The Lily- The Principle of Being

Some thoughts on the teachings in my book The Garden of the Soul. Click HERE to find out how to purchase the book today.

Over the past months, I have been sharing with you some of the life lessons from my book, The Garden of the Soul: lessons from four flowers that unearth the Self. The main body of book is divided into four sections, each one represented by a particular flower. You might think of these flowers as my “guides” or “mentors”, who teach me four spiritual principles:

• The Rose teaches the Principle of Giving
• The Iris teaches the Principle of Receiving
• The Daffodil teaches the Principle of Becoming
• And finally, the Lily teaches the Principle of Being

Today I would like to share some thoughts on the Lily and the Principle of Being.

Last month, I spoke about “The Principle of Becoming” (lessons from the Daffodil). The Principle of Becoming calls us forth to let go of “old stories” and allow change to occur for the purpose of expansion and growth. The Principle of Becoming is extremely important because without the conscious act of letting go, we tend to hold on to old patterns of behaviour, old emotions and old belief systems that no longer serve us and keep us stuck in so many ways. The Principle of Becoming is vital to our ability to adapt, experience joy and actualise our own creativity.

While the Principle of Becoming is all about our need for a sense of change, regeneration and rebirth so we can grow and have a sense of aliveness, the Principle of Being reflects our need for a sense of continuity, serenity and timelessness so we can feel safe and have a sense of identity. And while the Principle of Being is the seeming opposite of the Principle of Becoming, it is actually its essential counterpart. Without a firm hold on the Principle of Being, change in our lives can often make us feel vulnerable rather than free. But when both of these Principles are present and working together, they provide that much-needed balance between our desire for outward expansion and our desire for inner stability.

“Being” refers to continuity.
Our “Being” is that which is constant throughout our lives.

Being is…

• That safe place to which we can return reliably no matter what else is happening around us
• Our sense of Self that is not dependent upon time or circumstance
• Our inner knowing of who we are regardless of changes in our age, occupation, education, marital status, achievements, belief systems, social circles or economic status
• Our personal wellspring of serenity, wisdom, peace, inner tranquillity and satisfaction

In other words,”Being” is our sense of eternal identity, and is independent of our ever-changing personal relationships and roles in life.

To assess your own connection to your ”Being”, a good question to ask yourself might be, “Who am I when I remove all the labels about myself?” In other words, “Who am I when I am not the mother/father, daughter/son, husband/wife, boss/employee, this profession/that profession, rich/poor, young/old?” etc. In a quiet moment, ask this question, without self-judgment, and you will begin to get an idea of how much (or how little) you are in touch with your own essential “Being”.

At an even deeper level, true “Being” means an awareness of who we are beyond even more subtle designations of “self”, such as our intelligence, our talents, our nationality, our faith, our ethnicity or even our gender. Now ask yourself “Who am I without these designations?” and look more deeply into yourself to get a sense of that “Being” that lies at your centre. How easy or difficult do you find this?

Now go even deeper still and strip away all designations whatsoever, even to the point of letting go of the boundary between Self and the Universe. At this point, you realise at a deep level, and not merely with your intellect, that you and everything around you is Spirit. You come in touch with your own essence-your own eternal, pure consciousness- where you can see your connection to all of Creation, and is not dependent upon being within a particular bodily form at all. This ultimate understanding is at the core of the Principle of Being.

Some of us might find this perspective shift very challenging, if not scary, if we are at a point in life where we feel little inner connection to our own Being. We might fear that without some kind of “label” we will lose all sense of identity completely, and simply slip into a feeling of “nothingness”. If we dig down to discover the underlying cause of our fear, more often than not we will find it is triggered by a deep-rooted feeling of unworthiness. We do not feel we are “enough” without our worldly attributes. In other words, we have become accustomed to defining our worthiness through our roles, achievements and designations. We feel that we need these roles and designations to feel worthy of love, abundance-to be worthy of “Being”. When we have this underlying belief in our own unworthiness, it stands to reason that we would fear the loss of Self if we were to lose our labels.

But in actuality, the truth is just the opposite. Far from losing the Self, when we reach a state of genuine connection with our “Being-ness”, where no designations are needed to define who we are, our sense of identity is profound. At this point, we are able to find immense peace within the understanding that our identity is no longer dependent upon any external factor and is not subject to circumstance. When we finally release the need to identify the Self with “things” that come and go throughout our lives, we come into contact with our true Self, embracing it as eternal, and  transcending all change. And there is an immense sense of safety within this sense of “Being”, which is both immutable and indestructible.

The lessons I learned from the Lily in The Garden of the Soul (and especially in the story in the book called “Message on the Bridge”) guided me gently and lovingly through my own fears and attachments, so I could return to the essence of who I truly am. And the Lily as an image is an inviting and appropriate symbol for the Principle of Being. In the west, the Lily is frequently used in funeral ceremonies as a symbol of eternal, spiritual life. In the east, the water lily (or lotus) is a symbol of eternity and divinity, used to represent the soul, the spiritual master and even the spiritual world itself. In my own personal experience, back when I used to live in Arizona, I remember seeing a very special type of cactus that only bloomed one night a year, during a full moon. While I don’t know the name of this flower, it seemed to me that its white, star-shaped blossom was yet another kind of Lily, who appeared like a solitary hermit praying to the moon itself, shining brilliantly against the dark night for only a few hours. In fact, some of the imagery in my book where I meet the Lily come from my memory of that remarkable cactus flower. To me, the Lily, in all of its lovely permutations, was the perfect metaphor for the Principle of Being, as its beautiful, strong, white petals look like a hand of outstretched fingers, reaching upwards towards the heavens, providing a bridge between the earthly plane and the Divine.

The Four Principles of Give, Receive, Become and Be provide an easy model to check balance and flow in our lives. When we learn how to recognise these Principles in ourselves, we are more easily able to know how to recover from the inevitable upsets that come into our lives. The Principle of Being, like all the other Principles, helps us to enter into a deeper and more meaningful relationship both within our own Self and with the world around us. By tending to the Four Flowers within the Garden of our own Souls, it becomes very easy for our true Selves to blossom.

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