A garden needs constant maintenance, as does our relationship with whatever god or gods we wish to worship.
—roni jay
The Inner Gardener’s
Allies and Enemies
Every garden contains pests as well as beneficial creatures. The wise gardener helps to identify them and determine what to do next. The mind often points to other people as the nuisances, but the real enemies in my inner garden slouched in the shadows and lingered under the bushes inside of the secret garden of my soul. Aphids of anger and mites of greed, together with selfish desires, envy, jealousy, and hatred, wreaked havoc. I pointed a finger and said, “They came from out there. We don’t have that kind of junky stuff in here.”
My pain and suffering are the fault of my ex, those difficult people around me, and my boss, I thought. But when those people weren’t around and my secret-garden roses still struggled to survive because of the infestations, I finally admitted that the real problems originated inside the garden of my mind. Time to work with my inner gardener, that higher, wiser part of my Self, and get out the pesticides of love. My inner gardener and I had a little meeting and determined that, though it would be easier to blame others, I needed to take responsibility and control the ugly irritants.
I took the microscope inside to examine them. Off in a corner well hidden beneath the leaves, aphids bore dangerously into the roses. Unstopped, the May rose with its precious scent, the oleanders, lavender, and jasmine would succumb to their destructive powers. Though practically invisible, each aphid reproduces every day, creating millions of pests over the summer, all gnawing at the beautiful flowers until they die. The garden becomes a war zone. Big efforts like vigilance, weeding, pruning, and careful tending are required to protect the delicate plants and allow them to grow. Aphids resemble low-level anger—niggling, tiny, almost imperceptible until they ravage and take over a whole area of leaves and kill off the creative life of the beautiful flowers attempting to blossom.
“I never get angry,” I said, in total denial. But the secret gardener urged me to settle in to work. “I’m so fed up with this inner work,” I yelled at her.
“But yelling and getting angry at them is not going to serve any purpose,” she said. In the face of her inner calm I decided to pull at weeds and inspect the recent damage to the plants while that shadow part of me who wanted to blame others reflected and scratched her head.
“But if I could only think first before speaking and reacting, then I might preserve some relationships,” I said.
An anger infestation arrived when a close friend casually invited the man I was dating to her house for dinner and a massage. I demanded to know her intentions. Of course I talked to my date, too. But to preserve our friendship, I asked to speak openly to my friend about the situation and clear the air. She wouldn’t answer my phone calls for a week, but finally we scheduled to meet. She showed up late and brought a group of friends along. Her avoidance stirred up more anger until I felt my view of her misplaced intentions around my love life was true. My ire filled the room with sparks and hot explosions of energy as I spoke.
“When you play with people’s intimate relationships, you’re playing with fire,” I said loud and strong. When I finally felt drained, I left trailing a red streak of fire. It felt important to release the anger rather than keep it bottled up inside. But most of us have not been taught healthy ways to do this.
Much later, a teacher taught me to release the anger by allowing it to move up and out of my body. When that energy stays blocked, it brings illness and suffering in its wake, but as it flowed up and out, I felt the surge of power and even some pleasure associated with it. The teacher told me how she had recently gotten angry at someone and when the anger came, she recognized it and said, “Stop! I want to feel the anger.” She then allowed it to rise and enjoyed it. Once the moment passed and she cooled down, she addressed the issues with her colleague in a calm, clear-headed way. I love this approach! In it anger is not bad; instead, it brings a message. It’s allowed to flow, and then once it passes, the situation can be addressed with serenity.
But back then I felt embarrassment at the way I released it. It erupted unconsciously and out of control. Desire, attachment, jealousy, and frustration lay at the root of it. But it brought with it an opportunity to learn and grow. Later when I spoke with my friend, we apologized to each other. But our friendship suffered permanent damage. Anger can be used constructively to move us out of bad situations and into better ones. But the way the anger is expressed demands awareness, care, and conscious attention.
Anger can turn the inner garden into a war zone, waste time and energy, and destroy all in its wake. Where I allowed anger to take root and thrive, it choked out beautiful new growth, damaged relationships, and brought out harsh words that caused deep wounds. Wounds caused by harsh words of anger may take longer to heal than any physical wounds. Weeding out this pest requires vigorous and determined efforts. I needed to recognize when and how anger crept in and then release it in healthy ways. This time the anger came from irritation, from expecting desires to be met and then finding them frustrated. I watched it creep into others’ gardens and destroy them too, but sometimes I found it harder to see it steal silently into my own sacred space.
Other pests hung out and required watchful attention. Envy and jealousy, like slugs, could eat away at the beautiful, peaceful interior. If they found their way in, they’d chomp at any plant that might be nourishing and nip it in the sprouting stages until it withered. Keeping an eye on them required careful reflection and contemplation. They snuck in, often in the form of criticism of others, and corroded the garden’s fences. Lust and desire thought only of getting what was good for themselves; and greed built up the ego into an overblown, separate, self-centered cockroach that took the biggest strawberry in the patch for itself.
Identifying the invasion of these pests marks the first step to exterminating them and the damage they’re doing in the secret garden. It’s practical, get-your-hands-dirty kind of work that most of us want to avoid at all costs. Most of the pests are related to the notions of “me” and “mine.” They connect to ego desires and a limited sense of self that identifies “me” only with my body. To destroy them, the pesticide of self-control combined with guiding values and strong doses of love, patience, and persistence help. Keeping the mind elevated and focused on the Divine acts like a ray of sunshine.
Regular gardeners know of the long hours required to treat and prune their roses, weed out the bad plants, and prune fruit trees to ensure a good harvest. The inner garden requires the same attentive care. In deep examination of the inner space, the inner gardener must look at what pests lie in wait, and work with them through vigilance and conscious thought and action. By kicking these obstacles out of the inner garden it will flourish; and when the internal garden blossoms, the external world will also thrive.
Pesticide to Kill Anger Aphids
To cope with the anger aphids in the garden, I learned to practice presence of mind and to step back and look at a situation before reacting. This is sometimes easier to say than to do. It may require walking away from a situation and returning to it later with a calmer mind to address what stirred up the strong emotions. Anger aphids burn like fire; they overrun the garden of peace in an instant if I am not vigilant. If someone raises her voice or provokes, I remember one teacher’s words: “Putting out anger with anger is like putting out fire with fire.”
By not reacting with a loud voice, harsh words, and door-
slamming, the atmosphere remains calmer. When these pests get into my sacred space, putting them out requires great efforts of time, patience, and presence. They overrun the place mercilessly and destroy the plantings that thrive. I cope by moving away from the place where I feel bad, taking a deep breath, and moving inside to the sacred space in the heart of my secret garden. Inside I focus on something soothing: a quiet song, a mantra, a place in nature where I feel blissful. The best way to cope with anger is not to let it enter in the first place, but once it comes in and sets the garden on fire, then it requires immediate attention.
Douse it the same way you’d put out a fire—drink a glass of cold water. Take a deep breath and think carefully before speaking. The choice about how to release anger comes from within and can change through conscious action. With grace, I may be able to take a step back, look at the funny expression that anger creates on my face, and laugh. I combat envy and jealousy through feeling joyful for the success of others. By expanding my heart, their joy becomes my joy. Gratitude becomes a constructive response along with reflection on all of the wonderful things in the world around us.
A challenging moment arrived when a friend announced his engagement. I felt a twinge of envy and wondered why I had not yet had the fortune of meeting the man of my dreams. In my heart the loneliness welled up and brought a tear. My friend’s joy glowed through his eyes and he felt happy. I congratulated him and sincerely opened my heart to wish him all the best. Though I yearned to meet the right mate, I learned to appreciate my time alone, cultivate friendships, and surrender to the divine will within—the One who knows best about timing, events, and the right people who bring the right life lessons at the right time. My voice of wisdom, my wise inner gardener, whispered up from the depths of my heart, “Befriend yourself. It will all eventually change. Practice being content with where you are and who you are.”
She usually spoke less, but I guess I needed more encouragement and instruction this time. “Peace in your inner garden relies not on obtaining physical things for satisfaction, or on relationships, but on mastering yourself and living by inner guidance,” she said. I sighed deeply and dreamed of that time in the future when I would marry, too. I knew it would come. But time in the garden is a strange and immeasurable thing, and I hated waiting. She smiled, soothing my anxiety. “Will it be long?” I said.
She placed a soothing hand on my heart and whispered, “You have more work to do first.” I wanted to cry. My heart felt split between yearning for a deeper connection with the Divine and a strong desire for a spiritual partner to share the journey. Couldn’t life include both? I asked my inner gardener. Eventually, it seemed, but not for now. This part of the path required doing more work in solitude. “Have patience,” she said. “The answers will unfold in time.”
Watching for Pests That Kill
the Best in Human Nature
The main pests that invade the garden of human nature are greed, anger, hatred, lust, envy, jealousy, and desire. When these deadly insects enter into the heart, they destroy the blossoming and growth of the human spirit. Most of these pests take root in desires for status, material things, a relationship. Take a moment to contemplate. What pests, if any, invade your secret garden? Become conscious of them, but don’t focus too much time and attention there. Focus instead on developing the allies like peace, compassion, and kindness that will help combat them. The allies come in the form of your guiding values and love. They act like natural pesticide. What guiding values and attitudes do you need to cultivate to help you combat the enemies in your garden?
Draw or write about which allies you plan to cultivate in your sacred space to maintain equilibrium. If you like, share these with a trustworthy partner. Some of the allies in the garden include love, peace, truth, compassion, doing the right thing, nonviolence, and other soulful qualities. By cultivating these in place of the pests, the secret inner garden can thrive. At the end of each day, take a moment to examine your secret garden and the progress you’ve made.