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I love LOTUS! (among others)
The lotus flower, a type of water lily, is held sacred among many of the world's religions and cultures.
With its roots in the mud, the lotus rises through the murky water to blossom clean and bright, symbolizing to the Buddhist purity, resurrection and the enlightened being that emerges undefiled from the chaos and illusion of the world.
The eight-petalled lotus that is used in Buddhist mandalas symbolizes cosmic harmony, and the thousand-petalled lotus represents spiritual illumination.
In Egyptian mythology, the lotus was associated with the sun, because it blooms by day and closes by night. The lotus also symbolized rebirth, since one Egyptian creation myth tells of the newborn sun god rising out of a floating lotus. The blue lotus was sacred to the ancient Egyptians, who valued it not only for its rich perfume but also for its narcotic ability to produce heightened awareness and tranquility.
To Native Americans, who found all parts of the American lotus edible, the flower symbolized the sun's power to transform energy into food. The seeds were once an especially important part of the Native American diets; in fact, the genus name Nelumbo means "sacred bean."
The lotus is also highly esteemed by Taoists. Among the Eight Immortals of Taoism is Ho Hsien Ku, her symbol the open lotus blossom, signifying openness and wisdom.
A feature of the lotus plant that has found its way into Chinese poetry is its stalk, which is easy to bend but difficult to break because of its many strong fibres. Poets liken this quality to the bonds between lovers or family members.
Lotus is the foremost symbol of beauty, prosperity and fertility. According to Hinduism, within each human inhabiting the earth is the spirit of the sacred lotus. It represents eternity, purity and divinity and is widely used as a symbol of life, fertility, and ever-renewing youth and to describe feminine beauty, especially the eyes.
One of the most common metaphysical analogies compares the lotus' perennial rise to faultless beauty from a miry environment to the evolution of man's consciousness--from instinctive impulses to spiritual liberation. In the Bhagavad Gita, man is adjured to be like the lotus--he should work without attachment, dedicating his actions to God--untouched by sin like water on a lotus leaf and the beautiful flower standing high above the mud and water. In the postures of hatha yoga, the lotus position, padmasana, is adopted by those striving to reach the highest level of consciousness, which itself is found in the thousand-petalled lotus chakra at the top of the head. A symbol for the centers of consciousness in the body. For Buddhists, lotus symbolizes the most exalted state of man--his head held high, pure and undefiled in the sun, his feet rooted in the world of experience.
The lotus does symbolize many things. My reason for getting one is along the lines of the "growth from muck to the top of the pond" answer. But I believe that the previous explanations are borrowed/generalized interpretations of the original Buddhist version. In Buddhist thought the muck represents the material world of the senses; the struggle to the top is the quest for enlightenment -- the struggle to transcend the material world and the attachment to the "self"; and the blossom symbolizes the ultimate achievement of Nirvana.
"One who performs his duty without attachment, surrendering the results unto the Supreme Lord, is unaffected by sinful action, as the lotus leaf is untouched by water."
-- Bhagavad Gita 5.10