Lotus Symbology:

As a lotus exists in three elements, earth, water, and air, so a (wo)man lives in three worlds — material intellectual and spiritual. As a plant, with its roots in the mud and the slime, growing upward through the water and finally blossoming forth into the light in the air, so the spiritual growth of man is upward from the darkness of base action and desire into the light of truth and understanding. The water serves as a symbol of the ever-changing world of illusion through which the soul must pass in a struggle to reach the state of spiritual illumination.