to stars what orchids are to flowers: their beauty is sometimes
treacherous.
Stars, especially when seen with our triple process of vision, will
prove an inexhaustible source of inspiration and centring.
Interestingly, seers of various traditions have perceived
constellations as the dwelling place of the highest spiritual beings.
11.3 Flowers, plants and elemental beings
Let us take the example of a flower to describe some of the basic
mechanisms of subtle perception.
Looking at a flower the mind perceives a shape, some colours, a
perfume. But what will you perceive if you tune into the flower?
You will get a feeling related to the nature of the flower, to its
quality of vibration. For instance, it is obvious that a rose, a
sunflower and an orchid communicate quite different feelings
when you open to them. Many people have a natural, intuitive
understanding of the nature of plants.
However, tuning in is more than a vague sensitivity; it is a
metaphysical opening. When you tune in, your whole body of
energy starts to resonate with the plant. You can feel streams of
light rushing all around you. It's like entering another dimension.
The plant becomes alive in you. With this inner explosion comes a
knowingness, like a package of information in which all the
properties of the plant are included. The plant inspires you with a
sense of how to use it.
Let us describe this in other words. The physical image and the
physical smell are like a husk. By implementing the triple process
of vision (motionless focus in the eye, seeingness, feeling from the
heart), you perceive a variety of non-physical colours, smells and
tastes – what we could call the aura of the plant, its non-physical
vibration.
If you go beyond this, you come to see something quite surprising:
a being. You can actually see a little being which is like the essence
of the plant, and which some western occultists have called the ‘
deva‘ of the plant, from a Sanskrit word meaning deity. You
realize that the aura of the plant, its colours and other subtle
qualities, are like the garment of the little nature being. All the
subtle and physical properties of the plant are nothing but the
consequences of the nature of this being. One could say that the
being unfolds its personality through the appearance of the plant:
its colours, its smells, its medicinal properties. And this being has