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    "slug": "vol-1-cosmogenesis",
    "name": "Volume I — Cosmogenesis"
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    "num": 23,
    "slug": "25-viii-the-lotus-as-a-universal-symbol-379",
    "title": "VIII. THE LOTUS AS A UNIVERSAL SYMBOL ... 379",
    "of": 48,
    "words": 3947,
    "text": "## VIII. THE LOTUS AS A UNIVERSAL SYMBOL ... 379\n\n\nThe Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky, Vol 1, bk 2, ch 8\n\n###### The Secret Doctrine by\nH. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 1\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 379 LOTUS AND LILY.\n\n##### § VIII.\nTHE LOTUS, AS A UNIVERSAL SYMBOL.\n\n**T**HERE are no ancient symbols, without a deep\nand philosophical meaning attached to them; their importance and\nsignificance increasing with their antiquity. Such is the **L**OTUS.\nIt is the flower sacred to nature and her Gods, and represents\nthe abstract and the Concrete Universes, standing as the emblem\nof the productive powers of both spiritual and physical nature.\nIt was held sacred from the remotest antiquity by the Aryan Hindus,\nthe Egyptians, and the Buddhists after them; revered in China\nand Japan, and adopted as a Christian emblem by the Greek and\nLatin Churches, who made of it a messenger as the Christians do\nnow, who replace it with the water lily.* It had, and still has,\nits mystic meaning which is identical with every nation on the\nearth. We refer the reader to Sir William Jones.** With the Hindus,\nthe lotus is the emblem of the productive power of nature, through\nthe agency of fire and water (spirit and matter). \"Eternal!\"\nsays a verse in the Bhagavad Gita, \"I see Brahm the creator\nenthroned in thee above the lotus!\"; and Sir W. Jones shows,\nas noted in the Stanzas, that the seeds of the lotus contain,\neven before they germinate, perfectly-formed leaves, the miniature\nshapes of what one day, as perfected plants, they will become.\nThe lotus, in India, is the symbol of prolific earth, and what\nis more, of Mount Meru. The four angels or genii of the four quarters\nof Heaven (the Maharajahs, see *Stanzas*)* *stand\neach on a lotus. The lotus is the two-fold type of the Divine\nand human hermaphrodite, being of dual sex, so to say.\n\nThe spirit of Fire (or Heat), which stirs up, fructifies, and\ndevelops into concrete form everything (from its ideal prototype),\nwhich is born of WATER or primordial Earth, evolved Brahma --\nwith the Hindus. The lotus flower, represented as growing out\nof Vishnu's navel -- that God resting on the waters of space and\nhis Serpent of Infinity -- is the most graphic allegory ever made:\nthe Universe evolving from the central Sun, the POINT, the ever-concealed\ngerm. Lakshmi, who is the\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* In the Christian religion Gabriel, the Archangel, holding in\nhis hand a spray of water lilies, appears to the Virgin Mary in\nevery picture of the Annunciation. This spray typifying fire and\nwater, or the idea of creation and generation, symbolizes *precisely\nthe same idea as the lotus *in the hand of the Bodhisat who\nannounces to Maha-Maya, Gautama's mother, the birth of the world's\nSaviour, Buddha. Thus also, Osiris and Horus were represented\nby the Egyptians constantly in association with the lotus-flower,\nthe two being Sun-gods or Fire (the Holy Ghost being still typified\nby \"tongues of fire\"), (Acts).\n\n** See Sir William Jones' \"Dissertations Relating to Asia.\"\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 380 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nfemale aspect of Vishnu,* and who is also called *Padma*,*\n*the lotus, is likewise shown floating at \"Creation,\"\non a lotus flower, and during the \"churning of the ocean\"\nof space, springing from the \"sea of milk,\" like Venus\nfrom the froth.\n\n\". . . Then seated on a lotus\n\nBeauty's bright goddess, peerless Sri, arose\n\nOut of the waves . . . \"\n\nsings an English Orientalist and poet (Sir Monier Williams).\n\nThe underlying idea in this symbol is very beautiful, and it shows,\nfurthermore, its identical parentage in all the religious systems.\nWhether in the lotus or water-lily shape it signifies one and\nthe same philosophical idea -- namely, the emanation of the objective\nfrom the subjective, divine Ideation passing from the abstract\ninto the concrete or visible form. For, as soon as **D**ARKNESS\n-- or rather that which is \"darkness\" for ignorance\n-- has disappeared in its own realm of eternal Light, leaving\nbehind itself only its divine manifested Ideation, the creative\nLogoi have their understanding opened, and they see in the ideal\nworld (hitherto concealed in the divine thought) the archetypal\nforms of all, and proceed to copy and build or fashion upon these\nmodels forms evanescent and transcendent.\n\nAt this stage of action, the Demiurge** is not yet the Architect.\nBorn in the twilight of action, he has yet to first perceive the\nplan, to realise the ideal forms which lie buried in the bosom\nof Eternal Ideation, as the future lotus-leaves, the immaculate\npetals, are concealed within the seed of that plant. . . . .\n\nIn chapter lxxxi. of the *Ritual *(*Book of the Dead*),*\n*called \"Transformation into the Lotus,\" a head\nemerging from this flower, the god exclaims: \"I am the pure\nlotus, emerging from the Luminous one. . . . . I carry the messages\nof Horus. I am the pure lotus which comes from the Solar Fields.\n. . . .\"\n\nThe lotus-idea may be traced even in the Elohistic chapter, the\n1st of *Genesis*,* *as stated in *Isis.*\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Lakshmi is Venus -- Aphrodite, and, like the latter, she sprang\nfrom the froth of the ocean with a lotus in her hand. In the Ramayana\nshe is called Padma.\n\n** In Esoteric philosophy the Demiurge or *Logos*,*\n*regarded as the **C**REATOR, is simply an abstract\nterm, an idea, like \"army.\" As the latter is the all-embracing\nterm for a body of active forces or working units -- soldiers\n-- so is the Demiurge the qualitative compound of a multitude\nof Creators or Builders. Burnouf, the great Orientalist, has seized\nthe idea perfectly when saying that Brahma does *not *create\nthe earth, any more than the rest of the universe. \"Having\nevolved himself from the soul of the world, once separated from\nthe first cause, he evaporates with, and emanates all nature out\nof himself. He does not stand above it, but is mixed up with it;\nBrahma and the universe form one Being, each particle of which\nis in its essence Brahma himself, who proceeded out of himself.\"\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 381 THE EXOTERIC AND THE ESOTERIC.\n\nIt is in this idea that we must look for the origin and explanation\nof the verse in the Jewish cosmogony, which reads: \"And God\nsaid, Let the earth bring forth . . . . the fruit-tree yielding\nfruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself.\" In all the\nprimitive religions, the \"Son of the Father\" is the\ncreative God -- *i.e.*,* *His thought made visible;\nand before the Christian era, from the Trimurti of the Hindus\ndown to the three kabalistic heads of the scriptures as explained\nby the Jews, the triune godhead of each nation was fully defined\nand substantiated in its allegories.\n\nSuch is the cosmic and ideal significance of this great symbol\nwith the Eastern peoples. But, applied to practical and exoteric\nworship -- which had also its esoteric symbology -- the lotus\nbecame in time the carrier and container of a more terrestrial\nidea. No dogmatic religion has ever escaped the sexual element\nin it; and to this day it soils the moral beauty of the root idea.\nThe following is quoted from the same Kabalistic **MSS**. already\nmentioned: --\n\n\"Pointing to like signification was the lotus growing in\nthe waters of the Nile. Its mode of growth peculiarly fitted it\nas a symbol of the generative activities. The flower of the lotus,\nwhich is the bearer of the seed for reproduction, as the result\nof its maturing, is connected by its placenta-like attachment\nwith mother-earth, or the womb of Isis, through the water of the\nwomb, that is, the river Nile, by means of the long cord-like\nstalk, the umbilicus. Nothing can be plainer than the symbol,\nand to make it perfect in its intended signification, a child\nis sometimes represented as seated in or issuing from the flower.*\nThus Osiris and Isis, the children of Chronos, or time without\nend, in the development of their nature-forces, in this picture\nbecome the parents of man under the name Horus. . .\" (See\n§ X., \"Deus Lunus.\")\n\n\"We cannot lay too great stress upon the use of this generative\nfunction as a basis for a symbolical language and a scientific\nart-speech. Thought upon the idea leads at once to reflection\nupon the subject of creative cause. In its workings Nature is\nobserved to have fashioned a wonderful piece of living mechanism\ngoverned by an added living soul; the life development and history\nof which soul, as to its whence, its present, and its whither,\nsurpasses all efforts of the human intellect.** The new born is\nan ever-recurring miracle, an evidence that\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* In Indian Puranas it is Vishnu, the first, and Brahma, the second\nlogos, or the ideal and practical creators, who are respectively\nrepresented, one as manifesting the lotus, the other as issuing\nfrom it.\n\n** Not the \"efforts\" of the trained psychic faculties\nof an Initiate into Eastern metaphysics, and the mysteries of\ncreative Nature. It is the profane of the past ages who have degraded\nthe pure ideal of cosmic creation into an emblem of mere human\nreproduction and sexual functions: it is the esoteric teachings,\nand the initiates of the Future, whose mission it is, and will\nbe, to redeem and ennoble once more the primitive conception so\nsadly profaned by its crude and gross application to exoteric\ndogmas and personations by theological and ecclesiastical religionists.\nThe silent worship of abstract or *noumenal *Nature, the\nonly divine manifestation, is the one ennobling religion of Humanity.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 382 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nwithin the workshop of the womb an intelligent creative power\nhas intervened to fasten a living soul to a physical machine.\nThe amazing wonderfulness of the fact attaches a holy sacredness\nto all connected with the organs of reproduction, as the dwelling\nand place of evident constructive intervention of deity.\"\n\nThis is a correct rendering of the underlying ideas of old, of\nthe purely pantheistic conceptions, *impersonal *and reverential,\nof the archaic philosophers of the prehistoric ages. Not so, however,\nwhen applied to sinful humanity, to the gross ideas attached to\npersonality. Therefore, no pantheistic philosopher would fail\nto find the remarks that follow the above and which represent\nthe anthropomorphism of Judean symbology, other than dangerous\nfor the sacredness of true religion, and fitting only our materialistic\nage, which is the direct outcome and result of that anthropomorphic\ncharacter. For this is the key-note to the entire spirit and essence\nof the Old Testament. \"Therefore,\" goes on the MSS.,\ntreating of the symbolism of art-speech of the Bible: --\n\n\"The locality of the *womb *is to be taken as the MOST\nHOLY PLACE, the SANCTUM SANCTORUM, and the *veritable ***T**EMPLE\nOF THE **L**IVING **G**OD.* With man\nthe possession of the woman has always been considered as an essential\npart of himself, to make one out of two, and jealously guarded\nas sacred. Even the part of the ordinary house or home consecrated\nto the dwelling of the wife was called the* penetralia*,*\n*the secret or sacred, and hence the metaphor of the Holy of\nHolies of sacred constructions taken from the idea of the sacredness\nof the organs of generation. Carried to the extreme of description**\nby metaphor, this part of the house is described in the Sacred\nBooks as the \"between the thighs of the house,\" and\nsometimes the idea is carried out constructively in the great\ndoor-opening of Churches placed inward between flanking buttresses.\"\n\nNo such thought \"carried to the extreme\" ever existed\namong the old primitive Aryans. This is proven by the fact that\nin the Vedic period their women were not placed apart from men\nin *penetralia*,* *or* *\"Zenanas.\"\nTheir seclusion began when the Mahomedans -- the next heirs to\nHebrew symbolism after Christian ecclesiasticism -- had conquered\nthe land and gradually enforced their ways and customs upon the\nHindus. The pre- and *post-*Vedic woman was as free as\nman; and no impure terrestrial thought was ever mixed with the\nreligious symbo-\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Surely the words of the old Initiate into the *primitive*\nmysteries of Christianity, \"*Know ye not ye are the Temple\nof God*\"* *(I* *Corinth. *iii*.\n16) could not be applied in *this *sense to *men?*\nThe meaning may have been, and *was *so, undeniably, in\nthe minds of the Hebrew compilers of the *Old* Testament.\nAnd here is the abyss that lies between the symbolism of the New\nTestament and the Jewish canon. This gulf would have remained\nand ever widened, had not Christianity -- especially and most\nglaringly the Latin Church -- thrown a bridge over it? Modern\nPopery has now spanned it entirely, by its dogma of the two immaculate\nconceptions, and the anthropomorphic and at the same time idolatrous\ncharacter it has conferred upon the Mother of its God.\n\n** It was so carried *only* in the Hebrew Bible, and its\nservile copyist, Christian theology.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 383 THE PURITY OF EARLY PHALLICISM.\n\nlogy of the early Aryans. The idea and application are purely\nSemitic. This is corroborated by the writer of the said intensely\nlearned and Kabalistic revelation himself, when he closes the\nabove-quoted passages by adding: --\n\n\"If to these organs as symbols of creative cosmic agencies\nthe idea of the origin of measures as well as of time-periods\ncan be attached, then indeed, in the constructions of the Temples\nas Dwellings of Deity, or of Jehovah, that part designated as\nthe Holy of Holies, or the Most Holy place, should borrow its\ntitle from the recognised sacredness of the generative organs,\nconsidered as symbols of measures as well as of creative cause.\nWith the ancient WISE, *there was no name and no idea*,*\nand no symbol *of A FIRST CAUSE.\" . . . .\n\nMost decidedly not. Rather never give a thought to it and leave\nit for ever *nameless*,* *as the early Pantheists\ndid, than degrade the sacredness of that *Ideal of Ideals*,*\n*by dragging down its symbols into such anthropomorphic forms!\nHere again one perceives the immense chasm between Aryan and Semitic\nreligious thought: two opposite poles -- Sincerity and Concealment.\nWith the Brahmins, who have never invested with an \"original\nSin\" element the natural procreative functions of mankind,\nit is a *religious duty* to have a son. A Brahmin, in days\nof old, having accomplished his mission of human creator, retired\nto the jungle and passed the rest of his days in religious meditations.\nHe had accomplished his duty to nature as mortal man and its co-worker,\nand henceforth gave all his thoughts to the spiritual immortal\nportion in himself, regarding the terrestrial as a mere illusion,\nan evanescent dream -- which it is. With the Semite, it was different.\nHe invented a temptation of flesh in a garden of Eden; showed\nhis God (esoterically, the Tempter and the Ruler of Nature) CURSING\n*for ever *an act, which was in the logical programme of\nthat nature.* All this exoterically, as in the *cloak *and\ndead letter of Genesis and the rest; and at the same time *esoterically\n*he regarded the supposed *sin *and FALL as an act\nso sacred, as to choose the organ, the perpetrator of the *original\nsin*,* *as the fittest and most sacred symbol to represent\nthat God, who is shown as branding its entering into function\nas disobedience and everlasting SIN!\n\nWho can ever fathom the paradoxical depths of the Semitic mind?\nAnd this paradoxical element, *minus *its innermost significance,\nhas now passed entirely into Christian theology and dogma!\n\nWhether the early Fathers of the Church knew the esoteric meaning\nof the Hebrew (Old) Testament, or whether only a few of them were\naware of it, while the others remained ignorant of the secret,\nis for\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* The same idea is carried out exoterically in the incidents of\nEgypt. The Lord God tempts sorely Pharaoh and \"plagues him\nwith great plagues,\" lest the king should escape punishment,\nand thus afford no pretext for one more triumph to his \"Chosen\npeople.\"\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 384 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\nposterity to decide. One thing is certain, at any rate. As the\nesotericism of the New Testament agrees perfectly with that of\nthe Hebrew Mosaic Books; and since, at the same time, a number\nof purely Egyptian symbols and pagan dogmas in general -- the\nTrinity for example -- have been copied by, and incorporated into,\nthe Synoptics and St. John, it becomes evident that the identity\nof those symbols was known to the writers of the New Testament,\nwhoever they were. They must have been aware also of the priority\nof the Egyptian esotericism, since they have adopted several such\nsymbols that typify purely Egyptian conceptions and beliefs --\nin their outward and inward meaning -- and which are not to be\nfound in the Jewish Canon. One of such is the water-lily in the\nhands of the Archangel in the early representations of his appearance\nto the Virgin Mary; and these symbolical images are preserved\nto this day in the iconography of the Greek and Roman Churches.\nThus water, fire, the Cross, as well as the Dove, the Lamb, and\nother sacred animals, with all their combinations, yield esoterically\nan identical meaning, and must have been accepted as an improvement\nupon Judaism pure and simple.\n\nFor the Lotus and Water are among the oldest symbols, and in their\norigin are purely Aryan, though they became common property during\nthe branching-off of the fifth race. Let us give an example. Letters,\nas much as numbers, were all mystic, whether in combination or\neach taken separately. The most sacred of all is the letter M.\nIt is both feminine and masculine, or androgyne, and is made to\nsymbolize WATER, the great deep, in its origin. It is mystic in\nall the languages, Eastern and Western, and stands as a glyph\nfor the waves, thus: . In\nthe Aryan Esotericism, as in the Semitic, this letter has always\nstood for the waters; *e.g*., in Sanskrit MAKARA -- the\ntenth sign of the Zodiac -- means a crocodile, or rather an aquatic\nmonster associated always with water. The letter MA is equivalent\nto and corresponds with number 5 -- composed of a *binary*,*\n*the symbol of the two sexes separated, and of the *ternary*,*\n*symbol of the third life, the progeny of the *binary.\n*This, again, is often symbolised by a *Pentagon*,*\n*the latter being a sacred sign, a divine Monogram. **M**AITREYA\nis the secret name of the *Fifth *Buddha, and the *Kalki\n*Avatar of the Brahmins -- the last **M**ESSIAH\nwho will come at the culmination of the Great Cycle. It is also\nthe initial letter of the Greek Metis or *Divine Wisdom*;\nof* Mimra*,* *the \"word\" or *Logos*;\nand of *Mithras *(the* Mihr*),* *the*\nMonad*,* Mystery. *All these are born in, and from,\nthe great Deep, and are the Sons of *Maya* -- the *Mother;\n*in Egypt, *Mouth*,* *in Greece *Minerva\n*(divine wisdom), *Mary*,* *or* Miriam*,*\nMyrrha*,* *etc.; of the Mother of the Christian Logos,\nand of *Maya*,* *the mother of Buddha. *Madhava\n*and* Madhavi *are the titles of the most important\ngods and goddesses of the Hindu Pantheon. Finally, *Mandala\n*is in\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 385 THE EGYPTIAN LOTUS.\n\nSanskrit \"a circle,\" or an orb (the ten divisions of\nthe *Rig Veda*)*. *The most sacred names in India\nbegin with this letter generally -- from *Mahat*,* *the\nfirst manifested intellect, and *Mandara*,* *the\ngreat mountain used by the gods to churn the *Ocean*,*\n*down to *Mandakin*,* *the heavenly *Ganga\n*(Ganges),* Manu*,* *etc., etc.\n\nShall this be called a coincidence? A strange one it is then,\nindeed, when we find even Moses -- found in the water of the Nile\n-- having the symbolical consonant in his name. And Pharaoh's\ndaughter \"called his name Moses . . . because,\" she\nsaid, \"*I drew him out of ***W**ATER\"\n(*Exod. ii.*,* *10.)* Besides which the Hebrew sacred\nname of God *applied to this letter M *is* Meborach*,*\n*the \"Holy\" or the \"Blessed,\" and the\nname for the water of the *Flood *is* M*'*bul.\n*A reminder of the \"*three* Maries\" at the\nCrucifixion and their connection with *Mar*,* *the\nSea, or *Water*,* *may close this example. This\nis why in Judaism and Christianity the *Messiah *is always\nconnected with Water, Baptism, the *Fishes *(the sign of\nthe Zodiac called *Meenam *in Sanskrit), and even with\nthe *Matsya *(fish) Avatar, and the Lotus -- the symbol\nof the womb, or the water-lily, which is the same.\n\nIn the relics of ancient Egypt, the greater the antiquity of the\nvotive symbols and emblems of the objects exhumed, the oftener\nare the lotus flowers and the water found in connection with the\nSolar Gods. The god *Khnoom* --* *the moist power\n-- water, as Thales taught it, being the principle of all things,\nsits on a throne enshrined in a lotus (Saitic epoch, *Serapeum*)*.\n*The god Bes stands on a lotus, ready to devour his progeny.\n(*Ibid*, Abydos.) Thot, the god of mystery and Wisdom,\nthe sacred Scribe of Amenti, wearing the Solar disc as head gear,\nsits with a bull's head (the sacred bull of Mendes being a form\nof Thot) and a human body, on a full blown lotus. (*IVth Dynasty.*)*\n*Finally it is the goddess *Hiquet*,* *under\nher shape of a frog, who rests on the lotus, thus showing her\nconnection with water. And it is this frog-symbol, undeniably\nthe most ancient of their Egyptian deities, from whose unpoetical\nshape the Egyptologists have been vainly trying to unravel her\nmystery and functions. Its adoption in the Church by the early\nChristians shows that they knew it better than our modern Orientalists.\nThe \"frog or toad goddess\" was one of the chief cosmic\ndeities connected with creation, on account of her amphibious\nnature, and chiefly because of her apparent resurrection, after\nlong ages of solitary life enshrined in old walls, in rocks, etc.\nShe not only participated in the organization of the world, together\nwith *Khnoom*,* *but was also connected with *the*\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* Even to the seven daughters of the *Midian *priest, who,\ncoming to draw the *water*, had Moses *water* their\nflock, for which service the Midian gives to Moses Zipporah (*sippara*\n= the* shining *wave) as wife (*Exod. ii.*)*\n*All this has the same secret meaning.\n\n####### [[Vol. 1, Page]] 386 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.\n\n*dogma of resurrection.*** *There must have been\nsome very profound and sacred meaning attached to this symbol,\nsince, notwithstanding the risk of being charged with a disgusting\nform of zoolatry, the early Egyptian Christians adopted it in\ntheir Churches. A frog or toad enshrined in a lotus flower, or\nsimply without the latter emblem, was the form chosen *for\nthe Church lamps*,* *on which were engraved the words\n\"I am the resurrection\" \"[[*ego eimi anastasis*]].\"**\nThese frog goddesses are also found on all the mummies.\n\n-------------\n\n[[This page continued in next section]]\n\n####### [[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------\n\n* With the Egyptians it was the resurrection in rebirth after\n3,000 years of purification, either in Devachan or \"the fields\nof bliss.\"\n\n** Such \"frog-goddesses\" may be seen at Bulaq, in the\nCairo Museum. For the statement about the Church lamps and inscriptions\nit is the learned ex-director of the Bulaq Museum, Mr. Gaston\nMaspero, who must be held responsible. (*See his *\"*Guide\ndu Visiteur au Musee de Bulaq*,\"* p.* 146.)\n\nNext Chapter\n\nContents",
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