Meditations

ROSE MEDITATION

Rose (Rosa Damascena) keynote: love, trust, and self-acceptance.

Affirmation: May the jewel in the rose of my heart shine brightly, bringing me spiritual illumination.

The damask rose produces the best quality essence, rose otto. As this oil is costly, you can use absolute in an essential oil vapouriser. Solvents extract the absolute. Two other roses are also used for perfume, Rosa centifolia, the cabbage rose and Rosa gallica, the French rose.

Nothing brings summertime closer than the sight of the first roses. In the Western tradition, the rose has the same meaning as the lotus does in the Eastern. It is the symbol of the heart centre, Anahata Chakra. A well-known mantra is Om Mani Padme Hum, which means, “May the jewel of enlightenment shine in my heart’s lotus.” The rose has a similar meaning and is more suited to our cool and often damp climate. The sight, perfume and colours of roses have a particular effect on our spirits and in the development of our spiritual gifts, like inner seeing and intuition, (clairvoyance), inner hearing (clairaudience) and inner knowing (claircognizance).

Meditation on the rose
Prepare for your meditation in the usual way. If you have a rose, you can put one of your favourite colours in front of you or you could burn rose essential oil or incense or a rose scented candle.
Visualise a brilliant light like the sun or a radiant star shining above you. Breathe in its light and feel it shining down through your crown chakra into your chest and heart chakra.
Continue to breathe in this light and see it shining on to a beautiful rosebud in the centre of your chest, the heart chakra. Notice the colour of the rose or visualise one in your favourite colour.
As the light continues to shine onto the rose, see the petals begin to open. The petals open wide. Deep in the heart of the rose, which is also your heart, you see a small drop of dew. The light pours down onto the drop of dew and it becomes brilliant like a diamond.
The rose becomes a full-blown rose with a brilliant diamond, the jewel of enlightenment, deep in its heart. This diamond, the jewel of enlightenment is always there, waiting to be discovered and revealed. Then we can truly know ourselves.
Continue to visualise the rose. Imagine the soft silkiness of its petals around you. Inhale its perfume. Breathe in the colour and the scent as long as you wish. You can repeat the affirmation.
May the jewel in the rose of my heart shine brightly, bringing about spiritual illumination.

When you are ready to close your meditation, visualise the petals of the rose closing again to protect the jewel.
Bring your attention back to the breath, then open your eyes when ready.

© Kathleen Pepper July 2011.