Changes

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">All purification is a release, a delivery; for it is a throwing away of limiting, binding, obscuring imperfections and confusions: purification from desire brings the freedom of the psychic prana, purification from wrong emotions and troubling reactions the freedom of the heart, purification from the obscuring limited thought of the sense mind the freedom of the intelligence, purification from mere intellectuality the freedom of the gnosis. But all this is an instrumental liberation. The freedom of the soul, mukti, is of a larger and more essential character; it is an opening out of mortal limitation into the illimitable immortality of the Spirit.</span>[<ref> http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-liberation-of-the-spirit#p1 http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24</the-liberation-of-the-spirit#p1]ref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Perfect purity is to be, to be ever more and more, in a self-perfecting becoming. One must never pretend that one is: one must be, spontaneously.</span>[<ref> http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/12-june-1957#p11 http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09</12-june-1957#p11]ref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Purification—rejecting from one's nature all that is egoistic or of the nature of rajasic desire.</span>[<ref> http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/purity#p2 http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29</purity#p2]ref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">To And yet for the sake of completeness it should be pure, what does it mean? One added that because man is truly perfectly pure only when the whole a mental being, he must necessarily in all its elements the course of his evolution leave behind this unconscious and all its movements, adheres fully, exclusivelyspontaneous purity, which is very similar to the divine Will. This indeed is total purity. It does not depend on any moral or social lawof the animal, any and after passing through an unavoidable period of mental convention of any kind. It depends exclusively on this: when all the elements perversion and all impurity, rise beyond the movements of mind into the being adhere exclusively </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">higher and totally to luminous purity of the divine Willconsciousness.</span>[<ref> http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0610/22aphorism-december-195430#p18 http:p6 <//incarnateword.in/cwm/06/22-december-1954#p18]ref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">And yet for Purity is perfect sincerity and one cannot have it unless the sake of completeness it should be added that because man is a mental being, he must necessarily in the course of his evolution leave behind this unconscious and spontaneous purity, which is very similar entirely consecrated to the purity of the animal, and after passing through an unavoidable period of mental perversion and impurity, rise beyond the mind into the higher and luminous purity of the divine consciousnessDivine.</span>[<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><ref> http://incarnateword.in/cwm/1014/aphorism-30purity#p6 http:</ref></incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-30#p6]span>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Purity is perfect sincerity and one cannot have it unless the being is entirely consecrated to the Divine.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><u>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/purity#p6</u></span> <span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Purity or impurity depends upon the consciousness; in the divine consciousness everything is pure, in the ignorance everything is subject to impurity, not the body only or part of the body, but mind and vital and all. Only the self and the psychic being remain always pure.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><uref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/purity#p16</uref></span>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">That was the wisdom of the Buddha who spoke of "the Middle Way": neither too much of this nor too much of that, neither falling into this nor falling into that—a little of everything and a balanced way... but pure. Purity and sincerity are the same thing.</span>[<ref> http://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-103-104-105-106-107#p77 http://incarnateword.in/cwm/10</aphorism-103-104-105-106-107#p77]ref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">So too the word "impurity". Pure, as it is understood morally, has not at all the meaning it is given in a truly spiritual teaching; and particularly from the Buddhist standpoint, purity is absence of ignorance, as I have already told you last time, and ignorance means ignoring the inner law, the truth of the being. And loyalty means not to take the illusion for the reality, the changing and fluctuating appearances for the inner and real permanence of the being.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><uref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/conjugate-verses#p62</uref></span>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">The object of purification is to make the whole mental being a clear mirror in which the divine reality can be reflected, a clear vessel and an unobstructing channel into which the divine presence and through which the divine influence can be poured, a subtilised stuff which the divine nature can take possession of, new-shape and use to divine issues. For the mental being at present reflects only the confusions created by the mental and physical view of the world, is a channel only for the disorders of the ignorant lower nature and full of obstructions and impurities which prevent the higher from acting; therefore the whole shape of our being is deformed and imperfect, indocile to the highest influences and turned in its action to ignorant and inferior utilities. It reflects even the </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">world falsely; it is incapable of reflecting the Divine.</span>[<ref> http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-higher-and-the-lower-knowledge#p6 http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23</the-higher-and-the-lower-knowledge#p6]ref>

 <div style="color:#0066cc;"><uref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-release-from-the-heart-and-the-mind#p9</uref></div>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">As you pursue this labour of purification and unification, you must at the same time take great care to perfect the external and instrumental part of your being. When the higher truth manifests, it must find in you a mind that is supple and rich enough to be able to give the idea that seeks to express itself a form of thought which preserves its force and clarity. This thought, again, when it seeks to clothe itself in words, must find in you a sufficient power of expression so that the words reveal the thought and do not deform it. And the formula in which you embody the truth should be manifested in all your feelings, all your acts of will, all your actions, in all the movements of your being. Finally, these movements themselves should, by constant effort, attain their highest perfection.</span>[<ref> http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/the-science-of-living#p6 http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12</the-science-of-living#p6]ref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">It is only by a very persistent effort that one can succeed in overcoming his difficulties; and yet it seems impossible to cut oneself off completely from one's solidarity with the rest of the world. Therefore a perfect purity, a perfect perfection seem impossible so long as the world has not reached at least a certain degree of perfection. Even the ascetic, the solitary, who goes and sits in a cave or under a tree or in the jungle, cannot completely free himself from solidarity with the rest of the world. The air he breathes is full of all the vibrations of the world, the food he eats, whatever it may be, even if it is reduced to the minimum, contains the vibrations of the world; and so, it is enough for him to exist to be in solidarity with the difficulties of the world.</span>[<ref> http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/29-december-1954#p5 http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06</29-december-1954#p5]ref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">If there is to be an active perfection of our being, the first necessity is a purification of the working of the instruments which it now uses for a music of discords. The being itself, the spirit, the divine Reality in man stands in no need of purification; it is for ever pure, not affected by the faults of its instrumentation or the stumblings of mind and heart and body in their work, as the sun, says the Upanishad, is not touched or stained by the faults of the eye of vision. Mind, heart, the soul of vital desire, the life in the body are the seats of impurity; it is they that must be set right if the working of the spirit is to be a perfect working and not marked by its present greater or less concession to the </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">devious pleasure of the lower nature. What is ordinarily called purity of the being, is either a negative whiteness, a freedom from sin gained by a constant inhibition of whatever action, feeling, idea or will we think to be wrong, or else, the highest negative or passive purity, the entire God-content, inaction, the complete stilling of the vibrant mind and the soul of desire, which in quietistic disciplines leads to a supreme peace; for then the spirit appears in all the eternal purity of its immaculate essence. That gained, there would be nothing farther to be enjoyed or done. But here we have the more difficult problem of a total, unabated, even an increased and more powerful action founded on perfect bliss of the being, the purity of the soul's instrumental as well as the spirit's essential nature. Mind, heart, life, body are to do the works of the Divine, all the works which they do now and yet more, but to do them divinely, as now they do not do them. This is the first appearance of the problem before him on which the seeker of perfection has to lay hold, that it is not a negative, prohibitory, passive or quietistic, but a positive, affirmative, active purity which is his object. A divine quietism discovers the immaculate eternity of the Spirit, a divine kinetism adds to it the right pure undeviating action of the soul, mind and body.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><uref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-instruments-of-the-spirit#p1</uref></span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Moreover, it is a total purification of all the complex instrumentality in all the parts of each instrument that is demanded of us by the integral perfection. It is not, ultimately, the narrower moral purification of the ethical nature. Ethics deals only with the desire-soul and the active outward dynamical part of our being; its field is confined to character and action. It prohibits and inhibits certain actions, certain desires, impulses, propensities,—it inculcates certain qualities in the act, such as truthfulness, love, charity, compassion, chastity. When it has got this done and assured a base of virtue, the possession of a purified will and blameless habit of action, its work is finished. But the Siddha of the integral perfection has to dwell in a larger plane of the Spirit's eternal purity beyond good and evil… it is meant that the Siddha of the active integral perfection will live dynamically in the working of the transcendent power of the divine Spirit as a universal will through the supermind individualised in him for action. His works will therefore be the works of an eternal Knowledge, an eternal Truth, an eternal Might, an eternal Love, an eternal Ananda; but the truth, knowledge, force, love, delight will be the whole essential spirit of whatever work he will do and will not depend on its form; they will determine his action from the spirit within and the action will not determine the spirit or subject it to a fixed standard or rigid mould of working. He will have no dominant mere habit of character, but only a spiritual being and will with at the most a free and flexible temperamental mould for the action. His life will be a direct stream from the eternal fountains, not a form cut to some temporary human pattern. His perfection will not be a sattwic purity, but a thing </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">'''uplifted beyond the gunas of Nature, a perfection of spiritual knowledge, spiritual power, spiritual delight, unity and harmony of unity; the outward perfection of his works will be freely shaped as the self-expression of this inner spiritual transcendence and universality.'''</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"> </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">For this change he must make conscient in him that power of spirit and supermind which is now superconscient to our mentality. But that cannot work in him so long as his present mental, vital, physical being is not liberated from its actual inferior working. This purification is the first necessity.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><uref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-instruments-of-the-spirit#p2</uref></span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">In other words, purification must not be understood in any limited sense of a selection of certain </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">outward kinetic movements, their regulation, the inhibition of other action or a liberation of certain forms of character or particular mental and moral capacities. These things are secondary signs of our derivative being, not essential powers and first forces. We have to take a wider psychological view of the primary forces of our nature. We have to distinguish the formed parts of our being, find out their basic defect of impurity or wrong action and correct that, sure that the rest will then come right naturally. We have not to doctor symptoms of impurity, or that only secondarily, as a minor help,—but to strike at its roots after a deeper diagnosis. W</span>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">The aspiration must be for entire purification, especially (1) purification from sex, so that no sex imaginations may enter and the sex impulse may cease, (2) purification from desires and demands, (3) purification from depression which is the result of disappointed desires. It is the most important for you. Particularly what you must aspire for is peace in all the being, complete equanimity, samata. The feeling that peace is not enough must go. Peace and purity and equanimity once established, all the rest must be the Mother's free gift, not a result of the demand from the being.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><uref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/purity#p5</uref></span>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Sincerity! Sincerity! How sweet is the purity of thy presence!</span>[<ref> http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/sincerity#p23 http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14</sincerity#p23]ref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">There is, besides, a marvellous joy in being sincere. Every act of sincerity carries in itself its own reward: the feeling of purification, of soaring upwards, of liberation one gets when one has rejected even one tiny particle of falsehood.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><uref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/19-december-1956#p31</uref></span>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">In this way it is not necessary to introduce the principle of love into the explanation. But if you want to know or understand the nature of the Force or the Power that enables or brings about this transformation—particularly where evil is concerned, but also with ugliness to a certain extent—you see that love is obviously the most potent and integral of all powers—integral in the sense that it applies in all cases. It is even more powerful than the power of purification which dissolves all bad will and which is, as it were, the master of the adverse forces, but which has not the direct power of transformation. The power of purification first dissolves in order to allow the transformation afterwards. It destroys one form in order to be able to create a better one, whereas love need not dissolve in order to transform; it possesses the direct power of transformation. Love is like a flame that changes what is hard into something malleable and even sublimates this malleable thing into a kind of purified vapour—it does not destroy, it transforms.</span>[<ref> http://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-49#p12 http://incarnateword.in/cwm/10</aphorism-49#p12]ref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">The love that one contains in silence acts within oneself for purification and transformation. The love that one turns outwards—if one does it in a pure and disinterested way—may occasionally help others. But most often they receive it wrongly... So you must do as your instinct guides you.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><uref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/17/24-july-1934#p3</uref></span>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Along with purity and as a help to bring it about, concentration. Purity and concentration are indeed two aspects, feminine and masculine, passive and active, of the same status of being; purity is the condition in which concentration becomes entire, rightly effective, omnipotent; by concentration purity does its works and without it would only lead to a state of peaceful quiescence and eternal repose. Their opposites are also closely connected; for we have seen that impurity is a confusion of dharmas, a lax, mixed and mutually entangled action of the different parts of the being; and this confusion proceeds from an absence of right concentration of its knowledge on its energies in the embodied Soul. The fault of our nature is first an inert subjection to the impacts of things as they come in upon the mind pell-mell without order or control and then a haphazard imperfect concentration managed fitfully, irregularly with a more or less chance emphasis on this or on that object according as they happen to interest, not the higher soul or the judging and discerning intellect, but the restless, leaping, fickle, easily tired, easily distracted lower mind which is the chief enemy of our progress. In such a condition purity, the right working of the functions, the clear, unstained and luminous order of the being is an impossibility; the various workings, given over to the chances of the environment and external influences, must necessarily run into each other and clog, divert, distract, pervert. Equally, </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">'''without purity the complete, equal, flexible concentration of the being in right thought, right will, right feeling or secure status of spiritual experience is not possible.'''</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"> </span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Therefore the two must proceed together, each helping the victory of the other, until we arrive at that eternal calm from which may proceed some partial image in the human being of the eternal, omnipotent and omniscient activity.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><uref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/concentration#p1</uref></span>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">For the purity of which Sri Aurobindo speaks here is the purity of instinct, that obeys Nature's impulses spontaneously, never calculating, never questioning, never asking whether it is good or bad, whether what one does is right or wrong, whether it is a virtue or a sin, whether the outcome will be favourable or unfavourable. All these notions come into play when the mental ego makes its appearance and begins to take a dominant position in the consciousness and to veil the spontaneity of the soul.</span>[<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-30#p4 http://incarnateword.in/cwm/10</aphorism-30#p4]ref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">At every moment all the unforeseen, the unexpected, the unknown is before us―and what happens to us depends mostly on the intensity and purity of our faith.</span>[<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/faith#p19 http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14</faith#p19]ref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Detailed surrender means the surrender of all the details of life, even the smallest and the most insignificant in appearance. And this means to remember the Divine in all circumstances; whatever we think, feel or do, we must do it for Him as a way of coming close to Him, to be more and more what He wants us to be, capable of manifesting His will in perfect sincerity and purity, to be the instruments of His Love.</span>[<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/surrender#p7 http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14</surrender#p7]ref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">There are two possibilities, one of purification by personal effort, which takes a long time, another by a direct intervention of the Divine Grace which is usually rapid in its action. For the latter there must be a complete surrender and self-giving and for that again usually it is necessary to have a mind that can remain quite quiet and allow the Divine Force to act supporting it with its complete adhesion at every step, but otherwise remaining still and quiet. This last condition which resembles the baby cat attitude spoken of by Ramakrishna, is difficult to have. Those who are accustomed to a very active movement of their thought and will in all they do, find it difficult to still the activity and adopt the quietude of mental self-giving. This does not mean that they cannot do the Yoga or cannot arrive at self-giving—only the purification and the self-giving take a long time to accomplish and one must have the patience and steady perseverance and resolution to go through.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><uref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/surrender#p78</uref></span>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Pure sense of beauty can be acquired only through a great purification.</span>[<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/beauty#p14 http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15</beauty#p14]ref>

[<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-higher-and-the-lower-knowledge#p8 http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23</the-higher-and-the-lower-knowledge#p8]ref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">If we call "perfect receptivity" the receptivity that receives only the Divine Influence and no other, it is certain—and at the same time it is perfect purity.</span>[<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/27-november-1968#p2 http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16</27-november-1968#p2]ref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">When we are in the presence of hostile forces, only the purity of an absolute truth can conquer them.</span>[<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/20-july-1935#p7 http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16</20-july-1935#p7]ref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Purification and calm are the first needs in the Yoga. One may have a great wealth of experiences of that kind (worlds, visions, voices etc.) without them, but these experiences occurring in an unpurified and troubled consciousness are usually full of disorder and mixture.</span>[<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-danger-of-the-ego-and-the-need-of-purification#p50 http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30</the-danger-of-the-ego-and-the-need-of-purification#p50]ref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">In your nature there are many obstacles, chiefly a great activity of the outward-going mind and a thick crust of the impure lower Prakriti that covers the heart and the vital being. Quieting of the mind and purification of the nature are what you must have before you can fulfil your aim. Aspire for these two things first; ask for them constantly from above. You will not be able to achieve them by your own unaided effort.</span>[<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/purity#p9 http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29</purity#p9]ref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Peace and purity of the consciousness are the very foundation of the necessary change in the nature.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><uref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/peace-the-basis-of-the-sadhana#p1</uref></span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Peace is necessary for all; without peace and an increasing purity, even if one opens, one cannot receive perfectly all that comes down through the opening. Light too is necessary for all—without light one cannot take full advantage of all that comes down.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><uref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/peace-the-basis-of-the-sadhana#p2</uref></span>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Neither the complete purification nor the permanent and perfect manifestation can come all at once, it is a matter of time and patient progress. The two (purification and manifestation) go on progressing side by side and become more and more strong to play into each other's hands—that is the usual course of the sadhana.</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#0066cc;"><uref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-danger-of-the-ego-and-the-need-of-purification#p35</uref></span>

 [<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/transformation-in-the-integral-yoga#p13 http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29</transformation-in-the-integral-yoga#p13]ref>

<span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">With the inner liberation, with a total sincerity and perfect purity, all suffering will disappear, because it will no longer be necessary for the progress of the consciousness towards its final goal.</span>[<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/the-fool#p21 http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03</the-fool#p21]ref>