Song of Solomon 2:2 · World English Bible
Song of Solomon 2:2 Meaning As a Lily Among Thorns
As a lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.
What does Song of Solomon 2:2 mean?
The lily is the pure awakened soul, white and rising on a single stem, opening upward out of the crowd of lower states. The thorns and the daughters around it are the many ordinary desires and lesser feelings of the natural self, sharp, tangled, pressing in on every side.
From the Esoteric reading below.
Song of Solomon 2:2 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Esoteric
ESOTERIC
Esoteric
The lily is the pure awakened soul, white and rising on a single stem, opening upward out of the crowd of lower states. The thorns and the daughters around it are the many ordinary desires and lesser feelings of the natural self, sharp, tangled, pressing in on every side. The one loved is this single flowering of consciousness that keeps its purity while surrounded by the pricking multitude of appetites it grows among.
The image holds a truth about how the higher nature lives in a person. It does not escape the thorns; it stands rooted right in the midst of them and blooms anyway. The awakened soul is distinguished not by removal from the lower states but by remaining unstained while it stands among them.
The lily: the pure awakened soul, white and single-stemmed, opening upward out of the lower nature The thorns: the sharp tangled desires of the natural self that press in around the flowering soul The daughters: the many lesser feelings and states of the ordinary self, the crowd among which the pure soul grows
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Live Song of Solomon 2:2 today
- Stay in one mildly annoying situation today without complaining about it, in your head or out loud. You are not pretending it is fine; you are just refusing to be dyed its color.
- In a conversation where everyone is sharpening their words, be the person who keeps theirs soft and clear. One unspiky sentence can change the temperature of a whole thread.
- When pressure is on and the easy move is to get sharp too, pause for one breath before you answer. Standing among thorns is the normal condition; getting pricked is not required.
Where do I keep waiting for calmer company before I act like my better self?
The same truth in other traditions
Buddhism · Dhammapada
As a lotus rises clean out of muddy water, a clear mind can live in the middle of a confused world. It is not the absence of mud that keeps it clean.
Tao Te Ching
Muddy water left alone becomes clear by itself. Stillness in the middle of the mess, not escape from it, is what settles things.
Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius
You will be surrounded by grasping, irritable, difficult people, and you still get to decide what you are among them. The crowd sets the conditions, not your character.
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