Purity of mind

“ Even such a person is said to be pure both inwardly and outwardly. They who never concern themselves with what is past, they who feel no attachment to acquisitions that are present, indeed, they who are free from desire, are said to be possessed of the highest purity. Knowledge is said to constitute the especial purity of the body. So also freedom from desire, and cheerfulness of mind. Purity of conduct constitutes the purity of the mind. ”

“ This is made necessary by the fact that nature has been perverted, that the enemy of all purity has taken possession of every avenue of thought, even from the cradle, 13 and has filled the mind of childhood with unprofitable imaginings, for which the only cure is the knowledge of the truth pure and simple, adapted to their comprehension, and such opportunities for association as shall make them mutual helps without stimulating that self-consciousness that leads to curiosity and evil suggestion. ”

“ You who seek purity, and would have your fellow-men also seek it, spend not your labour on the stony ground of their intellect, endeavouring to explain what purity is; give their imagination the one pure man ”

“ The second way is, by purity of heart and life: for as vice not only proceeds from ignorance, but also causes it, by besotting and clouding the understanding, so purity not only proceeds from knowledge, but also produces it, making the soul see more clearly and distinctly. And the same method is recommended in scripture, Wisdom, says the wise man, will not enter into a polluted spirit. ”

“ Their purity is an affirmative state; something strong, clean, and crystalline, capable of a wholeness of adjustment to the wholeness of a God-inhabited world. The pure soul is like a lens from which all irrelevancies and excrescences, all the beams and motes of egotism and prejudice, have been removed; so that it may reflect a clear image of the one Transcendent Fact within which all others facts are held. ”

“ Blessed art thou, most favored of God, whose THOUGHTS are chastened; whose imagination will not breathe or fly in tainted air, and whose path hath been measured by the golden reed of purity."
To be pure in heart is the youth's first great commandment. Do not listen to men who tell you that "vice is a necessity." Nothing is a necessity that is wrong,—that debauches self-respect. "All wickedness is weakness." Vice and vigor have nothing in common. Purity is strength, health, power.
Do not imagine that impurity can be hidden! ”

“ Purity knows how to deal in an offhand way with its own nature and needs, being full of the courage of its own convictions as to what it wants to do and be.
“The courage of purity is full of simplicity and high achievement ”

“ At the root of his moral being we find—a key to the understanding of his character—that same profound need of purity which drove him to the sources of sacred science. Purity in the material and the moral sense is what he desires for himself and others, always and in all things. ”

“ Purity is the soul of Beauty, Symmetry is its spirit, and Justice is its body. Every human being, in the Soul-worlds or elsewhere, loves nothing so well as to be well thought of by all other human beings. ”

“ Let the impure turn to Purity, and they shall be pure; let the weak resort to Strength, and they shall be strong; let the ignorant fly to Knowledge, and they shall be wise. All things are man’s, and he chooses that which he will have. ”

“ But one lesson there does seem to lie in such a life of such a man,—a lesson which he taught equally by example and in word,—that wherever there is genuine and thorough love for good and goodness, no speculative superstructure of opinion can be so extravagant as to forfeit those graces which are promised, not to clearness of intellect, but to purity of heart. ”

“ Though you do not know any definition of purity, you know enough to begin to be pure. You do not know what a man is, but you know how to make his acquaintance—perhaps even how to gain his friendship. Your brain does not know what purity is; your heart has some acquaintance with purity itself. Your brain in seeking to know what it is, may even obstruct your heart in bettering its friendship with it. To know what purity is, a man must already be pure; but he who can put the question, already knows enough of purity, I repeat, to begin to become pure. ”

“ Why not pay careful attention to man in all his elements of strength, physical, mental, and moral? Why not make personal purity a fixed principle in the manhood of the present and coming generations, and thus insure the best men the world has ever seen? ”

“ FIRST STEPS IN THE HIGHER LIFE
Seeing that the Path of Virtue is the Path of Knowledge, and that before the all-embracing Principles of Truth can be comprehended, perfection in the more lowly steps must be acquired, how, then, shall a disciple of Truth commence? How shall one who aspires to the righting of his mind and the purification of his heart—that heart which is the fountain and repository of all the issues of life—learn the lessons of Virtue, and thus build himself up in the strength of knowledge, destroying ignorance and the ills of life? ”

“ If, then, I regard purity as the best symbol of such a moral ideal, it is because the word connotes, together with freedom from discordant passion, a frankly unconstrained recognition of the simplicity of our relation to God. ”

“ Then comes the question, What is this nature that is so precious to each of us? Clearly it is compounded of body and mind, each with many virtues of its own; but as the mind should rule the body, so reason, as the dominant faculty, should rule the mind. Virtue itself is only "the perfection of this reason", and, call it what you will, genius or intellect is something divine. ”

“ It has occurred to me frequently, of late, that there must have been some interior creative object in the gradations of instinct, and ultimate alliance of superhuman intelligence with the highest grade? It is certainly impossible for me to reason myself into the belief that we have been endowed with a perception of goodness, and the necessity of purity for its attainment, to have them dispensed with in life for the substitution of the instinctive greed of selfishness, with the accommodating proviso of repurification by an act of saving grace! ”

“ The resolving of duty into a mere matter of good intentions has led off into ways and forms of behavior shocking to enlightened consciences. It has made quite plausible the illusion that "the end sanctifies the means," and in the name of religion has stretched men on the rack and lighted the faggots at the stake. Under a fancy that purity is simply a thing of the heart, men have been known to excuse not a little sensualism of life. ”

“ And conversely, there exists, in rerum natura, no Science worth having which is not, ultimately, the resultant of, and which does not require and call forth, on and on, certain special qualities, and combinations of qualities, of the truly ethical, spiritual Personality. Courage, patience, perseverance, candour, simplicity, self-oblivion, continuous generosity towards others and willing correction of even one’s own most cherished views,—these things and their like are not the quantitative determinations of Matter, but the qualitative characteristics of Mind. ”

“ In her greatest sayings, and in her actual life, Purity is found to be Love, and this Love is exercised, not only in the inward, home-coming, recollective movement,—in the purifying of the soul’s dispositions, but also in the outgoing, world-visiting, dispersive movement,—in action towards fellow-souls. ”

“ What is ultimately at stake in the modern world is the whole conception of purity as a quality that is desirable. This attitude has become possible among us for one reason because we have consented to the suppression of ideals of life which were calculated to sustain it. ”

“ This true way is expressed by what we call right principles of conduct. It is such traits as we name courage, truth, justice, purity, love, aspiration, reverence. It includes the study of natural laws and conformity to them. It includes the search for knowledge, both for its use and for its own joy. It includes the delighted gaze upon beauty of every kind.
Whoever follows this ideal—and just as far as he follows it intelligently and earnestly—finds certain results. Whenever he acts, he finds set before him a right way to follow rather than a wrong. So from every situation he may draw strength. ”

“ I need not quote the words. I need only remind you that purity must have its home in the heart, if it is to be the glory of the life. "Blessed are the pure in heart," is the Master's beatitude. "You are pure, you say ”

“ This wisdom, then—rectitude of soul and of reason, and purity of life—is the object of the desire of philosophy, which is kindly and lovingly disposed towards wisdom, and does everything to attain it. ”

“ This consciousness tends to give a new value to all the "moralities": it awakens a [243] new percipiency as to good and evil; in particular, the great duty of purity in relation to the man himself, and to others, acquires a new sacredness. ”

“ For so it is, “what makes our virtues thrive openly, will also, if we be not watchful, make our faults thrive in secret;”? and vice versa. Let us admire his varied knowledge, his refinement of thought, which was such that only his truly philosophic turn could have prevented it from degenerating into sophistry; his devotion, even more tender than enthusiastic, to the highest interests of humanity; that beautiful fairness of mind, in which he was unequalled, a fairness which evidenced equal modesty, generosity, and pure attachment to truth ”

“ Those endowed with extreme benevolence set the world in order; those possessed of extreme maliciousness turn the world into disorder. Purity, intelligence, spirituality and subtlety constitute the vital spirit of right which pervades heaven and earth, and the persons gifted with benevolence are its natural fruit. ”

“ The power of virtue then is twofold, for virtue is distinguished either by theory or by practice. For that which is called prudence, or shrewdness, or (if we must have the most dignified title for it) wisdom, is all theoretical. But that which is praised as regulating the passions, and restraining the feelings of the mind, finds its exercise in practice. ”

“ The idea of purity and impurity, in fact, whether corporeal and external or whether spiritual in the sense of its association with the world of spirits, is still non-ethical, and we must not apply our moral standards to it until a later stage. It arrives at this stage and at its higher significance for morality when it has evolved the conception of a pure heart, a pure soul. ”

“ The brethren said, “What is purity? And to what length doth its limit extend?” The old man said, “In my opinion purity consisteth in oblivion of the various kinds of knowledge which are beyond nature, and which nature hath discovered in the world; and the limit thereof is that a man should be wholly free from them, so that he may arrive at the state of natural simplicity and integrity which he possessed at first, and which somewhat resembleth that of a child, except in the case of small matters.” ”

“ When the craving for moral consistency and purity is developed to this degree, the subject may well find the outer world too full of shocks to dwell in, and can unify his life and keep his soul unspotted only by withdrawing from it. ”

“ The question, however, may finally be asked whether a naturalistic system of morals will ever excite the enthusiasm, ever create the same intense longing after purity of heart, that has been produced under the influence of the Christian creed. ”

“ Such must be the purity of your character and the degree of your renunciation, that the people of the earth may through you recognise and be drawn closer to the heavenly Father who is the Source of purity and grace. ”

“ Purity is free from a burdensome sense of shame, and is full of an invigorating courage which is wide away from all necessity of making and loving those things which the Bible calls ‘lies.’ Because a robust healthfulness fills with courage those who habitually practice the scientific law of purity. So that, in the character of a Right Honorable, purity, courage and truth knit each other up into a triuned power against which nothing can prevail. ”

“ Fix your powerful mind upon the harmony of the moral world, as you have been long accustomed to do upon the order of the physical universe, and you will see the scheme of the eternal intelligence developing itself alike in both. Think of the goodness and mercy of omnipotence, and aid your contemplation by devotional feelings and mental prayer and aspirations to the source of all knowledge, and wait with humility for the light which I doubt not will be so produced in your mind. ”

“ As I consider virtue and vice to consist in action, and not in opinion, and as this action has its seat in the will, and not in the conscience, I shall confine my inquiries chiefly to the influence of physical causes upon that moral power of the mind, which is connected with volition, although many of these causes act likewise upon the conscience, as I shall show hereafter. The state of the moral faculty is visible in actions, which affect the well-being of society. ”

“ But the greatest branch of intellectual [Pg xv] excellence with respect to which every other is nothing, and which, from its nature, can never be foundation of any self-conceit, is virtue, or right dispositions of mind, leading to right conduct in life. Proper sentiments, and just affections of mind, arise from just, and often comprehensive, views of things, past, present, and to come. ”

“ We own and feel the force of amiable and worthy qualities in our fellow creatures; and can we be insensible to the contemplation of perfect goodness? Do we reverence the shadows of greatness here below, are we solicitous about honour and esteem and the opinion of the world, and shall we not feel the same with respect to Him whose are wisdom and power in the original, who is the God of judgment by whom actions are weighed? ”