Purifying the Heart

TO REALIZE GOD IS TO BECOME GOD. This means consciously experiencing that you are God, for you are eternally God but you do not know it. When God becomes man (Avatar), He understands completely why you do not know that you are God, and He knows how you can become THAT.

There can be nothing like a rigid set of rules to outline the means by which you may be looked to the one and only path to God-realization. This path lies through the subtle and mental spheres, which are independent of and above the gross sphere with its innumerable stars, suns, moons and worlds, including the earth.

Whatever brings you nearer to the path and suits you best, is best for you, provided you are able to put it into practice whole-heartedly and in harmony with the natural bent of your mind.

A good runner who remains indifferent to racing cannot make good progress, but a lame man who keeps on limping vigorously may soon arrive at the path. If it is not used properly, the best car is virtually useless to the traveller, however concerned he may be to arrive at his destination.

I have already told you that ‘love for God’ and ‘obedience to a master’ are beyond the reach of man ON HIS OWN, and that complete surrender is almost impossible for him. The next best thing then for man is to purify his heart. This is also very difficult because every action– whether trivial or important, good or bad, has left its impression on his mind.

Thus, every human mind is a gigantic storehouse of accumulated and fast-changing impressions. How can one gain an adequate idea of these impressions left by innumerable actions- and particularly those born of anger, lust, and greed- during the lengthy course of the evolution of man’s consciousness through the progressive stages of the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms of life?

The obvious remedies for this situation are to use no remedies. For example, if one engages in a secluded life of mere physical renunciation, one is more likely to drive underground than eliminate the dirt of impressions from one’s mind. Under a false sense of external security born of the secluded life, the mind is apt to become weakened and so stop struggling. Then, instead of achieving freedom from the bindings of impressions, the mind is likely to succumb eventually to its impressions and thus develop greater bindings.

By becoming physically free of the bindings created by the impressions in your mind, you have not rooted them out of your mind. Although your body may be temporarily freed– as it is in the sound sleep state, yet, your mind remains bound by the impressions. Even when the body itself is dropped you do not become free, for your mind remains bound by the impressions which the mind has created.

Even as the mind cannot be freed of bindings by mere physical renunciation, so the heart cannot be purified by mere mechanical following of the external forms and fads of religion. One must act on principles and not by rituals.

For example, the essence of Zoroaster’s teachings lies in the principles of good thoughts, good words, and good deeds, and not in the multitude of rituals and ceremonies. These latter serve more as an escape from, rather than as an incentive to the task of purifying the heart.

In achieving good thoughts, good words and good deeds, one finds that– good is not just something better than bad, nor merely the opposite of bad; and not-bad is not necessarily good. ‘Good’ and ‘bad’ are terms that reinforce illusory duality more than they remind one of divine unity.
  From the point of view of truth– thoughts, words and deeds are “good” only when they are born of the longing for or the love of God, the one and only truth.

Although born a Zoroastrian, all religions are the same to me insofar as– they help men to come nearer and nearer to God, who is ever most near to man.

It is better not to worship if your heart is not in it. Any prayer made mechanically in a spirit of show or ceremony is all a farce. It results in greater bindings through one’s pretense to purity.

Similarly, a self-imposed fast, if not observed through a ‘sense of obedience’ or through ‘love of truth’, may make a clock the object of your fast through watching to see when it is time to stop. Such actions tighten more than they loosen the bindings of impressions.

By not eating, you gather the impressions of not eating. Doing or not doing anything–whether sleeping or staying awake, or even breathing– creates impressions on your mind. Therefore you may fast indefinitely, hang yourself upside down or knock out your brains on a slab of stone, and yet not free your mind of its impressions.

Why then should you necessarily give up eating, drinking, doing your duty to your wife and children and looking after the welfare of others? Such duties do not obstruct your way to the path at all.

Suppose, for instance, that a man, in spite of doing his best, loses his family and is unable to obtain enough to eat for himself. If he remains unconcerned, this amounts to his having really given up both his family and eating**.

A real fast for the mind is to have no thoughts at all, but ordinarily this is impossible. Knowingly or unknowingly, like breathing, thoughts keep coming and going, whether you are dreaming the dream of your life or the dreams in your sleep.
    You become completely free of thoughts only when you are in the state of sound sleep– the most-original beyond-beyond state of God. But in sound sleep, you also lose ‘consciousness’. Your mind is then temporarily at rest, but not freed of its impressions…

The best way to cleanse the heart and prepare for the stilling of the mind is to lead a normal, worldly life. Living in the midst of your day-to-day duties, responsibilities, likes, dislikes etc., will help you. All these become the very means for the purification of your heart.
    This natural, normal method depends for its success upon a clear idea of the ‘FORCE behind your thoughts,’ and the ‘FACTS underlying your actions.’

The force behind your thoughts is the force of the impressions in your mind. The impressions are there due to your own previous actions. ‘Actions’ are the cause of impressions and ‘thoughts’ are but the expression of the impressions.
  This being true, the more you try to check your thoughts, the more you interfere with the natural process of their expression. Sooner or later, with the added force produced by suppression, the impressions are bound to express themselves completely.

The truth of action is that– every action, significant or insignificant, voluntary or involuntary is at once impressed, in turn, upon your mind. Like a non-greasy stain, a light impression can be easily wiped out, but impressions caused by actions conceived in–

• anger,
• lust, or
• greed

are hard to remove. In short, actions produce impressions and impressions produce thoughts. Thoughts in turn tend to precipitate further action.

For the purification of your heart, leave your thoughts alone, but maintain a constant vigil over your actions.

It is better to feel angry sometimes than merely to suppress anger. You then have an opportunity to think about ‘anger’- its causes, and its consequences. Although, your mind may be angry, do not let your heart know it. Remain unaffected.

If you never feel angry, you will be like stone, in which form the mind is least developed. Similarly, if you never have lusty thoughts, you cannot achieve the merit of having avoided lustful actions.

The fire of divine love alone can destroy all impressions once and for all! However, remembering me can keep down the impurities in the impressions in your mind, as alum catches hold of (flocculates) dirt in a vessel of turbid water.
  Therefore when you feel angry or have lustful thoughts, remember Baba at once. Let my name serve as a net around you, so that your thoughts– like mosquitoes, may keep buzzing around you, and yet not sting you.
  In that manner, you can prevent unwanted thoughts from turning into unwanted actions, and thus eventually bring your heart to the purification required for me to manifest therein.

But it is not child’s play to remember me constantly during your moments of excitement. If in spite of being very angry, you refrain from expressing anger, it is indeed a great achievement. It means that when your mind becomes angry your heart does not know it, just as when your heart loves me your mind need not know it. In fact, your mind does not know that your heart loves when, prepared to give up life itself, you lead a life of day-to-day obedience and duty.

You can also entrust your ‘mind’ to me by remembering me or repeating my name in heart as often as you can. Remember me so often that your mind is at a loss to find other thoughts to feed on.

Although I am ‘taking’ my own name continuously, I have come to hear it repeated by my lovers, and even though I were deaf, I would hear it if you repeated it only once with all your heart in it.

But, how will you remember at the last moment, unless you start to remember me right now?

Kammu Baba, whom many revere as a saint in Bombay, recently sent me word asking to be relieved of his duties and to return unto me. I advised him also to take my name when breathing his last. In his last moments, Nozher took my name. So did my brother Jamshed, and many others who have come to me. But it is only the heroes who come to me in their physical form. To these, death itself surrenders ultimately!

– Meher Baba
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** The “thought” of being unconcerned at the loss of one’s family is repugnant to many western minds. However this must be framed in the context of a viewpoint which is convinced that the “soul” does not die, that it only moves along to its next phase of learning, that it is hindered rather than helped by “sorrow” on the part of the living, and that activity within a “detached frame of mind” is one of the greatest achievements to which one can aspire.

Source ::
Listen Humanity, Pg :: 40-45
© AMBPPCT, Ahmednagar