Mind, A Tree

Sage Vasishtha

O Rama! This mind is like a tree which is firmly rooted in the vicious field known as the body. Worries and anxieties are its blossoms; it is laden with the fruits of old age and disease; it is adorned with the flowers of desires and sense-enjoyments; hopes and longings are its branches; and perversities are its leaves. Cut down this deadly poisonous tree, which looks as unshakable as the mountain, with the sharp axe known as enquiry.

O Rama, this mind is like an elephant which roams the forest known as the body. Its vision is clouded by delusion; it has entered into the one (conditioned and ignorant) side; it is incapable of resting in its own self-bliss; it is violent; though it wishes to perceive the truth which it hears from wise men, it is caught up in the perception of diversity and it is conditioned by its own concepts of pleasure and pain; it is endowed with the fierce tusks of lust etc. O Rama, you are a lion among the princes! Tear this elephant to pieces by your sharp intelligence.

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From Srimad Bhagavad Gita:

The scriptures speak of the eternal Ashvattha, the World Tree, whose roots are in the most high, branches in the lower regions, and leaves in Vedic hymns. He who knows it, understands the Veda really. Nourished by the Gunas and covered with the budding foliage of sense objects, its branches spread into regions high and low. Stretching forth on the ground below in the world of men, are its secondary roots, entangling man in the bondage of action. For one involved in worldly life, the form of this World Tree is not visible, nor its origin, nor its end, nor its foundation. Cutting asunder the firmly rooted Ashvattha with the powerful axe of non-attachment, and saying, "I seek refuge in that Primeval Person from whom this eternal cosmic activity has streamed forth", man should seek that Status, attaining to which there is no more return to this life of Samsara.