LUTHER BURBANK—A SAINT AMIDST THE ROSES
“The secret of improved plant breeding, apart from scientific
knowledge, is love.” Luther Burbank uttered this wisdom as I walked
beside him in his Santa Rosa garden. We halted near a bed of edible
cacti.
“While I was conducting experiments to make ‘spineless’ cacti,” he
continued, “I often talked to the plants to create a vibration of
love. ‘You have nothing to fear,’ I would tell them. ‘You don’t need
your defensive thorns. I will protect you.’ Gradually the useful
plant of the desert emerged in a thornless variety.”
[Illustration: Luther Burbank, beloved friend, poses with me in
his Santa Rosa garden.—see burbank.jpg]
[Illustration: Luther Burbank—see burbank2.jpg]
I was charmed at this miracle. “Please, dear Luther, give me a few
cacti leaves to plant in my garden at Mount Washington.”
A workman standing near-by started to strip off some leaves; Burbank
prevented him.
“I myself will pluck them for the swami.” He handed me three leaves,
which later I planted, rejoicing as they grew to huge estate.
The great horticulturist told me that his first notable triumph was
the large potato, now known by his name. With the indefatigability
of genius, he went on to present the world with hundreds of crossed
improvements on nature-his new Burbank varieties of tomato, corn,
squash, cherries, plums, nectarines, berries, poppies, lilies,
roses.
I focused my camera as Luther led me before the famous walnut tree
by which he had proved that natural evolution can be telescopically
hastened.
“In only sixteen years,” he said, “this walnut tree reached a state
of abundant nut production to which an unaided nature would have
brought the tree in twice that time.”
Burbank’s little adopted daughter came romping with her dog into
the garden.
“She is my human plant.” Luther waved to her affectionately. “I see
humanity now as one vast plant, needing for its highest fulfillments
only love, the natural blessings of the great outdoors, and
intelligent crossing and selection. In the span of my own lifetime
I have observed such wondrous progress in plant evolution that I
look forward optimistically to a healthy, happy world as soon as its
children are taught the principles of simple and rational living.
We must return to nature and nature’s God.”
“Luther, you would delight in my Ranchi school, with its outdoor
classes, and atmosphere of joy and simplicity.”
My words touched the chord closest to Burbank’s heart-child
education. He plied me with questions, interest gleaming from his
deep, serene eyes.
“Swamiji,” he said finally, “schools like yours are the only hope
of a future millennium. I am in revolt against the educational systems
of our time, severed from nature and stifling of all individuality.
I am with you heart and soul in your practical ideals of education.”
As I was taking leave of the gentle sage, he autographed a small volume
and presented it to me. {FN38-1} “Here is my book on THE TRAINING
OF THE HUMAN PLANT,” {FN38-2} he said. “New types of training are
needed-fearless experiments. At times the most daring trials have
succeeded in bringing out the best in fruits and flowers. Educational
innovations for children should likewise become more numerous, more
courageous.”
I read his little book that night with intense interest. His eye
envisioning a glorious future for the race, he wrote: “The most
stubborn living thing in this world, the most difficult to swerve,
is a plant once fixed in certain habits. . . . Remember that this
plant has preserved its individuality all through the ages; perhaps
it is one which can be traced backward through eons of time in the
very rocks themselves, never having varied to any great extent in
all these vast periods. Do you suppose, after all these ages of
repetition, the plant does not become possessed of a will, if you
so choose to call it, of unparalleled tenacity? Indeed, there are
plants, like certain of the palms, so persistent that no human
power has yet been able to change them. The human will is a weak
thing beside the will of a plant. But see how this whole plant’s
lifelong stubbornness is broken simply by blending a new life with
it, making, by crossing, a complete and powerful change in its life.
Then when the break comes, fix it by these generations of patient
supervision and selection, and the new plant sets out upon its new
way never again to return to the old, its tenacious will broken
and changed at last.
“When it comes to so sensitive and pliable a thing as the nature
of a child, the problem becomes vastly easier.”
Magnetically drawn to this great American, I visited him again and
again. One morning I arrived at the same time as the postman, who
deposited in Burbank’s study about a thousand letters. Horticulturists
wrote him from all parts of the world.
“Swamiji, your presence is just the excuse I need to get out into
the garden,” Luther said gaily. He opened a large desk-drawer
containing hundreds of travel folders.
“See,” he said, “this is how I do my traveling. Tied down by my
plants and correspondence, I satisfy my desire for foreign lands
by a glance now and then at these pictures.”
My car was standing before his gate; Luther and I drove along the
streets of the little town, its gardens bright with his own varieties
of Santa Rosa, Peachblow, and Burbank roses.
“My friend Henry Ford and I both believe in the ancient theory of
reincarnation,” Luther told me. “It sheds light on aspects of life
otherwise inexplicable. Memory is not a test of truth; just because
man fails to remember his past lives does not prove he never had
them. Memory is blank concerning his womb-life and infancy, too;
but he probably passed through them!” He chuckled.
The great scientist had received KRIYA initiation during one of my
earlier visits. “I practice the technique devoutly, Swamiji,” he
said. After many thoughtful questions to me about various aspects
of yoga, Luther remarked slowly:
“The East indeed possesses immense hoards of knowledge which the
West has scarcely begun to explore.”
Intimate communion with nature, who unlocked to him many of her
jealously guarded secrets, had given Burbank a boundless spiritual
reverence.
“Sometimes I feel very close to the Infinite Power,” he confided
shyly. His sensitive, beautifully modeled face lit with his memories.
“Then I have been able to heal sick persons around me, as well as
many ailing plants.”
He told me of his mother, a sincere Christian. “Many times after
her death,” Luther said, “I have been blessed by her appearance in
visions; she has spoken to me.”
We drove back reluctantly toward his home and those waiting thousand
letters.
“Luther,” I remarked, “next month I am starting a magazine to present
the truth-offerings of East and West. Please help me decide on a
good name for the journal.”
We discussed titles for awhile, and finally agreed on EAST-WEST.
After we had reentered his study, Burbank gave me an article he
had written on “Science and Civilization.”
“This will go in the first issue of EAST-WEST,” I said gratefully.
As our friendship grew deeper, I called Burbank my “American saint.”
“Behold a man,” I quoted, “in whom there is no guile!” His heart
was fathomlessly deep, long acquainted with humility, patience,
sacrifice. His little home amidst the roses was austerely simple;
he knew the worthlessness of luxury, the joy of few possessions. The
modesty with which he wore his scientific fame repeatedly reminded
me of the trees that bend low with the burden of ripening fruits;
it is the barren tree that lifts its head high in an empty boast.
I was in New York when, in 1926, my dear friend passed away. In
tears I thought, “Oh, I would gladly walk all the way from here to
Santa Rosa for one more glimpse of him!” Locking myself away from
secretaries and visitors, I spent the next twenty-four hours in
seclusion.
The following day I conducted a Vedic memorial rite around a large
picture of Luther. A group of my American students, garbed in Hindu
ceremonial clothes, chanted the ancient hymns as an offering was
made of flowers, water, and fire-symbols of the bodily elements
and their release in the Infinite Source.
Though the form of Burbank lies in Santa Rosa under a Lebanon cedar
that he planted years ago in his garden, his soul is enshrined for
me in every wide-eyed flower that blooms by the wayside. Withdrawn
for a time into the spacious spirit of nature, is that not Luther
whispering in her winds, walking her dawns?
His name has now passed into the heritage of common speech. Listing
“burbank” as a transitive verb, Webster’s New International Dictionary
defines it: “To cross or graft (a plant). Hence, figuratively, to
improve (anything, as a process or institution) by selecting good
features and rejecting bad, or by adding good features.”
“Beloved Burbank,” I cried after reading the definition, “your very
name is now a synonym for goodness!”
LUTHER BURBANK
SANTA ROSA, CALIFORNIA
U.S.A.
December 22, 1924
I have examined the Yogoda system of Swami Yogananda and in my
opinion it is ideal for training and harmonizing man’s physical,
mental, and spiritual natures. Swami’s aim is to establish
“How-to-Live” schools throughout the world, wherein education will
not confine itself to intellectual development alone, but also
training of the body, will, and feelings.
Through the Yogoda system of physical, mental, and spiritual
unfoldment by simple and scientific methods of concentration and
meditation, most of the complex problems of life may be solved,
and peace and good-will come upon earth. The Swami’s idea of
right education is plain commonsense, free from all mysticism and
non-practicality; otherwise it would not have my approval.
I am glad to have this opportunity of heartily joining with the
Swami in his appeal for international schools on the art of living
which, if established, will come as near to bringing the millennium
as anything with which I am acquainted.
{FN38-1} Burbank also gave me an autographed picture of himself.
I treasure it even as a Hindu merchant once treasured a picture of
Lincoln. The Hindu, who was in America during the Civil War years,
conceived such an admiration for Lincoln that he was unwilling
to return to India until he had obtained a portrait of the Great
Emancipator. Planting himself adamantly on Lincoln’s doorstep, the
merchant refused to leave until the astonished President permitted
him to engage the services of Daniel Huntington, the famous New
York artist. When the portrait was finished, the Hindu carried it
in triumph to Calcutta.
[Illustration: Luther Burbank’s signature—see bsignature.jpg]
{FN38-2} New York: Century Co., 1922.