Purity¹⁷

Dear seekers, to me a seeker is he who embodies speed — fast, faster, fastest speed. As we all know, in 1976 the world Olympics will take place here in Montreal. The Olympics is nothing but speed. An athlete runs in the outer world; a seeker runs in the inner world. Now, for an athlete, the marathon is the longest race in the Olympics. It is twenty-six miles. In the inner life, it is not twenty-six miles but millions and billions of inner miles that a seeker has to travel before he reaches his Destination. Since we have to cover a very great distance, the sooner we start running along the path of Eternity, the better.

I wish to give a talk on purity. Purity is not a matter of study; purity is a matter of living reality. Purity is not the sound of life; purity is the silence of the soul. Purity is the conscious aspiration of our aspiring life. Purity is the integration of our aspiring heart.

To be pure is to be free. To be free is to be divine. And to be divine is to fulfil God’s Promise here on earth. What is God’s Promise? God’s Promise to mankind is that He will make each human being a true God like Himself. This Promise is fulfilled by God in and through the God-seekers and the God-lovers. We are all seekers and lovers of God, so it is our bounden duty to realise God here on earth.

A life of purity is a life of self-sufficiency, because it is deeply rooted in love divine. Love is the source of humanity, love is the source of divinity. Human love ultimately ends in frustration. Why? Because human love proceeds from one limited body-consciousness to another limited body-consciousness. Divine love is all illumination. At the journey’s start, in the middle of the race and at the journey’s close it is all illumination. Divine love descends from the soul-freedom into the body-consciousness. Divine love is the sun of freedom both in Heaven and on earth.

Purity is a divine child within us. This divine child embodies peace, light, love and delight in infinite measure. The physical mind is at first baffled by the effulgence of this divine child. But ultimately it surrenders to the child’s effulgence and receives illumination from him. The aspiring heart is immediately thrilled at the very sight of the divine child. It wants to enter and it does enter into the child’s infinite peace, light and bliss, and it starts swimming in the consciousness of the divine child.

Purity is harmony; impurity is disharmony. Harmony puts up a brave fight against the teeming challenges of life. Disharmony helplessly surrenders to the teeming challenges of life.

The inner light is purity. The outer life is ignorance. The inner light wants to conquer the outer ignorance. Likewise, the outer ignorance wants to conquer and devour the inner light. The inner light wants to conquer the outer ignorance with a view to transforming it. When the outer ignorance is transformed, it becomes a divine warrior fighting to establish the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth.

A life of purity is the life of a perfection-lover. We feel that perfection is the fulfilment of our desires. But this is a mistake. Real perfection is the fulfilment of God’s Will in and through us. No matter how many times our desires are fulfilled, we do not see the face of abiding satisfaction. But the fulfilment of God’s Will is our supreme satisfaction. Perfection is satisfaction divine, and this satisfaction we get when we offer to God what we have and what we are. What we have is our aspiration and our mounting inner cry, and what we are is ignorance-sea. Both we have to offer to the Supreme.

In the spiritual life, purity is of paramount importance. A seeker may have high experiences, but if purity is not well-established in his being, then at any moment he may lose the strength and the reality of his experiences. An experience can be permanent in the seeker only when his inner being is flooded with purity. A seeker may reach a very high state of consciousness today, but if impurity enters into him tomorrow, he may fall to the nadir of consciousness, the very lowest level. And once he falls down, his life is filled with the most deplorable remorse. It may take him many years to climb back up to his previous height.

Purity builds the inner life; impurity obliterates the inner life. How can we have a solid edifice which can never be destroyed by impurity? We can have a permanent building, a solid edifice in our inner life, if we cry soulfully and ceaselessly for the Absolute Supreme to descend into our inner life.

For a seeker, the inner purity and the outer purity must go together. Inner purity may be compared to having a clean body, and outer purity may be compared to wearing freshly laundered clothes. If an individual takes a shower but then puts on filthy clothes, what kind of purity will he have? Again, if for a week he has not taken a shower and then he puts on clean clothes, this is also unsatisfactory. His outer purity will not satisfy him because his inner impurity is creating a problem for him. Likewise, with spiritual purity, the inner and the outer must both be there. The body must be pure and clean, but so also must the mind be pure, as well as the vital.

Purity is the shrine within us. In this shrine we see the living spirit of the Supreme, our Beloved. It is said that a life of purity sees God. But I wish to add that a life of purity not only sees God but actually becomes God. A man of purity is a warrior of divinity. This warrior establishes the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth on the strength of his constant self-giving. Today what we call self-giving, tomorrow we shall call God-becoming.