Heart-Lotus

The lotus is the flower of the East. Two kinds of lotus are known, the Indi­an (Nelumbo nuci­fera) and the Egyp­tian (Nymphaea lotus). In both cul­tures it is a sac­red plant, the sym­bol of the Ganges in India and of the Nile in Egypt. The Egyp­tian lotus was con­sec­rated to Osiris and Isis, and it was the emblem of fer­til­ity and abund­ance.

The lotus prop­er is the Indi­an plant, the sym­bol of ideal pur­ity and spir­itu­al per­fec­tion. The lotus in bud sig­ni­fies the state of the world before cre­ation, and the open flower is the emblem of the mani­fest world. In Hinduism it is one of the attrib­utes of Vish­nu, with which he blesses his devotees, and it is held that after Buddha's enlight­en­ment lotus flowers sprang from the earth beneath his first steps.

In yoga the lotus flower lends its name to one of the most per­fect asan­as (the lotus pos­i­tion), and the indi­vidu­al chakras, too, are sym­bol­ised by lotus flowers of dif­fer­ent col­ours and num­bers of petals. The inner space of man­dalas is also formed by rings of lotus petals, and there it helps focus atten­tion.

The lotus is the sign of good inten­tion, peace, hap­pi­ness and prosper­ity, and it reminds us to tran­scend undesir­able traits, for although it grows in the mud, its flower always rises above the water. Hence one of its names: mud-born (pankaja). Its vari­ous spe­cies open their petals at full moon or at moon­rise, and the padma lotus is one of the arrows of the god of love, but it can also be a battle form­a­tion, a jewel, a large num­ber or a birth­mark. It is, besides, the name of the metal lead, of one of the chakras of the upper body, and even of a mode of sexu­al union. The lotus flower is a favour­ite fig­ure in poetry, too. The epi­thet for long, taper­ing eyes is also lotus-petal. The expres­sion lotus of the heart may be regarded as almost a stock phrase in the mys­ti­cism of yoga. The soul dwells in the lotus of the heart, whose petals are the homes of par­tic­u­lar qual­it­ies.

The list in the Narada­pariv­rajaka Upan­ishad cov­ers the favour­able traits of human nature, those that fur­ther spir­itu­al growth, but also its doubt­ful, even spir­itu­ally unfa­vour­able aspects. The sym­bol­ic value of the qual­it­ies assigned to the petals of the car­din­al points is inter­est­ing. East is the dir­ec­tion of vir­tue (dharma), and north the abode of com­pos­ure. In India the expres­sion ‘set­ting out north’ is a syn­onym for spir­itu­al per­fec­tion: who­ever sets out north leaves the world behind and ded­ic­ates him­self to God. West is the abode of enter­tain­ment – and, inter­est­ingly, one of the chief occu­pa­tions of West­ern soci­ety today is enter­tain­ment on an indus­tri­al scale. The south­ern quarter – togeth­er with the inter­me­di­ate points on either side – houses neg­at­ive qual­it­ies, unfa­vour­able to spir­itu­al growth. And most inter­est­ing of all: at the centre of the lotus of the heart, in the seed-pod, dwells a dis­tinct­ive human qual­ity, self-reflec­tion.

Thus the cos­mo­lo­gic­al sym­bol, the aid to focused atten­tion and med­it­a­tion, and the believ­er's heart-throne, pur­i­fied in med­it­a­tion, are three aspects of the lotus sym­bol which reflect one anoth­er at the per­fect level of the unio mys­tica.