollably. I had staked all my reputation on a hunch that people in India would agree to and participate in the planting of fruit trees. Now the hunch was going to be tested. I had no experience with that. What would happen if they didn’t like the idea? 

The man sitting in front of me was a music promoter from London. We talked for a while. I told him the purpose of my trip, and he was enthusiastic. After dinner, I went to sleep, spread out across four seats because the plane was relatively empty. Over the ocean, we experienced severe turbulence. I slept through it all. 

My new British friend told me later he started to worry during the turbulence. He knew Yasser Arafat was also on our flight, sitting in first class. My friend became convinced that the turbulence was part of a plot, purposely created because Arafat was on the plane. This man was Jewish, so he was afraid he would be caught in a plot to get Arafat. He was certain this was a death flight, and he became so scared he started to pray. He said he looked back to talk to me, but I was snoring. Seeing me sleeping, he grew calm. 

“I figured if someone like you could sleep through this, I had nothing to worry about. Everything would be OK,” he said.

His words were a message to me. I realized he was inspired by my trip and the vision that spurred it. His faith in me changed my mood and gave me confidence. I took it as an omen that everything would be OK. I was not alone.