Spring Flowers: Blossoming into Life

The start of spring brings a myriad of new life – nesting birds, trees budding into green, and of course, flowers blooming. In cultures around the world, in every stage of life, people choose to offer flowers. Whether given as a token for a lover, as part of a spiritual process  or as a remembrance for a departed one – from birth to death, flowers are there bringing color and fragrance into our lives. Below, Sadhguru elaborates on the true beauty of flowers, and how we can nurture our lives to bring about our own blossoming.

Sadhguru: “If you look at it biologically, flowers are just a reproduction. One thinks of flowers as wonderful natural ornaments for Gods. But as a scientist would look at it flowers are just attempts to reproduce.

A flower could also be seen as the height of expression. For some people a flower may be God’s own face. A mystic could view it as the divine blooming in its highest way. If a person is always thinking of multiplying things, his interest would be in a seed. If somebody is always thinking of shelter and security, his interest would be in the trunk and branches of a tree. If somebody is thinking of pleasure, his interest will lie in the fruit. Such people are not interested in the root, the plant or the leaves. They’re just waiting for the fruit. They will never enjoy the process of the plant growing. There is only joy when the fruit appears.

Flowers are the most fragile aspects of life. The spiritual process is referred to as flowering. We don’t use the word ‘fruiting’ of the consciousness, because the fruit is always intending for something to happen; you must receive something out of it. That aspect is very dominant in the fruit. There is a deep pleasure-seeking in the fruit. So who enjoys flowers? Somebody who simply enjoys life enjoys flowers.

Flowers are not really useful but yet considered the most beautiful dimension of the life process of a plant. It is the peak of the plants life. So, when you offer something to that which you consider divine, you want to offer that which is of high value. You’d like to pull out your heart and offer it.

In life, the greatest thing that you can do to yourself is to become like a flower – not a trunk, root, or seed, but like a flower. However useless flowers may seem, they are the most accessible. The whole effort of any spiritual process is to become like a flower. Thus the flower has become synonymous with offerings.”