There is no denying that adults
adulterate us, despite their best intentions. We can decide to undo this. Who
here has not been blessed by the steaming grace of a good shower or the wonder
of a hot bath? What is the equivalent
for our hearts and minds?
Cynthia F. Davidson, excerpt from the Wisdom Wheel Purification card
(cards, stones, posters & more available via www.thewisdomwheel.com)
Unadulterated and pure, that is the Purification state of mind, heart, body and spirit. Spend these next ten days doing whatever you can to dissolve any accumulated layers of disappointment, indifference or expectation so you can reconnect with the genuine purity at your core.
Give priority to the Process of Purification for ten days and see what happens.
Do a thorough review your Purification practices since childhood.
What has worked before to clear your feelings, thoughts & energy?
Do some research and try some new methods; sauna, sweat lodge, meditation, a fruit juice cleanse, for example.
Decide how best to purify thoughts, feelings, your physical self and your surroundings.
Revisit your spiritual life and consider the role Purification has in it.
Ask friends and family members what they do concerning this Law.
Bring up the subject of Purification at work and in a social setting.
During the past ten days, you did some Renewal work. This made room for Purification. Surrender is the next Law. You can see how these operate in tandem. These three come before Enlightenment, the 24th Law.
Here are some wise words about the practice of Purification from others.
Be in
your own aura…Whatever it is we must do, to reach the knower of truth in
ourselves, is our particular purification. Intention and preparation, the
removal of barriers and contaminants, until we can respond authentically to what
we encounter…as we did when we were children, before we were shamed or punished
for doing so.
Jean
Shinoda Bolen, M.D.
Purification is the gate of knowledge… minds cleared of prejudice and convention break our habit of taking the visible world for granted, our lazy assumptions that somehow science is real and metaphysics is not.
Evelyn
Underhill, Mysticism
Omniscience is achieved only through the process of purifying the
disturbing emotions within your mind. It cannot be achieved merely through
wishes and prayers. We have to train in eliminating all the specific disturbing
emotions by relying on specific antidotes. All the activities of a Bodhisattva
can be included in two major categories: the practice of skillful means and the
practice of wisdom. If the practices of giving, ethics, and so forth are to be
perfected, they should be supported and influenced by the practice of wisdom.
Without the practice of wisdom, the first five of the six perfections cannot
actually become practices of perfection.
The Dali
Lama
All
emotions are pure which gather you and lift you up; that emotion is impure
which seizes only one side of your being and so distorts you.
Rainer
Maria Rilke, German poet
Purity of the
heart is the will to one thing.
Soren
Kierkegaard (1813 – 1855) Danish philosopher and religious writer
There are
no perfect human beings! Persons can be found who are good, very good indeed,
in fact, great. There do in fact exist creators, seers, sages, saints, shakers,
and movers...even if they are uncommon and do not come by the dozen. And yet
these very same people can at times be boring, irritating, petulant, selfish,
angry, or depressed. To avoid disillusionment with human nature, we must first
give up our illusions about it.
Abraham
Maslow, 20th century humanistic psychologist, books include Motivation & Personality
Purification
is included in the three Pure Precepts of Buddha's teachings: Do no evil; do
good; purify the mind.
In its most important sense "purify" means to rid
ourselves of delusion, a synonym for ignorance, sometimes translated as
non-knowledge or non-Clarity. Ignorance is the root of human suffering.
By ridding ourselves of ignorance (delusion), we "cleanse within" and
return to our original state, enlightenment.
Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult
sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to
the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience.
Thomas Merton (1915-1968)
American
and Trappist Monk at Our Lady of Gethsemane Abbey
Violent
fundamentalism is motivated by the need to eliminate badness through fighting
the bad outside (of oneself). What is required now is to eliminate the
heretical, impure, inimical elements, that is, killing the infidels who do not
believe in (my/our) God. A destructive counterpart is created by the killing of
"God’s enemies": it is the killing of oneself. Obviously the killing
of oneself in the effort to kill the impure part of oneself, amounts to the
total failure – or total grim success – of the process of purification.
Dr. Ruth
Stein, Fundamentalism, Father and Son, and Vertical Desire http://ideologiesofwar.com/papers/fundamentalism_stein.htm
On any
vision quest the seeker must first achieve a purification, an altered state…
(T)he Oglala fast for many days, as did the Jew Jesus during forty days in the
wilderness; in other cultures sacrifices must be prepared, pilgrimages made.
Only after such ritual purification is the seeker prepared to see what ordinary
people cannot normally see… Purification can be achieved by loneliness,
despair, deprivation and waiting… they are all forms of sacrifice.
Sy
Montgomery, author, naturalist, from her essay in Face to Face
Why not face heroically the furnace of inner purification so that
it does not become necessary to pass once more through one of those terrible,
gigantic destructions which plunge entire civilizations into darkness?
Mirra
Alfassa, aka The Mother in The Sunlit
Path
The Night
Way ceremony (of the Navajo) has a lot to do with purification of the patient.
The chanters say, If you haven’t been purified – cleanliness inside and out –
they (the Holy People) won’t come near you.
Navajo
Night Way Chanter in The Circle of the Spirit by Peter Gold
Step by
step, piece by piece, hour by hour, the wise man should purify his soul of all
impurity as a silver-worker purifies silver.
Sri
Aurobindo, from Purification chapter in The Eternal Wisdom book
In ten days I'll post the Law of Surrender, until then focus on your Purification efforts.
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