Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto youy that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

Flowers are the momen's representation of things that are in themselves eternal.

Flowers reflect the human search for meaning. Does not each one of us, no matter how our life has gone, ache to have a live a beautiful and true to itself as that of a flower?

If thou wouldst attain to thy highest, go look upon a flower; what that does willlessly, that do thou willingly.

If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.

Flowers teach us the charm of silence and thus the selfgiving which demands nothing in return.

Flowers knew how to preach divinity before men knew how to dissect and botanize them.

What is the flower But the crystallizdtion Of a thought of God?

Silently a flower blooms In silence it falls away; Yet here now, at this moment, at this place, the whole of the flower, the whole of the world is blooming. This is the talk of the flower, the truth of the blossom; The glory of eternal life is full shining here.

And so I find it good to come For deeper peace to this still room For here the heartbeat of the soul Feels less the outer world’s control

To sit among the flowers all The only sound a robin’s call, The world that hastens aptly on Falls off to leave us God alone.

Flowers are God's thoughts O f beauty taking form to Gladden mortal Gaze.

Thou canst not stir a flower Without troubling of a star.

Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine to the soul.

Only the flower sanctifies the vase.

Flowers are the beautiful hieroglyphics of nature, with which she indicates how much she loves us.

As in the flower, so the Soul of man ~ Universal order.

Flowers perish so fast that often we should scarcely value their lovely fragility except as the symbol and token of something quite as lovely and not so frail.

Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies, I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little flower - but if I could understand W hat you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is.

Those who have studied the vegetable kingdom in detail are well aware that there is a consciousness there. For instance, plants need sunlight to live—the sun represents the active energy that makes them grow-so, if you put a plant in a place where there is no sunlight, you see it always growing up and up and up, trying, making an effort to reach the sunlight. In a virgin forest, for instance, where man does not interfere, there is this kind of struggle among all the plants that are always growing straight upwards in one way or another in their effort to catch the sunlight. It is very interesting. But even if you put a flowenpot in a fairly small courtyard surrounded by walls, where the sun doesn’t come, a plant, which normally is as high as this (gesture), becomes as tall as that; it stretches up and makes an effort to find the light. Therefore, there is a consciousness, a will to live that is already manifesting.

Blessed are the men and women who are planted on your earth, in your garden, who grow as your trees and flowers grow, who transform their darkness to light.

The Infinite has written its name on the heavens in shining stars, and on the earth in tender flowers.

Question: “W hat is it in a flower which makes it take and reflect a certain colour?”

Mother’s reply: “The scientists say that it is the composition of its atoms but I say that it is the nature of its aspiration.”

The fragrance always stays in the hand that gives the rose.

Standing quietly by the fence, you smile your wondrous smile. I am speechless, and my senses are filled by the sounds of your beautiful song, beginningless and endless. I bow deeply to you.

(Spoken to a Dahlia)

Kind hearts are the gardens, Kind thoughts are the roots, Kind words are the flowers, Kind deeds are the fruits. Take care of your garden And keep out the weeds, Fill it with sunshine Kind words and kind deeds.

When worshippers offer flowers at the altar they are returning to the gods things which they know, or (if they are not visionaries) obscurely feel, to be indigenous to heaven.

Be like the flowers, turn your faces to the sun.

By means of microscopic observation and astronomical projection the lotus flower can become the foundation for an entire theory of the universe and an agent whereby we may perceive Truth.

Simply trust: Do not the petals flutter down, Just like that?

The flowers are the prayers of the vegetal world.

Mine is just a little oldfashioned garden where the flowers come together to praise the Lord and teach all who look upon them to do likewise.

In his garden, the abbot spoke: “The furniture on an altar is but the symbol of religion . . . in the face of a flower the heart of God is revealed. Lifting a clump of pansies with a careful trowel, the abbot planted them in an earthen pot. “Take this home,” he said. “If you are one who sincerely seeks the truth, by living with a flower you will find it. ”

The earth laughs in flowers.

Flowers may beckon to us but they speak towards God.

The fragrance of flowers is physical Nature's offering to the Divine, her most subtle offering.

To know that light falls and fills, often without our knowing, As an opaque vase fills to the brim from a quick pouring, Fills and trembles at the edge yet does not flow over, Still holding and feeding the stem of the contained flower.

When storm clouds rumble in the sky and June showers come down, the moist east wind comes marching over the heath to blow its bagpipes amongst the bamboos. The crowds of flowers come out of a sudden, from nobody knows where, and dance upon the grass in wild glee.

Thou hast put into these flowers magical virtue; they seem to speak of Thy sole Presence; they bring with them the smile of the Divine.

Flowers have spoken to me more than I can tell in written words. They are the hieroglyphics of angels, loved by all men for the beauty of their character, though few can decipher even fragments of their meanings.

Some flowers spoke with strong and powerful voices, which proclaimed in accents trumpet-tongued, “I am beautiful, and I rule.”
Others murmured in tones scarcely audible, but exquisitely soft and sweet, “I am little and I am beloved”

When words escape, flowers speak.

For to have complete satisfaction from flowers you must have time to spend with them. There must be rapport. I talk to them and they talk to me.

They spoke no word. The visitor, the host, And the white chrysanthemum I talk to them and they talk to me.

Fowers ii/t towards the sky their fragrant prayer and aspiration.

Do you know what I found yesterday, at the end of the garden under the chestnut tree? A little clump of tiny tiny cyclamen. I hadn’t the heart to pick them. They are too beautiful.” ... Alix did not admit that she had fallen to her knees by the miracle of the cyclamen, and spoken to them.

Flowers express delicate sympathies and sentiments ...for which language seems almost too gross a medium.

...In the garden, after a rainfall, you can faintly, yes, hear the breaking of new blooms.

I kept looking at the flowers in a vase near me... lavender sweet peas, fragile winged and yet so still, so perfectly poised, apart and complete. But flowers always have it - poise, completion, fulfillment, perfection; I only occasionally, like that moment. For that moment I and the sweet peas had an understanding.

By communing with flowers we can see that the vegetal kingdom already has its own way of aspiring for the Divine.

Question: “Have flowers a power in the occult world?”

Mother’s reply: “Yes, they have an occult power; they can even transmit a message if one knows how to charge them with it.”

Iinnumerable like ideas, flowers are joyous companions.

There's rosemary, that’s for remembrance ... and there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.

Every blade of grass, each leaf, each separate floret and petal, is an inscription speaking of hope.

OTiger-lily,” said Alice, addressing herself to one that was waving gracefully about in the wind, “I wish you could talk!”... “We can talk, ” said the Tigerdily, When there’s anybody worth talking to.”

Who would have thought it possible that a tiny little flower could preoccupy a person so completely that there simply wasn’t room for any other thought...

Little things seem nothing, but they give peace, like those meadow flowers, which individually seem odorless but all together perfume the air.

Ihunted curious flowers in rapture and muttered thoughts in their praise.

Flowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names.

Sometimes since Vve been in the garden I’ve looked up through the trees at the sky and I have had a strange feeling of being happy as if something were pushing and drawing and making me breathe fast. Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of Magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all round us. In this garden-in all the places.

Stillness: The sound of the petals Sifting down together.

Happiness is to hold flowers in both hands.

people from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.

The blue and bright-eyed floweret of the brook, Hope's gentle gem, the sweet forget-me-not.

When in these fresh mornings I go into my garden before anyone is awake, I go for the time being into perfect happiness. In this hour divinely fresh and still, the fair face of every flower salutes me with a silent joy that fills me with infinite content; each gives me its color, its grace, its perfume, and enriches me with the consummation of its beauty.

Oflowers O delight on the tree tops burning.

Bees sip honey from flowers and hum their thanks when they leave.

Found two lilies open in the very shallow inlet of the meadow. Exquisitely beautiful and unlike anything else that we have, is the first white lily just expanded in some shallow lagoon where the water is leaving it perfectly fresh and pure, before the insects have discovered it. How admirable its purity! How innocently sweet its fragrance! How significant that the rich, black mud of our dead stream produces that waterdily out of that fertile slime springs this spotless purity! It is remarkable that those flowers which are most emblematical of purity should grow in the mud.

If you sit still and watch, you begin to move with the [crocuses], like moving with the stars, and you feel the sound of their radiance. All the little cells of the flowers must be leaping with flowery life and utterance.

In my native place there’s this plant: as plain as grass but blooms like heaven.

I count my blessings with the flowers, never with the leaves that fall.

A very rapture of white; A wedlock of silence and white: W hite, white as the wonder undefiled O f Eve just wakened in Paradise.

I smelt the violets in her hand and asked, half in words, half in a sign, a question which meant, “Is love the sweetness of flowers?”

All my heart became a tear, All my soul became a tower, Never loved I anything As I loved that tall blue flower!

It was all the little boats That had ever sailed the sea, It was all the little books That had gone to school with me;

On its roots like iron claws Rearing up so blue and tall - It was all the gallant Earth W ith its back against the wall!

Like the musician, the painter, the poet, and the rest, the true lover of flowers is born, not made. And he is born to happiness in this vale of tears, to a certain amount of the purest joy that earth can give her children, joy that is tranquil, innocent, uplifting, unfailing. Given a little patch of ground, with time to take care of it, with tools to work it and seeds to plant in it, he has all he needs.

What a delight it is When, of a morning, I get up and go out To find in full bloom a flower That yesterday was not there.

Flowers are very receptive and they are happy when they are loved.

A weed is no more than a flower in disguise, Which is seen through at once, if love give a man eyes.

More than half a century has passed, and yet each spring, when I wander into the primrose wood and see the pale yellow blooms, and smell their sweetest of scents . . . for a moment I am seven years old again and wandering in the fragrant wood.

The heart that has truly loved never forgets, But as truly loves on the close; As the Sunflower turns on her god when he sets The same look that she turned when he rose.

The afternoon sun penetrated the mass of honeysuckle that covered the porch, and fell on my upturned face. My fingers lingered almost unconsciously on the familiar leaves and blossoms which had just come forth to greet the sweet southern spring.

The scissors hesitate Before the white chrysanthemums A moment.

That white peony Lover of the moon Trembling Now at twilight.

Ionce saw a botanist most tenderly replace a plant which he had inadvertently uprooted; though we were on a bleak hillside in Tibet, where no human being was likely to see the flower again.

Love of flowers has opened many doors for me. I have made friends throughout the world because of their love and outstanding knowledge of flowers.

Since flowers are the manifestation of the psychic in the vegetal kingdom, love of flowers would mean that one is drawn by the psychic vibration and consequently by the psychic in one’s own self When you are receptive to the psychic vibration, that puts you in a more intimate contact with the psychic in your own self Perhaps the beauty of flowers too is a means used by Nature to awaken in human beings the attraction for the psychic.

Where'er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade, Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade: Where'er you tread, the blushing flow'rs shall rise, And all things flourish where you turn your eyes.

I have loved flowers that fade, Within whose magic tents Rich hues have marriage made With sweet unmemoried scents.

All for the love of flowers.

The poppy is painted glass; it never glows so brightly as when the sun shines through it. . always it is a flame, and warms the wind like a blown ruby.

Invisible beauty has a word so brief A flower can say it or a leaf But few may ever snare it in a song.

Flowers... are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world.

...They fill the air with their sweetness; and delight the eye with their beauty.

Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers - and never succeeding.

There is something remarkably more beautiful about flowers that you yourself have planted, and cared for, than any other flowers. It reminds one that the creation of beauty is a happy experience.

My eyes, having seen all, Came back to The white chrysanthemums.

I love to pore over every blossom in the garden, no matter what it may be, to study it and to learn it by heart as far as a poor mortal may. If one but gazes closely into a tiny flower of the pale blue Forget-me-not, what a chapter of loveliness is there!

The flowers that bloom unknown for a thousand years only exist when at last one flower blossoms under a perceptive eye. For that flower the pollen was launched spring after spring, the nectar gathered, the seed rounded. So the understanding of beauty is a priesthood.

Silent the garden Where the camellia-tree Opens it whiteness.

Ashort summer night. . . But in this solemn darkness One peony bloomed.

Lone and erect, beneath light's primal flood, A lily! and pure as any one of you.

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide.

Flowers are not flowers unto the poet’s eyes, Their beauty thrills him with an inward sense; He knows that outward seemings are but lies, Or, at the most, but earthly shadows, whence The soul that looks within for truth may guess The presence of some wondrous heavenliness.

The world's senseless beauty mirrors God's delight That rapture's smile is secret everywhere; It flows in the wind's breath, in the tree's sap, Its hued magnificence blooms in leaves and flowers.

Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day - like writing a poem, or saying a prayer.

Question: “Scientists explain that flowers have perfume in order to attract insects. W hat do you think about that?”

Mother’s reply: “It is men who see and find a reason for everything - but I doubt if the Supreme has any such preoccupation. ”

Flowers ... have a mysterious and subtle influence upon the feelings, not unlike some strains of music. They relax the tenseness of the mind. They dissolve its rigor.

Flowers leave some of their fragrance in the hand that bestows them.

Let us open our leaves like a flower, and be passive and receptive.

Under the branches Of the cherry-trees in bloom, None are strangers there.

He who is born with a silver spoon in his mouth is generally considered a fortunate person, but his good fortune is small compared to that of the happy mortal who enters this world with a passion for flowers in his soul.

Happy they lived with birds and beasts and flowers And sunlight and the rustle of the leaves, And heard the wild winds wandering in the night, Mused with the stars in their mute constant ranks, And lodged in the mornings as in azure tents, And with the plow of the noons were one.

Eery flower is a soul blossoming in Nature.

There are always flowers for those who want to see them.

How the universal heart of man blesses flowers! They are wreathed round the cradle, the marriage altar, and the tomb.

All through the winter, beneath forgetful white, these tiny entities remain asleep, recharging their energy until the first thaw of spring. Then, as if touched by magic, within days the mountainsides bloom with patchworks of color. The miracle of nature once more unfolds.

We grow young with growing things And know each petal as it unfolds Each tree we behold Sings a song to our dreams.

As if a wicket gate to joy were there Ringed in with voiceless hint and magic sign, Upon the margin of an unknown world Reclined the curve of a sun-held recess; Groves with strange flowers like eyes of gazing nymphs Peered from their secrecy into open space, Boughs whispering to a constancy of light Sheltered a dim and screened felicity, And slowly a supine inconstant breeze Ran like a fleeting sigh of happiness Over slumbrous grasses pranked with green and gold.

A flowers touches everyone's heart.

Though modest and small and without much color, blossom has all the qualities of an explosion.

Flowers changed the face of the planet. Without them, the world we know ~ even man himself ~ would never have existed.

When at last I took the time to look into the heart of a flower, it opened up a whole new world... as if a window had been opened to let in the sun.

There is that in the glance of a flower, which may at times control the greatest of creation s braggart lords.

The scientists know that the colour and patterning of flowers is nothing whatever to do with us being simply the lure set out for necessary insects. Why then do they shake the human heart?

All day in grey rain hollyhocks follow the sun’s invisible road.

Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

Is there not a soul beyond utterance, half nymph, half child, in those delicate petals, which glow and breathe about the centres of deep colour?

A flowering weed; Hearing its name, I looked anew at it.

Flowers grow out of dark moments.

There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Who can estimate the elevating and refining influences and moral value of flowers with all their graceful forms, bewitching shades and combinations of colors and exquisitely varied perfumes? These silent influences are unconsciously felt even by those who do not appreciate them consciously and thus with better and still better fruits, nuts, grains, vegetables and flowers, will the earth be transformed, m an’s thought refined, and turned from the base destructive forces into nobler production. One which will lift him to high planes of action toward the happy day when the Creator of all this beautiful work is more acknowledged and loved, and where man shall offer his brother man, not bullets and bayonets, but richer grains, better fruit and fairer flowers from the bounty of this earth.

How can we fret and stew sub specie aeternitatis under the calm gaze of ancient Taol The salt of the sea is in our blood; the calcium of the rocks is in our bones; the genes of ten thousand generations of stalwart progenitors are in our cells. The sun shines and we smile. The winds rage and we bend before them. The blossoms open and we rejoice. Earth is our long home.

A fragrance wandered in a coloured haze As if the scent and hue of all sweet flowers Had mingled to copy heaven’s atmosphere.

The miraclesof of nature do not seem miracles because they are no one had ever seen a flower, even a dandelion be the most startling event in the world.

As I hold the flower in my hand and think of trying to describe it, I realize how poor a creature I am .. in the presence of such perfection.

There is not the least flower but seems to hold up its head and to look pleasantly, in the secret sense of the goodness of its Heavenly Maker.

Question: “How to develop our consciousness in order to work in a better way with plants and flowers?”

Mother’s reply: “First you must learn to be silent, then note carefully what happens in the consciousness. ”

Correct handling of flowers refines the personality.

Break open a cherry tree and there are no flowers, hut the spring breeze brings forth myriad blossoms.

Give fools their gold and knaves their power, Let fortune’s bubbles rise and fall, Who sows a field or trains a flower Or plants a tree, is more than all.

There are philosophies as varied as the flowers of the field, and some of them weeds and a few of them poisonous weeds. But they none of them create the psychological conditions in which I first saw, or desired to see, the flower.

Originally, the word “weeds” was we’ods, and it was the Anglo-Saxon name for all herbs and small plants. . . To past generations of men, all plants were regarded with respect.

Where would we be if humanity had never known flowers? If they didn't exist or had always been hidden from our sight... our character, our morals, our aptitude for beauty,for happiness, would they be the same?

To analyze the charms of flowers is like dissecting music; it is one of those things which it is far better to enjoy, than to attempt to fully understand.

Flowers beyond reach are sacred to God.

There force that through the green fuse drives the flower Drives my green age.

Life looked at him with changed and sombre eyes: Her beauty he saw and the yearning heart in things That with a little happiness is content, Answering to a small ray of truth or love; He saw her gold sunlight and her far blue sky, Her green of leaves and hue and scent of flowers And the charm of children and the love of friends And the beauty of women and kindly hearts of men...

Around her were the austere sky-pointing hills, And the green murmurous broad deep-thoughted woods Muttered incessantly their muffled spell A dense magnificent coloured self-wrapped life Draped in the leaves’ vivid emerald monotone And set with chequered sunbeams and blithe flowers Immured her destiny’s secluded scene.

The little cares that fretted me, I lost them yesterday Among the fields above the sea, Among the winds at play; Among the lowing of the herds, The rustling of the trees, Among the singing of the birds, The humming of the bees. The foolish fears of what may happen, I cast them all away Among the clover-scented grass, Among the new-mown hay; Among the husking of the corn Where drowsy poppies nod, Where ill thoughts die and good are born, O ut in the fields with God.

Anonymous as cherubs Over the crib of God, White seeds are floating O ut of my burst pod W hat power had I Before I learned to yield? Shatter me, great wind: I shall possess the field.

What wondrous life is this I lead? Ripe apples drop about my head; The luscious clusters of the vine Upon my mouth do crush their wine; The nectarine and curious peach Into my hands themselves do reach. Stumbling on melons as I pass, Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass.

The scarlet of maples can shake me like a cry O f bugles going by. And my lonely spirit thrills To see the frosty aster like smoke upon the hills.

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee, And revery. The revery alone will do, If bees are few.

I love the green landscape by the shore of the river, Between the green boughs sun fills the west with illusion; And over the golden flowers my own reveries, A twilight of the soul, are flowing with the current.

To the sea? To the sky! To the world? Who knows? The stars Descend, as usual to the river, carried by the breezes. . . The nightingale meditates. . . Sorrow grows more lovely, And high above sadness a smile bursts into bloom.

Ah, yet would God this flesh of mind might be Where air might wash and long leaves cover me, Where tides of grass break into foam of flowers Or where the wind’s feet shine along the sea.

Beneath the crisp and wintry carpet hid A million buds but stay their blossoming; And trustful birds have built their nests amid The shuddering boughs, and only wait to sing Till one soft shower from the south shall bid, And hither tempt the pilgrim steps of spring.

It may indeed be phantasy, when I Essay to draw from all created things Deep, heartfelt, inward joy that closely clings; And trace in leaves and flowers that round me lie Lessons of love and earnest piety. So let it be; and if the wide world rings In mock of this belief it brings Nor fear, nor grief, nor vain perplexity. So will I build my altar in the fields, And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be, And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields Shall be in incense I will yield to Thee, Thee only God! and thou shalt not despise Even me, the priest of this poor sacrifice.

Sweet letters of the angel tongue Eve loved ye long and well, And never have failed in your fragrance sweet To find some secret spell, - A charm that has bound me with witching power, For mine is the old belief, That midst your sweets and midst your bloom, There’s a soul in every leaf!

It blossomed by the summer sea, A tiny space of tangled bloom Wherein so many flowers found room, A miracle it seems to be!

And each flower and herb on Earth’s dark breast Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.

Shed no tear! O shed no tear! The flowers will bloom another year. Weep no more! O weep no more! Vm/rur hurl* s\pph in thp mot’s white core.

To-night from deeps of loneliness I wake in wistful wonder To a sudden sense of brightness, an immanence of blue. O are there bluebells swaying in the shadowy coppice yonder, Shriven with the dawning and the dew?

The summit. And yonder is the west, all purple, wounded by its own crystals which make it bleed all over. Slightly reddened, the green pine grove sharpens and the grass and little flowers, transparently aflame in the splendor of the west, make the serene moment pungent with a moist, luminous and penetrating scent. And I linger, full of ecstasy, in the twilight.

Question: “Sweet Mother, how do you give a significance to a flower?”

M other’s reply: “By entering into contact with it and giving a more or less precise meaning to what I feel ...by entering into contact with the nature of the flower, its inner truth; then one knows what it represents.”

Question: “Do the strong'Scented flowers represent a more ardent psychic prayer than the unscented ones?”

Mother’s reply: “Their nature gives itself more generously and more integrally. ”

Question: “And is there the same difference among plants and trees?”

Mother’s reply: “No, that is like the difference among animals; some are big, some are small. But everywhere it is like that... in minerals, in animals, in men. Each manifests its own nature and these natures are innumerable.”

Spiritual meaning of the Iris: Aristocracy of Beauty

Mother’s comment: “So perfect a form as to compel admiration!”

Question: “Hoiv can one enter into a psychic contact with flowers?”

Mother’s reply: “When one is in conscious contact with one’s own psychic, one becomes aware of an impersonal psychic behind the whole creation and then, through this, one can enter into contact with flowers and know the psychic prayer they represent”

Mother contemplates a flower she is holding in her hand. It is the golden champak flower (Michelia champaka).

Have you noticed this flower? It has twelve petals in three rows of four. We have called it “Supramental psychological perfection.” I had never noticed that it had three rows: a small row like this, another one a little larger and a third one larger still. They are in gradations of four: four petals, four petals, four petals. Well, if one indeed wants to see in the forms of Nature a symbolic expression, one can see a centre, which is the supreme Truth, and a triple manifestation-because four indicates manifestation in three superimposed worlds: the outermost, these are the largest petals; the lightest in colour, that is a physical world; then a vital world and a mental world; and then at the center, the supramental Truth. And you can discover all kinds of other analogies.

The red lotus is the presence of the Divine on earth.

The significance of the lotus is not to he found by analysing the secrets of the mud from which it grows here; its secret is to be found in the heavenly archetype of the lotus that blooms for ever in the Light above.

The flower has been regarded and used as a symbol of the Soul, of the spiritual Self, of Divinity in both the East and West. China adopted the image of the uGolden Flower, ” while India and Tibet adopted the lotus (in appearance similar to the water lily), which has its roots in the earth, its stem in water, and its petals in the air, where they open under the rays of the sun. In Persia and Europe the rose has been extensively used. Examples are to be found in the Roman de la Rose of the Troubadours, the mystical rose exquisitely described by Dante in Paradise (Canto XXIII) and the rose at the center of the cross that forms the symbol of some religious orders. Usually it has been the already open flower that has served as a symbol of the Spirit, and, although this is a static representation, its visualization can be very stimulating and evocative. But even more effective in stimulating psychospiritual processes is the dynamic visualization of a flower, that is, of its transition and development from the closed bud to the fully open bloom.

The (flower named) eternal smile means the self existent joy and gladness of the Spirit.

And then, kind: it has such a tenderness, it is so sweet, so close to us, so loving. Its presence fills us with joy. It is always cheerful and happy.

Happy is he who can exchange his qualities with the real qualities of the flowers. Try to cultivate in yourself their refined qualities.

I give you flowers so that you may develop the Divine qualities they symbolise. And they can directly transmit into the psychic all that they contain, pure, unalloyed. They possess a very subtle and very deep power and influence. Do you understand? Now, it seems to me that you wish to become like a flower or cultivate these qualities. And, you know, each flower symbolises an aspect, an emanation, an aspiration and a progress in the evolution of the earth.

Long long ago, in the dry land which is now Arabia, a divine being incarnated upon earth to awaken in it the supreme love. As expected it was persecuted by men, misunderstood, suspected, pursued. Mortally wounded by its assailants, it wanted to die quietly in order to be able to accomplish its work, and being pursued, it ran away. Suddenly in the vast desert land there appeared a small pomegranate bush. The savior crept in under the low branches to leave its body in peace; and immediately the bush spread out miraculously, it grew higher, larger, became deep and thick, so that when the pursuers passed by, they did not even suspect that the One whom they were chasing was hidden there, and they went their way. While drop by drop the sacred blood fell, fertilising the soil, the bush was covered with marvellous flowers, scarlet, large, crowded with petals. . . innumerable drops of blood. These are the flowers which express and contain for us the Divine’s Love.