Lotus
(Gr.). A most occult plant, sacred in Egypt, India and elsewhere; called “the child of the Universe bearing the likeness of its mother in its bosom”. (TG)
The inner Lotus can be observed open as well as closed. When the protective purple aura is needed, it can be seen how the petals of the Lotus contract and become covered by the precipitations of the blood vessels. During such a manifestation an experienced Yogi realizes that great danger is near. As in nature, long before the clouds appear the petals of flowers turn increasingly toward the sun or at twilight promptly fold up, so also the Fiery Lotus senses the approach of cosmic storms. And through the development of Yoga one can observe a similar tension also in the outer Lotus. Thus is called the circular rotation of the Kundalini, which touches the chief centers, and forms, as it were, the outer Lotus of defense. This particular tension is usually preceded by the manifestation of arrows, which has already been spoken about. The outer Lotus is also called an armor. We consider its formation not only a sign of danger but also of attainment of a degree of Yoga. (FW I, 76)
It is the flower sacred to nature and her Gods, and represents the abstract and the Concrete Universes, standing as the emblem of the productive powers of both spiritual and physical nature. It was held sacred from the remotest antiquity by the Aryan Hindus, the Egyptians, and the Buddhists after them; revered in China and Japan, and adopted as a Christian emblem by the Greek and Latin Churches, who make of it a messenger as the Christians do now, who replace it with the water lily. … With the Hindus, the lotus is the emblem of the productive power of nature, through the agency of fire and water (spirit and matter). … the seeds of the lotus contain, even before they germinate, perfectly-formed leaves, the miniature shapes of what one day, as perfected plants, they will become. The lotus, in India, is the symbol of prolific earth, and which is more, of Mount Meru. … The underlying idea in this symbol … shows its identical parentage in all the religious systems … signifies one and the same philosophical idea—namely, the emanation of the objective from the subjective, divine Ideation passing from the abstract into the concrete or visible form. (SD I, p 379)
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