Spiritual significance of flowers, Blue laceflower = Trachymene coerulea, Apiaceae [= Umbelliferae]; Alt. Araliaceae

685 — Number of the plant

at the book: The Mother. The Spiritual Significance of Flowers.- 1-st Ed. / Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Pondicherry (India).- Singapore: Ho Printing, 2000.- ISBN 81-7058-609-7

Classification

► Division Magnoliophyta - Flowering plants

► Class Magnoliopsida - Dicotyledons

► Subclass Rosidae

► Order Apiales

► Family Apiaceae [= Umbelliferae] - Carrot family

► Family (Alt) Araliaceae - Ginseng family

► Genus Trachymene

Synonyms

≡ Didiscus coeruleus (Graham) DC.

Common names

Blue laceflower (English)

Rottnest island daisy (English)

Didisque (French)

Trachymène bleu (French)

Blaudolde (German)

Description

Tiny blue or light lavender blue flowers with unequal petals; borne in small dense umbels. An annual herb with hairy leaves divided into linear segments.

This perfect equality of the thinking mind is indispensable because the objective of this progress is the greater light which belongs to a higher plane of spiritual cognizance. This equality is the most delicate and difficult of all, the least practised by the human mind; its perfection is impossible so long as the supramental light does not fall fully on the upward looking mentality. But an increasing will to equality in the intelligence is needed, before that light can work freely upon the mental substance. This too is not an abnegation of the seekings and cosmic purposes of the intelligence, not an indifference or impartial scepticism, nor yet a stilling of all thought in the silence of the Ineffable. A stilling of the mental thought may be part of the discipline, when the object is to free the mind from its own partial workings, in order that it may become an equal channel of a higher light and knowledge; but there must also be a transformation of the mental substance; otherwise the higher light cannot assume full possession and a compelling shape for the ordered works of the divine consciousness in the human being. The silence of the Ineffable is a truth of divine being, but the Word which proceeds from that silence is also a truth, and it is this Word which has to be given a body in the conscious form of the nature.

But, finally, all this equalisation of the nature is a preparation for the highest spiritual equality to take possession of the whole being and make a pervading atmosphere in which the light, power and joy of the Divine can manifest itself in man amid an increasing fullness.

Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library in 30 Volumes. - Volumes 20-21. - The Synthesis of Yoga

The "Mind" in the ordinary use of the word covers indiscriminately the whole consciousness, for man is a mental being and mentalises everything; but in the language of this yoga the words "mind" and "mental" are used to connote specially the part of the nature which has to do with cognition and intelligence, with ideas, with mental or thought perceptions, the reactions of thought to things, with the truly mental movements and formations, mental vision and will, etc., that are part of his intelligence.

Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library in 30 Volumes. - Volume 22. - Letters on Yoga.-P.1

The mind proper is divided into three parts - thinking Mind, dynamic Mind, externalising Mind - the former concerned with ideas and knowledge in their own right, the second with the putting out of mental forces for realisation of the idea, the third with the expression of them in life (not only by speech, but by any form it can give).

Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library in 30 Volumes. - Volume 22. - Letters on Yoga.-P.1

The mind is not an instrument of knowledge; it is incapable of finding knowledge. The mind has to be silent and attentive to receive knowledge from above and manifest it.