126. Kalpataru

A woman on a long journey under the hot sun eventually comes to a kalpataru, a divine wish-fulfilling tree of the species produced during the Samudra Manthana. Grateful for the shade, she lies down under it on the hard ground, roots digging into her spine. "Ah," she mutters, turning on her side, "If only I had a soft bed to lie on!" To her amazement, a bed appears beside her! Marveling at this, her mind wanders, and she thinks, "Ah, how much more wonderful would it be if my massage therapist were here!" and in no time, her massage therapist appears, smiling, and begins to massage her aching feet. Whatever she wishes, instantaneously materializes. And then, unexpectedly and irrationally, she worries, "Ah, but what if a tiger were to come now?," at which a tiger promptly arrives and wastes no time in devouring her.

A banyan tree with many trunks and sprawling branches.
A banyan tree with a thick trunk and many intertwining, sprawling branches, like the tree under which Ramakrishna gained enlightenment and the mythical kalpataru. Credit: Unsplash.

If you meditate and will your bodymind to ease, it will listen, but the dread of the tiger is behind its obedience. Those tigers — myofascial pain, neuralgia, costochondritis, gut spasm, dysmenorrhea — are a thousand times more common and terrible than the live tiger, with a lower-case or capital-T (Sri Ramakrishna, 1947, pp. 83-84).

(– 68. Slipping the Trap)