Practices of purification are done in order to “cool us out,” so we’re not creating so much heavy karma for ourselves. We are constantly preoccupied with the creations of our minds. Einstein said, “The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self.” What we strive to be liberated from is our habitual thought patterns and the pull of our senses. Lightening up in these areas gives us the space to refocus and deepen the benefits of centering the mind with meditation, mantra or the practices of Bhakti yoga. With the deepening of these practices, comes the higher wisdom.
This trip is fraught with paradoxes. You have to give it all up to have it all. Turn off your mind – there is a place in you that already knows – trust that. Jesus said, “Unless ye become as little children, ye cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” Being is dying by loving. Something within me must die. It’s like the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly. The caterpillar will not be a flying caterpillar for it will have changed. We’re talking about how to become butterflies.
This is the pathless path – returning to where you were initially before you got lost. The deepest truth in you is where the journey leads – shedding, like taking off layers of an onion, until you come to your essence. The key to the spiritual journey is not acquiring something outside of yourself. Rather it is shedding the veils to come back to the deepest truth of your being.
All that you seek is already within you. It’s often focused in the center of the chest, which has been called the soul or in Hinduism, the Atman, in Buddhism, the pure Buddha-Mind. Christ said, “The kingdom of heaven is within you.” Quakers call it the “still small voice within.” This is the space of full awareness that is in harmony with the universe, and thus is wisdom itself. Inside each of us is the full spirit of God. When you want to approach God, go inward to meet God inside.
The offering up or cleaning up ego stuff is called purification. Purification is the act of letting go. This is done out of discriminative awareness. That is, you understand that you are an entity passing through a life in which the entire drama is an offering for your awakening. You see that the life experience is a vehicle for coming to God, or becoming conscious, for becoming liberated. And you understand ultimately that’s what you are doing here.
Excerpt from Ram Dass’ book Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart
Wow. So well worded, and very helpful. Thank you.
What I dont understand, no matter how much I read, meditate or see,feel or hear, is why we have left in the 1st place. if we are returning to love means we were once there, we were once in pure love, in union with all, with God, but not anymore. I understand the concept of learning, the necessity of suffering, the journey and all, but if we ask why why why all the way to the 1st why, I have still not found an answer.. would be great if someone could enlighten me… sending love…
Why? Your premise that we were once in pure love but “not anymore” needs loving examination.
The union with God in pure love, in union with all, is still there and available to us to realize, that is the journey within of which Ram Dass writes.
When we arrive here as infants, this consciousness is like a blank canvass of pure potentiality which the Universe (God) has made available to all sentient beings through unconditional love.
The gist of the Ram Dass post is that we have, through living in this world of free choice, differentiality and expansion, acquired an “onion skin” or a “veil” of mental conditioning through an ego personality that keeps us from living in the union of pure love.
As we both expand the frontiers of this consciousness and drop the ego conditioning (peel the onion or drop the veil) allowing unconditional love to be manifest in our lives, a natural change occurs in our being and actions to further the evolution of pure love and union in this consciousness. Perhaps that is why.
Why? Your premise that we were once in pure love but “not anymore” needs loving examination.
The union with God in pure love, in union with all, is still there and available to us to realize, that is the journey within of which Ram Dass writes.
When we arrive here as infants, this consciousness is like a blank canvass of pure potentiality which the Universe (God) has made available to all sentient beings through unconditional love.
The gist of the Ram Dass post is that we have, through living in this world of free choice, differentiality and expansion, acquired an “onion skin” or a “veil” of mental conditioning through an ego personality that keeps us from living in the union of pure love.
As we both expand the frontiers of this consciousness and drop the ego conditioning (peel the onion or drop the veil) allowing unconditional love to be manifest in our lives, a natural change occurs in our being and our actions to further the evolution of pure love and union in this consciousness. Perhaps that is why.
I remember reading a book, a long time ago by Yehuda Berg (Kabbalah Centre) and the gist of it was that at one stage we were like Spiritual receptacles into which all good ‘things’ were poured. However the desire to be self fulfilling and self sufficient came along and basically to say it very briefly, here we are to achieve that. We were meant to fall, so to speak, to achieve this as we could not become self fulfilling, self sufficient without entertaining a sense of separation from God. Although there is another explanation that this world experience is the story of the Prodigal son who thought he could be something or make something of himself without God!!
As far as I understand we left the one or spirit to play in form. The universe is lawful in terms of karma so any karma that has been accrued has to be worked out and paid back. We made the decent from the formless one essence down to form where we can play. Each of us has been lost in form for God knows how long. But there is part of us that is still in the formless. That’s the part that we need to realise. I think it can be realised in what is in our life’s. both internally and externally. Attractions and aversions
Because we wanted to explore and create we we are still one or at the start we chose to go back and forth reincarnate adventure in between and in all creation we can chose to give gifts create music influence and impower others .. conspiracy and war keeps us off track.. work and power structures make illusions .. your always light you fade into colors and sometimes chose to understand darkness and feel pain without understanding yourself and run from it until you come to stop and look you’ll find your answers not no ones else’s but only creator source that you are has gifted you .. within nothing is your truth and creates everything you are .. we are here on earth but also quantumly… we are in cosmic organic bodies and have been weekend by our stronger selves that are illusioned into a power structure nicest way I’ll say it without goin into more conspiracies…
Lourenco.. why for the fun of it of course!
lol….thanks Anne, that would be a beautiful and simple answer was this world to be a full fun place where everyone is enjoying life, and having loads of fun… 🙂
I am not a master in spirituality. But according to my imagination of all these things, I guess that we are part and parcel of god. So, we come out to liberate ourselves which means to liberate god. By all our experiences he gains knowledge and that is how he grows and creates beautiful things In the world. He offers materialistic things for his parts to enjoy and not just suffer. Lol I know my answer would make no sense but I just felt like telling.