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UID:6363372:Event:245205
DTSTAMP:20260508T084912Z
SUMMARY:White Lotus Day
DESCRIPTION:\nA celebration of Theosophists celebrated May 8, annivers
 ary of the passing of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky who is the founder of 
 the theosophical society. \nWhite Lotus Day is a celebration that enc
 ourages meditation about the metaphor of the lotus plant.  The lotus 
 is born under mud and grows through muck and water to surface for air 
 and sun. This growth is identified with man's life, born in earth but 
 desiring growth.\nLotus (Gr.). A most occult plant, sacred in Egypt, I
 ndia and elsewhere; called “the child of the Universe bearing the li
 keness of its mother in its bosom”. There was a time “when the wor
 ld was a golden lotus” (padma) says the allegory. A great variety of
  these plants, from the majestic Indian lotus, down to the marsh-lotus
  (bird's foot trefoil) and the Grecian “Dioscoridis”, is eaten at 
 Crete and other islands. It is a species of nymphæa, first introduced
  from India to Egypt to which it was not indigenous. See the text of A
 rchaic Symbolism in the Appendix VIII. “The Lotus, as a Universal Sy
 mbol”. (Theosophical Glossary by H.P.B.)\nWHITE LOTUS DAY In her wil
 l, HPB suggested that her friends might gather together on the anniver
 sary of her passing (May 8, 1891) and read from Sir Edwin Arnold's The
  Light of Asia and from The Bhagavad-Gita. Lotuses grew in unusual pro
 fusion one year later. Hence, May 8 became known as White Lotus Day. O
 NE of the symbolic figures for the Dual creative power in Nature (matt
 er and force on the material plane) is Padma, the water lily of India.
  The Lotus is the product of heat (fire) and water (vapour or Ether); 
 fire standing in every philosophical and religious system as a represe
 ntation of the Spirit of Deity, the active, male, generative principle
 ; and Ether, or the Soul of matter, the light of the fire, for the pas
 sive female principle from which everything in this Universe emanated.
  Hence, Ether or Water is the Mother, and Fire is the Father. Sir W. J
 ones (and before him archaic botany) showed that the seeds of the Lotu
 s contain—even before they germinate—perfectly formed leaves, the 
 miniature shape of what one day, as perfect plants, they will become: 
 nature thus giving us a specimen of the preformation of its production
  ...the seed of all phanerogamous plants bearing proper flowers contai
 ning an embryo plantlet ready formed. The Lotus, or Padma, is, moreove
 r, a very ancient and favourite simile for the Kosmos itself, and also
  for man. The popular reasons given are, firstly, the fact just mentio
 ned, that the Lotus-seed contains within itself a perfect miniature of
  the future plant, which typifies the fact that the spiritual prototyp
 es of all things materialised on Earth. Secondly, the fact that the Lo
 tus plant grows up through the water, having its root in the Ilus, or 
 mud, and spreading its flower in the air above. The Lotus thus typifie
 s the life of man and also that of the Kosmos; for the Secret Doctrine
  teaches that the elements of both are the same, and that both are dev
 eloping in the same direction. The root of the Lotus sunk in the mud r
 epresents material life, the stalk passing up through the water typifi
 es existence in the astral world, and the flower floating on the water
  and opening to the sky is emblematical of spiritual being. (The Secre
 t Doctrine I, 57-58.) THEOSOPHY, Vol. 89, Issue 4, May/June 2001 (Page
 s 165-166)\n\n\nFor more information visit https://templeilluminatus.n
 ing.com/events/white-lotus-day
DTSTART:20110508T070000Z
DTEND:20110509T065900Z
CATEGORIES:theosophical, holiday
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