“In human purity abides God’s highest Divinity. Man’s purity is God’s Breath. If we have purity, we have everything. Purity is tremendous power. We can accomplish anything with purity. But if we lose our purity, although we may have power, wealth or influence, we will crumble; we will easily fall.”
– Sri Chinmoy
In meditation, we aim first to clear the mind of thoughts. The best detergent to remove unwanted thoughts, is inner purity. So, to meditate well, or even to meditate at all, purity is of utmost importance.
Unfortunately, purity is vastly under-appreciated by impurity. Impurity has tremendous pride in it, and pride likes to feel self-sufficient. This is a big obstacle: when our minds are impure – which is most of the time – is when we need purity the most, and when we are least likely to value it, want it, or suspect we might need purity at all. It’s beneath our dignity to turn for help to something we see as meaningless, formless, vague and insipid.
We cannot appreciate fine music if we cannot hear it: first we need ears to hear. Our challenge is, that we can only really value purity in our inner life, once we have experienced and established purity to a certain extent. Purity is both its own music, and the ears to hear and appreciate it. Purity grows and is nurtured in purity. The more purity we establish, the more we value purity and the more we know we need more, evermore purity.
Meditation is a quest for the unknown. Just because we do not know or appreciate it, is no reason we cannot search for, discover and cultivate purity. Right now, purity is an “X” on a map: our search will reveal that “X” to be our richest treasure.