The Tree -Spirits

People praying to trees is a familiar sight in India .The trees which enjoy the most devotion are  -the Peepul tree and the Khejri tree (Sami / Jammi).

The method of collection of the medicinal herbs  is sometimes as  important as preparing the medicine.A small prayer of thanks is said along with a request to heal the person who uses it .This being only logical - Gratitude is a fine virtue to possess  and it would be most rude to pull a branch  from a life form however primitive it is considered to be.

This extract from the book " The kingdom of Faerie " by Geoffrey Hodson  explains more about the tree's state of consciousness.
The author is a famous philosopher , clairvoyant and Theosophist who published many articles for the Theosophical society.

A tree may be regarded as having a soul, because a portion of the monad-bearing life-wave pervades it,   and,evolves by means of incarnation within it; its evolution is quickened when a nature-spirit takes charge of a tree.

The first effect is the quickening of responsiveness in the dreaming consciousness of the tree.

The nature-spirit, being so much more highly evolved, appears also to act as a link, or channel, for energies from higher levels of 

consciousness, and so fulfils a function.

In taking up its abode in a tree, the nature-spirit appears to unify itself with the complete cell life of the tree, thus making homogeneous that which was heterogeneous; it, therefore, may be regarded as an expression of the soul of the tree, though at the same time it is a separate entity.