was in an excellent mood. All the way home, I analyzed what I had heard, reviewing it in my thoughts from different
points of view. And then I started examining my good mood. Something was strange with it, and I felt as if I were completely healthy. Analyzing my impressions a little, I suddenly realized what the matter was. Before I thought that my soul, that is my “I” which would go to eternity, was located in my material brain. And it seemed to me that I think with it, and all my thoughts arise from it. But I was having serious problems with my brain lately, as the doctors said. It didn’t really depress me physically, but more spiritually. I assumed that if my brain was damaged, then my soul might also malfunction.
I couldn’t wait to get home and plant my small seed. Sensei, of course, said that one can do this spiritual practice in any place. But I decided to start this noble doing at home in peace and quiet.
At home I quickly finished with all my petty tasks. When my parents settled down to watch TV, I sat comfortably in the lotus pose. Finally came the long-awaited time. Concentrating, I thought: “Let’s begin with planting…” but I panicked a bit. First, I didn’t know what the lotus seed looked like. I had seen the flower in a book, but not its seeds. And I didn’t know either what this planting would look like and what I would plant it in. I saw how seeds sprouted in the soil. But for some reason it didn’t satisfy me, as the soil in the soul, even an imaginary one, somehow didn’t coincide with my notion of eternity. Reflecting on it a little, I found an acceptable way out. One day I saw how my mother was germinating kidney beans by placing them in wet cotton wool. I liked this method a lot. “Then let it be a bean,” I thought. “After all, it’s my imagination. And the most important thing is what I do, the essence, as Sensei said.”
Having concentrated once again, I started to imagine that I placed inside of myself, in the area of the solar plexus, a small white bean, immersing it into something soft and warm. Then I repeated endearing words internally, nursing my small seed. But no feelings followed. I started to recall all the good words that I knew. And here I was astonished to discover that I knew many fewer good, beautiful words than bad, swearing ones. This was because I heard them everywhere on the street and in school and they enriched my vocabulary more often than the good ones. My thoughts again unnoticeably switched onto the calculation of some conclusions, logically clinging to each other. Discovering this, I again tried to concentrate on the flower, but nothing happened. After about twenty minutes of fruitless efforts, I thought that I wasn’t doing something right. Finally, I went to sleep, having decided to ask Sensei later in detail about my mistakes.
But I couldn’t fall asleep. Darkness covered everything around me. Objects and furniture in the room lost their natural color. A thought came to my mind, “Our world is really so illusory. It just seems to us that we really live while in fact we are like children, imagining a game and playing it. But unlike children, adults don’t grow up, because they get so used to the created image that they begin to think that everything else is the same kind of reality. And in this way, our entire life passes in imagination and vanity. But, as Sensei said, “The real you is the soul, that eternal reality which exists in actuality. You need only to wake up, to awaken from illusion, and then the whole world will change...”
As soon as I went deeper into the contemplation of the eternal, I began to feel somehow light and good. And I felt how something started to warm up in my chest and even to tickle pleasantly. Small ants started running through my whole body from my coccyx to the back of my head. Such a pleasant, peaceful state came over me that I wanted to embrace the entire world with my soul. In such a sweet slumber, I fell asleep. I slept like in a fairytale because when I woke up in the morning, I felt such inspiration, such lightness that I had never experienced in life.
At school, I tried again to evoke the previous day’s state of mind, but I couldn’t really concentrate because of the constant circulation of school information and contradictory emotions. I was successful only in literature class when the teacher droningly explained a new topic. Half of the class carefully listened to her with drowsy eyes, and the other half tried to fight off sleep. Meanwhile, I again concentrated on the area of the solar plexus, focusing all of my attention on evoking warmth and a state of happiness. My good thoughts wandered somewhere in the background of my mind. The important thing for me was what was going on inside. I felt very comfortable, my body somehow relaxed, and in my chest I started feeling light pressure turning into warmth. After that I simply sat enjoying this state and continued listening to the new topic. A few days later, I found out that, starting at that moment, I clearly and easily remembered everything the teacher was telling us. This was a very pleasant discovery for me.
After the lessons, I ran into the library to fill the gap in my knowledge about the lotus flower. But what I read about it from different sources really staggered me. I found out the following: the lotus is a waterresistant perennial herbaceous plant with a long stalk and large flowers reaching 30 centimeters in diameter and resting upon big leaves. The leaves of the lotus have interesting, peculiar properties: they are covered with a special waxy covering and don’t get wet in the water. I interpreted this fact in such a way that the soul can’t be spoiled by bad thoughts, or in other words, by the impact of animal nature. It will just keep sleeping.
The lotus flower has twenty-two to thirty petals, faintly pink at the foundation and bright at the top, located spirally around the seminal box. I glanced at the photo of the flower. This seminal box, located in the center of the flower, looked similar to a golden cork, with multiple fibers around of the same color. It is interesting that the lotus flowers are always facing the sun: a little lower than the point of the pedicle attachment, the lotus has a so-called reaction zone that catches the light.
I read even more stunning information about its seeds: lotus seeds possess the extraordinary ability to retain their germinating power a few hundred (and sometimes even a few thousand) years. This peculiarity of the lotus is supposed to be the reason for using it from the time immemorial as a symbol of immortality and resurrection.
Also, I managed to clarify one interesting detail. The lotus possesses homothermy. It means that the flower is able to maintain its internal temperature just like birds, mammals, and people do. The lotus flower has a significant place in the beliefs of different nations.
And that’s all that I succeeded in finding out. But this was enough to partially grasp the meaning of why the Art of Lotus constantly mentioned by Sensei is named in honor of this flower. However, the complete understanding of its meaning I felt somewhere inside of myself, in the very depth of my true “I”.
.
