This paper explores the life and vision of Balbir Mathur, founder of an NGO called Trees for Life International, focusing on the role of religious experience in shaping his relationship to the natural world and his work with Trees for Life. Mathur grew up in a Hindu family in India and later moved to the state of Kansas in the United States. He recounts that he had a profound religious experience one day while flying over the island of Cypress followed by a period of severe illness and further spiritual experiences, causing him to quit his job and seek a way to be of service to humanity. Mathur established Trees for Life, an organization that plants trees and engages in humanitarian work all over the world to help impoverished communities, especially in the global south, with the requirement that each person or community it assists in turn assist at least two others. his paper will focus broadly in Mathur's religious autobiography and the role of religion in inspiring Mathur to effect positive socio-cultural change through ahis global humanitarian movement. Mathur's vision of socio-cultural transformation is deeply informed by Hindu and Buddhist ideals, especially Hindu conceptions of the divine as an impersonal force, the Buddhist principle of codependent arising, and other Hindu and Buddhist religious concepts.