Vrikshmandir ( Tree temples )

This is yet another extremely important experiment that reflects Rev. Dada's reverence for the environment and the belief in the omnipresence of God and unity of everyone and everything in divine creation. For Rev. Dadaji, trees are living testament to the omnipresence of God. This vision when translated into action world witnessed emergence of Vrikshmandir. A large piece of barren lands is acquired, swadhyayees from fifteen to twenty villages around and from neighbouring towns first rehabilitate its land, dig wells for its irrigation, and then dig the pits for saplings.

Finally the day arrives when at a given time, thousand of swadhyayees, from far and near, stand with a sapling in their hands to lower them into the pits. In about five minutes, planting of an orchard of, say, forty acres, is complete. Once a Vrikshmandir is set up, swadhyayees from neighbouring villages and towns take turns tending these saplings and trees for twenty-four hours, twice or three times in a year, in a spirit of devotion as pujari. As a result, large plots of totally desolate and barren land are now turning into beautiful lush green orchards, where the survival rate of plants is claimed to be nearly one hundred per cent. The first Vrikshmandir was raised in July 1979. These orchards uniting the rich and the poor, the high castes and the low castes, the erstwhile neighbourhood enemies, the learned and the illiterate into closely knit fabric of Swadhyay brotherhood. A work of this magnitude under the government social forestry scheme costs million of rupees, with a high loss rate of plants and numerous complaints against it from those who are supposed to be its beneficiaries.