Osho – The lotus is the symbol of the ultimate unfolding of consciousness. It is the most beautiful flower in the East, the most fragrant, and it has become the symbol of ultimate awakening, ultimate awareness. It has become the symbol for certain reasons. One is that it grows out of dirty mud. It is such a revolution — to see the mud, and the lotus growing out of it — it is unbelievable, it is a miracle. One cannot believe that such dirty mud can create such a beautiful flower.
Man in his unconsciousness is nothing but dirty mud. Seeing man, one cannot believe that Jesus or Buddha or Lao Tzu could have been possible. That’s why so many people doubt the very existence, the historical existence of Jesus and Buddha and Lao Tzu and people like that. They doubt for the simple reason that all around they see a humanity which is nothing but dirty mud, and they see people throwing dirt on each other, enjoying mud-slinging. How can they believe that a man like Buddha really did happen? It seems improbable, it seems impossible, it seems only a myth — maybe a wish-fulfillment, maybe a fictitious story to keep man’s hopes alive. Their doubt has a reason in it, it is logical. These people seem to be so exceptional and they happen so rarely, only once in a while, but you come across dirty mud every day.
The experience of ordinary humanity is so bitter that one cannot believe that there was a man like Jesus who loved for no reason at all, whose love was just unmotivated, who loved for the sheer joy of loving, who died because he loved too much, who was ready to die for his love. But it happens. That’s why the lotus has become a symbol. If the dirty mud can produce a lotus, the dirty humanity can also produce a Buddha, a Jesus, a Zarathustra. And it is everybody’s potential.
The second important thing about the lotus is that it grows out of dirty mud and floats in water. It is a water flower, but the miracle is that the water never touches its petals. Even if it rains there will be drops of water on the petals but they will be separate. You can see them resting like pearls. The lotus is so velvety that they don’t touch it, it remains untouched; hence it has become the symbol of sannyas.
A sannyasin is a man who lives in the world but remains untouched by it, who remains with all kinds of unconscious people — one has to remain with these people, there are no other kind — but who remains untouched, unaffected. One remains absolutely still, restful, cool, as if nothing is happening anywhere. One remains in time and yet beyond time, in the world yet not of the world.
Source – Osho Book “Fingers Pointing to the Moon”