Get to the Root Cause

The tree of life and living is about understanding how we live and why we live in certain ways.


Many ancient traditions used a tree of life symbolism to represent knowledge of ourselves (such as in the Kabbalah). Each part is a stepping stone in understanding aspects of ourselves.

The progression upwards symbolizes reaching a higher order capacity in thought and reasoning where our so-called “left” and “right” brain capacities are more balanced, using our intellect and care to produce true intelligence and wisdom for how to act in our lives.

I will be talking about the symbolism of a tree as a tree of life in a different way.


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What we do and who we become is based on who we are in our being.

Fruit, Leaves and Effects

Part of who we are is what we end up creating, what we become, how we live, which are based on the actions we take. This is the plane of effects.

The fruits, leaves and branches are the manifested effects. We act to create, produce, generate or manifest certain results or output.

We do create from a false basis, or ignorance, and engage in wrong-actions. Some wrong-actions we correct through awareness, while others persist because we are ignorant of the consequences to our actions. These wrong-actions produce effects in the world, and create symptoms, issues, problems, etc.

If we want to correct something that happened, then we must ensure that it doesn’t continue to happen. Understanding how and why something has happened is required to apply a solution.

Focusing on the leaves, in the plane of effects, has no power for real, lasting, effective change. What has happened has already taken effect.

Focusing on trying to change the effect, without understanding how or why it is being produced, will not permit us to be in a position of understanding to stop the causal root factor from persisting.

Roots and Causes

The fruits of our labor — the effects we create, the quality of our actions and behavior, our character — are based on the hidden roots that feed the life above. Our consciousness consumes knowledge, processes it to develop an understanding, and then we act on it through our behavior in life.

This is the realm where we determine what we are going to do as our actions to create into the world of effects. Why we do things comes from our understanding. This is root causal factor, the generative source and the foundational principles and axioms for our actions in life.

If we want to change the fruits of our labor, the effects that manifest in the world as a result of our actions, then we need to target the root causal factors that produce these things in our lives. We need to understand why they are being created. Core foundational axioms for living our life can be corrupted and false. This will lead to ignorantly or knowingly creating falsity into the world.

The roots are the source of generation, emanation, manifestation, and act as the essence of who we are.

Empowered to Power

The power to really change the world and ourselves for the better, and make it last, comes from understanding why we are doing what we are doing.

Knowledge is indeed power, as I mentioned in a recent post that knowledge can empower us, or knowledge can be kept from us and also used to restrict our ability to make different choices. Both the influence of falsity and the absence and removal of truth will impact our worldview and therefore behavior.

Knowledge is the beginning of power, to empower ourselves to develop a greater understanding, which will empower ourselves to act in a position of accurate and correct understanding of the root causal factors for how and why things are as they are in our world.

As such, knowledge is not true power in itself. The power comes in using that knowledge properly, in alignment with what is right, good and true. The wisdom of knowing how to use the knowledge and understanding is where the power lies, when we actually act in the wisdom of right-action.

What we do with what we know, our actions, is the culmination of our consumption of knowledge and the development of understanding.

“To know and not to do, is not to know.”
– Wang Yangming

We understand how to be, and then we do. Our actions are the culmination, unification and synthesis of our internal expressions of consciousness (thoughts and emotions), as an external expression of consciousness (actions).

Actions ultimately define who we are as that is what is the final representation of who we are internally.

You shall know them by their fruits, is a famous representation of this truth from the Bible.

Actions are what we do to create the world we have.

If we want to change what we create and who we are, we have to change internally in consciousness through the removal of false understanding and misinformation.


Diseased Roots and Rotten Fruit

We drink from the dataset or data-pool of available information to grow our actions. Quality in, quality out. Garbage in, garbage out.

If we intake low quality or erroneous information through what we pay attention to and focus on, and accept it as what is true, then the fruits we will produce will be low quality and may even be rotten wrong-action due to the poison of negative knowledge, i.e. false information taken as true and lived by.

These are the poisoned fruits and leaves that we produce from our Tree of Life. We are not integrated and consistent in our overall actions and collective co-created results. We produce some right-action, yet produce wrong-action as well. The roots in consciousness need healing.

Healing

We can learn about ourselves and reality. To evolve consciousness. To be at a certain point in conscious awareness that we need to be in, in order to affect not just any “solution”, but a proper solution. We have to understand the root causal factors that created the effects in the first place.

Only by healing the roots can we clear up the poisoned apples growing on the tree.

Once the root causal source(s) is/are identified, we now know what is responsible for creating the effects. Much of the time, we are analyzing our own personal lives, and the problems in our own personal lives are often caused by ourselves. We have to be objectively able to reflect, contemplate, and analyze ourselves honestly. Then we gain the awareness and realization that we ourselves need to do something.

True, the solution is to do something. What is it that we need to do?

Don’t Drink the Koolaid!

If we don’t stop drinking the poison water, then no matter what else we do, we will still be poisoning ourselves and no lasting health or goodness will come about.

If we don’t fix the bleeding artery in the body, then no matter how many bandages we apply (positivity mask, illusions of “good” or “order”, rosy-colored glasses, shifting the furniture around), no amount of creating good, will give us the lasting life we want.

The water that feeds our tree of life, needs to be purified. If we leave the toxic poison there, it will poison the fruits of our labor. If we leave seeds of falsity planted in life, it grows to fruits of corrupted, rotten falsity in our actions and behaviors.

Many people don’t see the falsity in life because they have positivity masks and rosy colored glasses on that avoid facing reality as it is.

We need to target the root causal factors, not the symptoms. This is how we effectively change things for the better. Ignoring, denying and dismissing the negative, falsity, wrong, immorality and evil in the world will get us nowhere except running around in circles. If we want real, effective, lasting change for the better, of freedom, prosperity, peace and anarchy in life, it will not be achieved if falsity persists in our lives.

Speaking truth to falsity is required. All of us need to understand how we are creating the world around us. Once we understand and confront what we are doing to ourselves, this will lead to a powerful transformation in our consciousness and the overall condition on the planet.

The negative that is being created comes from the behaviors of individuals. The negative is a part of us and we must learn to face it and not avoid it or deny it when it is being created.

We can only work through and overcome what we have the courage to face. Never underestimate the power of denial.