BG15-14

Shree Krishna says that God exists inside all living beings as vaiśhvānara, meaning “fire of digestion,” which is ignited by the power of God

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SMT 

This constant network of communication suggests that plants have some kind of social intelligence. And one of the fundamental elements of social intelligence in animals is recognising your relatives, because they are likely to work with you rather than against you: you share genetic material, after all. Aside from VOCs emanating through the air, plants can use the chemicals exuded at their roots to speak to one another and identify each other. Remember the maize seedlings with their Y-shaped mazes? Well, other plants have been shown to be more aggressive when fighting for underground resources with different species compared to their own. American sea-rocket (Cakile edentula) plants grown in a pot with strangers will produce a much larger root mass than when they are growing alongside relatives, making them more likely to win in the foraging race.46 Above ground, plants can sometimes “see” whether others are relatives or not. The Arabidopsis plant, used widely as a model organism in biology, seems to use the unique wavelength profiles of the light reflected by its neighbours to tell whether they are relatives or not. When they are grown together with kin, these plants will produce much more seed than when growing with strangers. It’s possible that living among family makes life easier, so plants can afford to invest more in reproducing.

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MUDITA B 

Appreciative joy is a natural expression of our best humanity…[it] cheers for the happiness and success of others and celebrates buoyancy, health, and happiness wherever they are encountered.

—Judith Simmer-Brown,

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