A Pause for Beauty:
An artist’s journal.
To What Do You Surrender?
Faith is always an adventure.
- Elsie Chamberlain
I interviewed Balbir Mathur, co-founder with his wife Treva, of Trees For Life, in Montreal. Trees for Life is actually based in Wichita and is a non-profit that has planted many millions of fruit trees in India, Africa, South America and other developing countries. We met in Montreal because I thought he might enjoy meeting my friend and mentor Frédéric Back, creator of the Oscar-award winning film The Man Who Planted Trees. My thought that was since they were both planters of trees they’d relate and something good might evolve out of their meeting. A friendship did between these two highly accomplished, creative but very different men.
In the day before our interview, Balbir referred to the help that continually shows up in his work and life. I asked Balbir about that support -- what he knows about it and where it comes from. He started by explaining that he became disenchanted with religion as a young boy. It divides people rather than unites them, he said. Politicians use religious divisions in India and elsewhere to manipulate people and power. This is some of our dialogue on these subjects.
Balbir Mathur
Rod: Do you believe there is a God?
Balbir: Who knows?
Rod: Does that mean no? You do not believe there is a God?
Balbir: I cannot answer your question. I am not in theology. I do not understand those concepts. I do not live in those concepts. I do not worry about what others have to say. I have simplified my life to just three principles, which I try to practice. I cannot say I have mastered them. I attempt. I fall, I falter and I attempt, I attempt.
I call my boat Surrender -- complete surrender to the will of the Greater Power. My two oars are instant forgiveness and gratitude -- complete gratitude for the gift of life.
I serve. I do the dance I must. I plant trees but I am not the doer of this work. I am the facilitator, the instrument. I am one part of the symphony. I know there is an overall scheme to this symphony that I cannot understand. In some way, we are each playing our own part. It is not for me to judge or criticize the life or work of another. All I know is that this is my dance. I would plant trees today even if I knew for a certainty that the world would end tomorrow.
Rod: To what do you surrender?
Balbir: The act of surrendering is so important that who you surrender to becomes insignificant. It is the surrender itself that is important. At different times you surrender to different things. Whatever it is, we will enjoy the moment the way it is. Call it God, call it Spirit, call it the love energy, call it by whatever pigeonholes you want -- but you surrender to life as it is, without demanding anything. If life is the master, I am dancer. However I can serve, I do serve.
Rod: But there seems to be a recognition that there is a spiritual force involved somehow.
Balbir: Yes, but those that experience it need no words and for those that cannot, words will do no good. So why talk about it? Describing light to a blind man will not help the blind man. It is frustrating to put it into words -- like trying to put the dance of a butterfly into words. Each dance of a butterfly is totally different. But no one can deny that the dance happens.
You can only describe the beauty you see. People who wish to see it will see it. Trying to convert others is a violent act and denies the beauty of the dance.
. . .
I later traveled to Wichita to spend some time with Balbir. One of the more interesting aspects of my visit to Trees for Life is that they gathered each morning for a short silent meditation. That is an interesting way to bring people together psychically so that the work might move forward in a cohesive way, united behind a common mindset.
But perhaps the most important message I got from my time with Balbir is the notion of surrender. I think about that almost every day. To surrender to the forces that are beyond understanding, beyond comprehension, is not easy, just as faith is not easy. It is a practice worthy of the gift of life.
Faith is the opening of all sides and every level of one's life to the divine inflow.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Faith is not being sure. It is not being sure, but betting with your last cent.
- Mary Jean Iron