The Oak Tree of Truth

From Trunk to Branch

Imagine a mighty oak tree standing proudly in a beautiful green field. From afar, the tree is an organic whole. Standing underneath, we can look into its canopy and see from its central trunk larger branches spreading outward, and smaller branches disappearing into the foliage. As we observe more closely, we perceive the uniqueness of each bough and every narrower limb. For all its individual components, nothing would be possible without the trunk. The branches couldn’t grow if there was no trunk, for the branches ultimately all stem from that main trunk, and, despite their diversity, they share its characteristics. They are all equally interdependent.

Photo credit: Pixabay

This is how I envision universal truth—Truth with a capital ‘T’. The tree in its totality is the universe; the trunk is universal truth; the large branches represent the world’s religions, and the smaller limbs are their various offshoots and sects. Other branches symbolise different traditions in philosophy, and still others the different means (e.g., political, economic, and cultural) by which we try to make sense of the world.

We are the birds who live in the oak tree. Some of us stay on a main branch to build a nest to raise our young. Others of us range from offshoot to offshoot, exploring smaller limbs for a while before returning to the main branch. As we travel along boughs away from the trunk, we leave Truth to enter the localised truth of the world’s various belief systems that offer a different and incomplete framing of Truth. Consequently, it’s a partial version of Truth. This analogy helps to explain why the origins of the world’s religions are so closely identified with specific regions of the globe, as well as the similarities and differences among them.

Just as it’s hard from our perspective as tiny birds on the enormous oak to comprehend or experience the totality of the entire tree, so we tend to believe our boughs (our systems and sub-systems of beliefs and ideologies) are the entire Truth. The fragmented aspects of universal truth and the different ways in which each of these belief systems require us to behave, generate conflict among different groups. This reality is counterintuitive and harmful and conflicts with what it really means to be spiritual and to act compassionately, honestly, and peacefully.

Fortunately, we can nurture our understanding and broaden our vision to embrace universal truth by expanding our insight and replacing harmful social and religious prejudices with a compassionate, holistic outlook that includes everyone—even animals. We can also dismiss political and philosophical ideologies that similarly reject the inclusion of animals in the moral community.

As literary scholar Erica Fudge notes in Animal (Reaktion Books; 2002; pp 22-23):

What is at stake ultimately is our own ability to think beyond ourselves, to include within the orbit of our imaginations as well as our material existences, those beings of other species. A failure here creates the ground for the continuation of many of those practices that we would regard as cruel and paradoxical. A failure also reveals a limitation to our own capacity, something that might seem to be at odds with the absolute power that we constantly assert over animals’.

So how might we define Truth in the context of the exploitation of animals and our response to it? Since I know from my own experience that humans can think, suffer, feel pain, and experience emotions, I logically conclude that animals also must be equally capable, as there’s fundamentally no difference psychologically, physiologically, and behaviourally between us. I reject the proposition that human wellbeing always necessitates the subjugation of animals, or that they exist on separate moral planes. In fact, I believe they’re inextricably interwoven.

More specifically, the exercise of truth means recognising our complicity in the animal industrial complex* and the need to uncover the lies of those—including ourselves—who benefit from its horrors. How deeply embedded we are in its obscenities will reveal itself to us as we dig deeper and deeper into our use of animal products. But such an investigation is necessary if we’re to break through the distortions to reach a more honest and nonviolent relationship with other beings.

* I define the animal industrial complex as the collective term for all the industries, institutions, traditions, spiritual and religious beliefs, and much more that use, excuse, defend, and promote the subjugation of animals, commercially or otherwise, for human gain.

Adapted from Growl: Life Lessons, Hard Truths, and Bold Strategies from an Animal Advocate by Kim Stallwood. Published by Lantern Publishing & Media.