Lotus is Live and Live is Lotus

Dear friends,
Today I would like to share with you a story that came to me in Cambodia. It is a story about the lotus.
The lotus is a flower that appears in many cultures, religions, and spiritual traditions. For thousands of years it has symbolized purity, consciousness, spiritual growth, and awakening. There are countless meanings attached to it, but for me it gradually became a symbol of something deeply human. A symbol of our own life journey.
Yet it attracted me long before I understood its meaning.
When I was a child, I saw water lilies for the first time on the surface of a pond in the Czech Republic. I still remember that moment. I was fascinated by their beauty and by something I could not name at the time. I do not remember similar moments with every flower or every tree, but the image of that flower resting on the water remained with me.
It was as if some part of my soul recognized a truth that I was still unable to express in words.
I carried that image with me throughout my life.
And then my own journey began.
Like the journey of so many people, mine was not easy. I often felt as though I found myself again and again in my own mud. In places filled with fear, uncertainty, shame, and questions. In places where sometimes you cannot even see yourself clearly.
Yet I made a decision to face what I felt inside. I stopped running away from my own truth and slowly began to express it.
It was a path full of challenges. And still, I felt something stronger within me. Something alive that wanted to breathe. Something that wanted to break through the shell of fear and be born.
At that time, I had no idea that one day I would connect this story to the symbol of the lotus. Looking back, I can see that it had already begun.
The journey of my own blooming had started.
My life led me through the search for identity, through transition, through both inner and outer transformation. Step by step, I learned to know myself. I longed to understand why certain things happen, why some experiences bring pain and others open the heart. I searched for the meaning of life and for a deeper understanding of what exists beneath the surface of ordinary reality.
Later, when I met my guru and began studying Vedic philosophy and ancient spiritual teachings, I started to understand the symbolism of the lotus on a much deeper level.
And then it became clear.
The lotus grows from the mud.
It does not reject it. It does not run away from it. It draws strength from it.
Slowly it rises through dark waters until one day it breaks through the surface and blossoms beneath the light of the sun.
It does not try to become something else.
It simply becomes what it has always been.
Perhaps that is why the lotus became a symbol of spiritual awakening in so many traditions around the world. It can be found in the hands of deities, on temple altars, and in the stories of ancient sages.
Today, I see the lotus as an image of human life.
Each of us begins somewhere in the mud. In pain, fear, uncertainty, or circumstances we did not choose.
Yet within each of us there is a seed that already knows who it is.
And perhaps the purpose of life is not to become someone else.
Perhaps it is to grow into the person we have carried within us from the very beginning.
To bloom.
That is why the lotus also became part of my work and my project.
I increasingly felt that if my own lotus was blooming, it should not bloom only for me. I wanted to help others discover their own strength, their own truth, and their own path.
So often we think that when difficulties appear, something is wrong.
Today I see it differently.
Perhaps challenges create the space for growth. Perhaps pain guides us deeper into ourselves. Perhaps the moments we most wish to avoid are the very moments that allow us to discover who we truly are.

Just as the lotus must pass through the mud before it can bloom.🪷🪷🪷
And that is why I decided to create photographs in a lotus field in Cambodia.
I felt it was time to connect my own story with this symbol.
But when the moment arrived, it was not as simple as I had imagined.
I stood barefoot at the edge of a lotus field, dressed for the photoshoot, looking into the dark water beneath me.
I could not see the bottom.
I did not know what was hidden below the surface.
My imagination was working overtime.
Snakes. Insects. Fish. Mud.
And above all, fear.
I deeply wanted to step into the lotus field. Yet there is often a great distance between desire and action.
And then something beautiful happened.
Children from the village appeared.
They saw my hesitation and started laughing. Not in a mocking way, but with the pure joy that only children seem to possess.
Without hesitation, they ran straight into the water.
I looked at them and asked if they would help me.
And they simply came.
They took my hands and led me into the lotus field.
They laughed, talked, splashed water around, and effortlessly reminded me of something that adults often forget.
That courage does not always have to be serious.
That sometimes trust is enough.
That sometimes fear is not overcome through force, but through love.
That moment has remained in my heart ever since.
The photographs are beautiful.
The video we created that day is beautiful.
But the greatest gift was not the final images.
It was that moment of humanity.
That moment when a group of children took my hands and helped me enter a place I might not have entered on my own.
Because of them, I was able to stand among the lotuses.
Because of them, I experienced something I still remember with love today.
And perhaps that is why this article was born.
Not because of the photographs.
But as a reminder that we do not have to walk our path alone.
Sometimes a child shows us the way.
Sometimes a friend.
Sometimes a complete stranger.
And sometimes life extends a helping hand at exactly the moment we need it most.
I wish for you to experience moments like these in your own life.
Moments when you feel something deeper than everyday worries.
Moments when you touch love, trust, and something greater than yourself.
And I wish for the lotus within your heart to have the courage to bloom.
Because every human being is a unique flower.
And each of us has our own timing, our own journey, and our own beauty.
May we all have the courage to become who we were always meant to be.🩷💚