Out from the earth fathomless Sea of the Root-Essence Rises the mighty tenderous stem Of the Eternal Power of the Feminine.

Rooted in depths deep, transcendence-distant Infinitude through the stem graciously Giving it’s all, supplying cool Leaves and pure seed bearing Flower of their comfort.

Perfume wafts far and wide sweetness of taction, cession And care, produce the Christ-child, Enfolding all Kingdoms of Life with their fragrance.

The Lotus has stood from ancient Egyptian days as the symbol of the world; even teachers with comic vision describe the makeup of a solar system as like an opened lotus, with its gold sun-center and its planetary petals. In later times, it symbolized the residence of the goddesses and likewise their thrones of power.

The lotuses, unlike the water lily, raise their leaves and flowers above the water or surface and ripening its seeds in the full sunshine turns its pod downward and drops the matured seed. One other characteristics of the plant is its habitat; for it will never thrive in running water, in the more sluggish streams it often flourishes but in quiet pools and still lagoon it is at its best.

The Egyptian Lotus plant strikes tough, ropey roots out in all directions and deep down into the mud, the mire of earth. It sends strong unbranched stems straight up from its earth line, pushing across the water zone to unfold peltate floating leaves upon its surface or uphold them in the air like altar vessel in Sun-God worship, unfolding of the blossom bud of its spirit as lotus to the sun, the gold buddhic heart of its being.

The lotus blossom basks for a short time in the sunlight and then it drains the roots of vitality, saps the fluids of stem and leaves, flings off its delicate petals and, as a last offering to build its seed-carpel, an arak which will hold posterity’s hopes safely, a little brotherhood of seeds. Then does it stem break, but the severed seed-vessel floats and bears down the waters a cargo of life-germs, dropping one here and one there to take root and grow. The seeds contain, even before they germinate, perfectly formed leaves and the miniature shape of the plant’s flower they will become.

More References:

Theosophic Messenger, September 1911, Vol. XII, No. 12, Page 720.

"The Lotus stands for the idea becoming material, the eternal thought of the ever-invisible Deity passing from the abstract into the concrete or visible form. Cosmic ideal, the whole plant is beautifully used to symbolize man, growing as it does with the roots in the mud or the physical, pausing up through the water of the astral, spreading its leaves and opening its flowers to the air or the mental and drinking in the sunlight or the spiritual life from above. The lotus unlike the water lily raises its leaves and flowers above the water or surface and ripening its seeds in the full sunshine turns its pod downward and drops the matured seed. One other characteristics of the plant is its habitat; for it will never thrive in running water, in the more sluggish streams it often flourishes but in quite pools and still lagoons it is at its best. So that even in its mode of growth is an inner meaning for those who understand. Only in the deep peace of the astral nature, upon a mirror like untroubled surface is the spiritual able to reflect itself. As each change was necessary a flower was used whose local habit modest common to the people and was always a plant whose growth demands much sun and water to symbolize the union of spirit and matter".

Esoteric Keys to the Christians Scriptures by Henry Edge, Page 40.

Secret Doctrine Volume I, pages 57, 58, 128.

Secret Doctrine Volume II, pages 96.

The Lotus Fire, by George S. Arundale, Page 610-616, "Lotus".