OM, The Lotus Flower

There is a timeless Buddhist story that says: “A man and a woman were walking along the side of a pond and the man saw a beautiful lotus flower. The man told the woman ‘allow me to pick this lotus flower and give it to you’. The woman replied, ‘Please, no! If you pick the lotus flower, you will disconnect it from its stem and roots in the mud, and this is what keeps the lotus in great health, rain or shine. It will wither and then die soon.’ The man stopped for a moment. He reflected on her words and insight. He turned to her again and said ‘My love, you are right. Thanks for the reminder’.” In life, we sometimes experience great beauty and want to possess that beauty. But as soon as we try to possess the object or being, then its beauty begins to die. We must learn to appreciate life and living beings as they are, naturally. When we see all living beings as instances of the Sacred Syllable OM, we lose the desire to control and manipulate. As a child, I wanted to capture and hold dragonflies. But through OM meditation, I now prefer just to observe dragonflies and enjoy their presence from a distance. They are all expressions of OM in nature. Namaste.