Lotus of the inner garden

OF ALL THE FLOWERS that can grow in the inner garden, watered by the slow work of meditation, this is the ultimate: the lotus of enlightenment, with its one thousand petals unfurled and arranged in perfect harmony. It seems to pulsate quietly with rippling life, as the one in whom it has opened enjoys the spreading of his or her consciousness throughout the cosmos.

It is true that all one thousand petals will be hard to find in this design, and the mind preoccupied by facts and figures may be caught by doubt. How can this be the lotus of enlightenment? How can that person be enlightened? But for this kind of mind, always adding up the truth in numbers, it will be difficult to accept the truths of the inner garden, which defy measurement in worldly quantities.