Page 12 - All India Magazine Oct-2021

Mother, when flowers are brought to you, how do you give them a
significance?

To the flowers? But it's in the same way, by entering into con-
tact with the nature of the flower, its inner truth. Then one knows
what it represents.
CWM 5: 230
Each flower has its special significance, hasn't it?

Not as we understand it mentally. There is a mental projection
when one gives a precise meaning to a flower. It may answer, vi-
brate to the touch of this projection, accept the meaning, but a
flower has no equivalent of the mental consciousness. In the veg-
etable kingdom there is a beginning of the psychic, but there is no
beginning of the mental consciousness. In animals it is different;
mental life begins to form and for them things have a meaning.
But in flowers it is rather like the movement of a little baby - it is
neither a sensation nor a feeling, but something of both; it is a
spontaneous movement, a very special vibration. So, if one is in
contact with it, if one feels it, one gets an impression which may
be translated by a thought. That is how I have given a meaning to
flowers and plants - there is a kind of identification with the vibra-
tion, a perception of the quality it represents and, little by little,
through a kind of approximation (sometimes this comes sudden-
ly, occasionally it takes time), there is a coming together of these
vibrations (which are of a vital-emotional order) and the vibration of
the mental thought, and if there is a sufficient harmony, one has a
direct perception of what the plant may signify.
In some countries (particularly here) certain plants are used as
the media for worship, offering, devotion. Certain plants are given
on special occasions. And I have often seen that this identifica-
tion was quite in keeping with the nature of the plant, because

All India Magazine, October 2021
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