Have you ever asked yourself

what the Tea Leaf goes through

to give up its essence

in order to

become Tea in a Teacup

to be drunk by a

Tea loving ceremonialist?

​

Maybe not, but imagine —

A leaf is born from a tea tree.

It goes through being plucked,

And then dried,

So that it experiences dehydration.

​

Now imagine yourself extremely dehydrated.

You will be at the point of death.

Just so is a Tea Leaf,

Just so is a servant.

​

A servant is plucked from their home to be dried and dehydrated from his or her cultural heritage to serve a master unknown.

 

Just so is the Tea Leaf.

​

Now, after extreme dehydration,

The leaf is put into boiling water to Finally give up all it has.

Not just to give up its essence,

But give up its body to let go

In order to nourish, 

Become,

Ss it were,

Nonexistent;

​

Just so is a servant.

​

For a servant,

In order to survive,

Must also let go of his or her true life in order to nourish the life of another.

​

And when in the Tea garden or in a pagoda or in a Tearoom,

The guest, the tea drinker, put the tea essence to their lips and take in the first step where the hole thereby receives a reinvigoration of vitality.

 

Then it becomes evident that the true nature of the Tea Leaf is revealed.

That is — the Tea Leaf is born to bring vitality by giving up its own essence and vitality.

​

This is the structural foundation of all heroic myths that underly our

human existence.

The servant too, gives up his or her vitality and essence in order to revivify not just a particular master, but life itself.

​

Just so is a Tea Leaf.

​

Who are the servants?

​

We all are.

​

Yes.

​

We are all servants born to serve a master by surrendering our vitality and our essence — through the process of drying and boiling — 

To life itself.

​

For what we truly are,

Are people born to serve something.

 

You will either serve your ego, or you’ll serve your family and

Loved ones. 

You will serve your country,

You will serve your allegiance to

some cause,

Whether you choose it or not.

​

And that thing will have your allegiance whether you like it or not. Because we are all born to serve.

​

Like a Tea Leaf,

We will make Tea of our lives.

The question is, what kind of

Tea are you,

And to whom or to

What do you serve?

​

This is the difference between us and the Tea Leaf —

We sometimes have the choice to choose.

And when we have a choice to choose, our greatest happiness is choosing what we give the vitality of our lives to.

​

And here’s what being a human being is all about —The ability to make the right choice.

Because our choices determine

What we serve.

​

This is the secret behind the word ‘Abdul’ in Arabic. It means ‘servant of’. And in the ultimate sense of the name Abdullah, 

It means 'Servant of Reality'.

​

And this, however way that

you slice it,

Is the true purpose of humanity.

​

The Way of Tea is Humanism.

​

So as humans,

We are plucked from the field of nothingness to become servants of essence to something-ness.

And this something-ness,

In reality is also the essence.

The essence of all things and all ways.

​