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The Lotus
by Amanda F. Rourke
(excerpted from Sunrise magazine, August/September 2000;
Theosophical University Press)
Lotuses of many colors grow in Asia, Egypt, the Americas, and Australia, and in all these places it
has been used as a symbol, alluding to the unfoldment of the inner divine potential, and parallels
between spiritual and physical planes as well as between cosmic creation and spiritual rebirth. The
Lotus is called "The child of the Universe bearing the likeness of its mother in its bosom" because its
seed already has within it perfectly formed embryo leaves and whole plantlets. It also hints at the
concealment of the ideal world within the mundane, and the ability to access the former through
the latter. Moreover, because the Lotus has buds, blossoms, and seed pods simultaneously on the
same plant, it has symbolized the past, present, and future – all potential.
The ancient Egyptians and Indians noticed that the Lotus responds to the presence or absence of
light and warmth, submerging itself by night and rising from the water at dawn, symbolically
"worshiping the sun”… Egyptians, Hindus, and Buddhists had private Lotus gardens where priests
daily reenacted creation's first sunrise. The Lotus also appears in India in Hindu accounts of
creation. In one version, after the utterance of the first Om, the vast primordial ocean brought forth
"a wondrous golden Lotus, resplendent as the sun, which floated upon the lonely waters." From Om
issued the Hindu trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, who are represented seated on golden
Lotuses.
Another Hindu version of creation portrays the creation of Vishnu by telling that he slept on a
Lotus, and a Lotus stem issued from his navel which illustrates the universe's evolution…The
waters are the womb of space and the stalk is the umbilical cord. From this Lotus grew Brahma,
the creator, who seated himself in the natal position on the Lotus, contemplating the eternal…
Vishnu's feminine aspect, Lakshmi, at her birth surged forth from the ocean standing upon the
white lotus, which is her emblem. Goddess of prosperity, love, and beauty, she corresponds to the
European Venus, who also was born by rising from the water amid flowers. Lakshmi is the symbol
of eternal being. As the mother of the world, she is eternal and imperishable; just as Vishnu is all
pervading, so also is she omnipresent. (E. Moor, The Hindu Pantheon, p. 17). Another Hindu figure
associated with the Lotus is Padmapani ("lotus bearer"), the dhyan-chohan who holds a Lotus in one
of his four hands. In this capacity the Lotus symbolizes generation. Padmapani is also called
Avalokitesvara in Tibet and Kwan-Yin in China.
Returning to Buddhism, Gautama Buddha has been described as "the flower of the human tree, only
opening once in myriads of years but (when) once opened (it) fills the world with the perfume of
his wisdom and the honey of his love, from the royal root shall grow a celestial Lotus." (E. Schure,
"Le Buddha et sa legende," Revue des deux mondes, July 1, 1885, pp. 595-6) As he meditated on
life's sufferings beneath the Jambu tree, a woman thought he was a forest god and offered him
food; he likened this kindness to drops of dew which gather and eventually fill the calyx of the
Lotus flower -- a reference to the mantra Om mani padme hum, the life of all is a dewdrop or "jewel
at the heart of the Lotus."
On the night Gautama was conceived, a huge Lotus is said to have grown out of the earth. As one
enlightened during his life on earth, Buddha is given the attribute of a Lotus throne, since the Lotus
is the symbol of the dvija or "twice-born." The Lotus models the many-faceted human reaching up
to the divine, with its roots in the mud of material life, a stalk passing through the waters of
existence in the astral world, and with its florescence occurring on the water looking up to the
spiritual realms of the sky. Earth, water, and air may also stand for the material, intellectual, and
spiritual worlds. Being seated upon an opened Lotus flower, as if issuing from it, represents
Buddha's mastery over the intellectual and philosophic world.
The Lotus ornament is widespread, found also in Assyrian, Syrian, and Carthaginian temple friezes
and capitals. In fact, so prominent is it that one 19th century scholar, Goodyear, believed all
ornament in Asia Minor and southern Europe originated from the Lotus form.
The Lotus and water lily are prominent symbols in Egyptian, Biblical, Classical, European, Indian,
and theosophical literature. They relate to creation, regeneration, and the state of the initiate and
higher beings, all of whom travel through life's vicissitudes and trials to become at one with the
creative source of life, in order to SPREAD LIGHT.
