“
Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering.... The love of God did not protect His own Son.... He will not necessarily protect us - not from anything it takes to make us like His Son. A lot of hammering and chiseling and purifying by fire will have to go into the process.
”
”
Elisabeth Elliot
“
None of you has achieved faith until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.
”
”
Hamza Yusuf (Purification of the Heart: Signs, Symptoms and Cures of the Spiritual Diseases of the Heart)
“
I'd breathe for her. I'd see for her, hear for her, and feel for her. I'd even die for her. Thousands of times. If I could see her smile at me one more time, it would all be worth it. Just one more time. Before I completely fell apart.
”
”
Tiana Dalichov (Purification (Keeper of Light, #3))
“
I came to set fire to the earth. And I am watchful that the fire grow.
May the fire of love grow in our hearts.
May the fire of transformation glow in our movements.
May the fire of purification burn away our sins.
May the fire of justice guide our steps.
May the fire of wisdom illuminate our paths.
May the fire that spreads over the Earth never be extinguished.
”
”
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
“
The mind is not forced to believe in the existence of anything (subjectivism, absolute idealism, solipsism, skepticism: c.f. the Upanishads, the Taoists and Plato, who, all of them, adopt this philosophical attitude by way of purification). That is why the only organ of contact with existence is acceptance, love. That is why beauty and reality are identical. That is why joy and the sense of reality are identical.
”
”
Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace)
“
There is lovemaking that is bad for a person, just as there is eating that is bad. That boysenberry cream pie from the Thrift-E Mart may appear inviting, may, in fact, cause all nine hundred taste buds to carol from the tongue, but in the end, the sugars, the additives, the empty calories clog arteries, disrupt cells, generate fat, and rot teeth. Even potentially nourishing foods can be improperly prepared. There are wrong combinations and improper preparations in sex as well. Yes, one must prepare for a fuck--the way an enlightened priest prepares to celebrate mass, the way a great matador prepares for the ring: with intensification, with purification, with a conscious summoning of sacred power. And even that won't work if the ingredients are poorly matched: oysters are delectable, so are strawberries, but mashed together ... (?!) Every nutritious sexual recipe calls for at least a pinch of love, and the fucks that rate four-star rankings from both gourmets and health-food nuts use cupfuls. Not that sex should be regarded as therapeutic or to be taken for medicinal purposes--only a dullard would hang such a millstone around the nibbled neck of a lay--but to approach sex carelessly, shallowly, with detachment and without warmth is to dine night after night in erotic greasy spoons. In time, one's palate will become insensitive, one will suffer (without knowing it) emotional malnutrition, the skin of the soul will fester with scurvy, the teeth of the heart will decay. Neither duration nor proclamation of commitment is necessarily the measure--there are ephemeral explosions of passion between strangers that make more erotic sense than lengthy marriages, there are one-night stands in Jersey City more glorious than six-months affairs in Paris--but finally there is a commitment, however brief; a purity, however threatened; a vulnerability, however concealed; a generosity of spirit, however marbled with need; and honest caring, however singled by lust, that must be present if couplings are to be salubrious and not slow poison.
”
”
Tom Robbins (Still Life with Woodpecker)
“
Prettier musings of high-wrought love and eternal constancy could never have passed along the streets of Bath, than Anne was sporting with from Camden-place to Westgate-buildings. It was almost enough to spread purification and perfume all the way.
”
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Jane Austen (Persuasion)
“
The man she had loved as a father was a fraud. He kissed the back of her hands and advocated war; he had played with her on the carpet with toy soldiers, and all along he had been planning the extinction of an entire people.
There would be no resettlement in the east. No carefully orchestrated exodus of Jews from Germany, no trains wending through the mountains, carrying Jews to another home in another country. There would be no peaceful expulsion. It was obvious now; Hitler had said it himself tonight. The internal purification of the Jewish spirit is not possible.
She understood. In Hitler's Germany, the Jews would have no place at all.
”
”
Anne Blankman (Prisoner of Night and Fog (Prisoner of Night and Fog, #1))
“
Jesus needs nothing but your humility and your confidence to work marvels of purification and sanctification in you. And your confidence will be in proportion to your humility, because it is to the extent that we realize our need of Jesus that we have recourse to Him, and we sense this need to the extent that we justly realize our unworthiness.
”
”
Jean du Coeur de Jésus d'Elbée (I Believe in Love: A Personal Retreat Based on the Teaching of St. Therese of Lisieux)
“
Imam Abū alḤasan al-Shādhilī, a thirteenth century scholar, once prayed, “O God, make my bad actions the bad actions of those whom You love, and do not make my good actions the good actions of those with whom You are displeased.
”
”
Hamza Yusuf (Purification of the Heart: Signs, Symptoms and Cures of the Spiritual Diseases of the Heart)
“
When a man loves a woman, he desires union, that is, the goal of union which exists in love.
In the elemental form, there is no greater union than marriage. (10) By this appetite
encompasses all parts. For that reason, complete ritual washing is prescribed after
intercourse. Purification envelops him as annihilation in the woman was complete in the
obtainment of appetite. Allah is very jealous of His slave if He believes that he finds pleasure
in other than Him. So man purifies himself by ritual washing in order to return to Him in
whom he was annihilated, since that is all there is.
”
”
Ibn ʿArabi (The Bezels of Wisdom)
“
the path of self-purification is hard and steep. To attain to perfect purity one has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action; to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion.
”
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Mahatma Gandhi (My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi)
“
Oh external worshiper, know that worship without heart is motions. Oh seeker of knowledge, know that knowledge without purification is a dangerous weapon of the ego. Oh activist, know that work without orientation of heart is fruitless. Oh lover, know that love without God is pain.
”
”
Yasmin Mogahed
“
When you shattered her, oh how you allowed all kinds of free-flowing magical rainbow light to enter. You
allowed a cleansing. A purification. Who would’ve known breaking could be so damn beautiful! I say, break baby. Let the shattered pieces split you wide open and let light enter through all cracks and crevices.
”
”
Melody Lee (Moon Gypsy)
“
To give up one's love for one's country is very great. But to give up one's hate for one's country, this may also have in it something of pride and something of purification.
”
”
G.K. Chesterton (The Appetite of Tyranny: Including Letters to an Old Garibaldian)
“
...purification was the point of such pain.
”
”
Holly Lynn Payne (DAMASCENA - The Tale of Roses and Rumi)
“
We should note that mortification prepares for mental prayer, and the latter, in its turn, facilitates mortification. Therefore, prayer and mortification influence one another. Mortification and patience prepare for prayer through the purification and detachment they produce in us. They enable the person to take flight toward God, and this flight is prayer itself.
”
”
Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange (Knowing the Love of God)
“
To My Priestess Sisters
To my priestess sisters: the keepers of mysteries, the medicine women, the story keepers and story tellers, the holy magicians, the wild warriors, the original ones, the ones who carry the ancients within the marrow of your bones, the ones forged in the fires, the ones who have bathed in thier own blood, the heroines who wear thier scars as stars, the ones who give birth to their visions and dreams, the ones who weep and howl upon the holy altars, the avatars, the mothers, maidens and crones, the mystics, the oracles, the artists, the musicians, the virgins, the sensual and sexual, the women of our world-
I honor you. I stand for you and with you. I celebrate both your autonomy and our sisterhood of One. We are many. We are fierce. We are tender. We are the change agents and we are radically holding and clearing space for the bursting forth of the holy seeds of the collective conscience and consciousness. We are manifestors and flames of purification and transformation. We are living our lives in authenticity, vulnerability, transparency and unapologetically. We are committed to integrity, impeccability, accountability, responsibility and passionate love.
We are here on purpose, with purpose and give no energy to conformity, acceptance or approval. We are the daughters of the earth and the courageous of the cosmos.
Priestess, keep living your life passionately, raising the cosmic vibrations and lowering your standards for no one. You are brazenly blessed and a force of nature. Nurture yourself and one another.
You are a crystalline bridge between realms and uniting heaven and earth. You are a priestess and you are divinely
anointed, appointed and unstoppable.
”
”
Mishi McCoy
“
Faith also requires “purification” in Ratzinger’s thought. For Ratzinger, reason allows faith to discern what is superstitious from what is true and what inconsistent with truth from what is a genuine expansion of knowledge.
”
”
John Lynch (The Logos as Reason, Word, and Love in the Theology of Joseph Ratzinger)
“
But the path of self-purification is hard and steep. To attain to perfect purity one has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action; to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion. I
”
”
Mahatma Gandhi (My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi)
“
Certainty [of faith] will remain incomplete as long as there is an atom of love of this world in the heart. When faith has become certitude, certitude has become knowingness, and knowingness has become Knowledge, you will become an expert in distinguishing between the good and the bad in the service of Allah (mighty and glorified is He).
”
”
Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (Purification of the Mind Jila' Al-Khatir)
“
Have patience . . .
We are not the masters of our own feelings of attraction or revulsion; these come from places in ourselves over which we have little or no control. All we can do is try not to follow inclinations which make for barriers within the community. We have to hope that the Holy Spirit will come to forgive, purify and trim the rather twisted branches of our being. Our emotional makeup has grown from a thousand fears and egoisms since our infancy, as well as from signs of love and the gift of God. It is a mixture of shadow and light. And so it will not be straightened out in a day, but will take a thousand purifications and pardons, daily efforts and above all a gift of the Holy Spirit which renews us from within.
It is a long haul to transform our emotional makeup so that we can really start loving our enemy. We have to be patient with our feelings and fears; we have to be merciful to ourselves. If we are to make the passage to acceptance and love of the other - all the others - we must start very simply, by recognizing our own blocks, jealousies, ways of comparing ourselves to others, prejudices and hatreds. We have to recognize that we are poor creatures, that we are what we are. And we have to ask our Father to forgive and purify us. It is good, then, to speak to a spiritual guide, who perhaps can help us to understand what is happening, strengthen us in our efforts and help us discover God's pardon.
”
”
Jean Vanier (Community and Growth)
“
Henri Nouwen wonderfully describes the practices of silence, solitude and fasting. Within a world of words, silence allows us to hear the voice of God and ultimately gives us a liberating word for others. Solitude, as Nouwen says, is “the place of purification and transformation, the place of the great struggle and the great encounter.”[5] Solitude is the place where we stand alone, naked before a holy God, and learn to accept his grace and love, which set us free. Finally, fasting allows us to enter into the sufferings of Christ and walk closer with God. As Eddie Gibbs says, “The Church in the West has got to learn to suffer. We love Easter, but we don’t like Good Friday.”[6] Fasting gives a needed break to our digestive organs and sharpens our spiritual senses. As we engage in the three practices of silence, solitude and fasting, we can overcome a noisy, overwhelming, frenzied life and connect with the heart of God. Here we find love and liberation for all, responding to the suffering and captivity in the world.
”
”
J.R. Woodward (Creating a Missional Culture: Equipping the Church for the Sake of the World)
“
Imam al-Qarāfī differentiates between the hope inherent in the Arabic word rajā’ and the hope implied by taṭwīl al-’amal. The Qur’an praises one who hopes for God and meeting Him in the Hereafter: “Say [O Muḥammad], ‘I am but a man like yourselves, but to whom it is revealed that your God is but one God. So whoever hopes to meet his Lord, let him do righteous deeds and never associate anyone with the worship of his Lord’” (QUR’AN , 18:110). A famous hadith narrated from ʿĀ’ishah relates that the Prophet said, “Whoever loves to meet God is one whom God also loves to meet.” And ʿĀ’ishah asked, “O Messenger of God, what about disliking death?” He replied, “It is natural to dislike death, but ultimately meeting God is something the believer seeks and looks forward to.” This kind of hope is known as rajā’. It is hope coupled with sincere effort to achieve what one hopes for.
”
”
Hamza Yusuf (Purification of the Heart: Signs, Symptoms and Cures of the Spiritual Diseases of the Heart)
“
The cure for hatred is straightforward. One should pray for the person toward whom he feels hatred; make specific supplication mentioning this person by name, asking God to give this person good things in this life and the next. When one does this with sincerity, hearts mend. If one truly wants to purify his or her heart and root out disease, there must be total sincerity and conviction that these cures are effective.
Arguably, the disease of hatred is one of the most devastating forces in the world. But the force that is infinitely more powerful is love. Love is an attribute of God; hate is not. A name of God mentioned in the Quran is al-Wadud, the Loving one. Hate is the absence of love, and only through love can hatred be removed from the heart. In a profound and beautiful hadith, the Prophet said, "None of you has achieved faith until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.
”
”
Hamza Yusuf (Purification of the Heart: Signs, Symptoms and Cures of the Spiritual Diseases of the Heart)
“
Dryness and the Dark Night”:2 A certain scientist devoted his life to developing a strain of butterfly that would be the most beautiful combination of colors ever seen on this planet. After years of experimentation, he was certain that he had a cocoon that would produce his genetic masterpiece. On the day that the butterfly was expected to emerge, he gathered together his entire staff. All waited breathlessly as the creature began to work its way out of the cocoon. It disengaged its right wing, its body, and most of its left wing. Just as the staff were ready to cheer and pass the champagne and cigars, they saw with horror that the extremity of the left wing of the butterfly was stuck in the mouth of the cocoon. The creature was desperately flapping its other wing to free itself. As it labored, it grew more and more exhausted. Each new effort seemed more difficult, and the intervals between efforts grew longer. At last the scientist, unable to bear the tension, took a scalpel and cut a tiny section from the mouth of the cocoon. With one final burst of strength, the butterfly fell free onto the laboratory table. Everybody cheered and reached for the cigars and the champagne. Then silence again descended on the room. Although the butterfly was free, it could not fly. . . The struggle to escape from the cocoon is nature’s way of forcing blood to the extremities of a butterfly’s wings so that when it emerges from the cocoon it can enjoy its new life and fly to its heart’s content. In seeking to save the creature’s life, the scientist had truncated its capacity to function. A butterfly that cannot fly is a contradiction in terms. This is a mistake that God is not going to make. The image of God watching Anthony has to be understood. God holds back his infinite mercy from rushing to the rescue when we are in temptation and difficulties. He will not actively intervene because the struggle is opening and preparing every recess of our being for the divine energy of grace. God is transforming us so that we can enjoy the divine life to the full once it has been established. If the divine help comes too soon, before the work of purification and healing has been accomplished, it may frustrate our ultimate ability to live the divine life.
”
”
Thomas Keating (Invitation to Love: The Way of Christian Contemplation)
“
He is refining us. He is teaching us to trust him. He is drawing us away from our strength to his. He knows exactly how much heat to allow in our lives. He will never scorch us, but if we jump out of one cauldron because it's too hot, he has others waiting. The dross must be removed.
Do you know how the ancient refiner knew when he was finished, and the heat could finally be turned down? It was when he looked into the cauldron and saw his own reflection in the shining silver. As long as the image was muddy and rippled with flecks of slag, he knew he had to keep working. When his face finally showed clearly, the silver had been purified.
This is exactly how it is with our spiritual refining process. God's eternal plan is for us 'to be conformed to the likeness of his Son' (Romans 8:29). Jesus Christ continues today as the Refiner and Purifier of his people. As he carefully works on our lives, he keeps looking into us to see his own blessed reflection.
Shall we not trust Christ and surrender to this process, rather than fighting it? Remember that it is a process of love to bring beauty and growth and enlargement in our lives. It is God's way of sanctifying us. And we must never forget that the holier the life, the more true happiness we experience within. It is the spiritual impurities that rob us of God's best.
”
”
Jim Cymbala (Fresh Faith: What Happens When Real Faith Ignites God's People)
“
Red: Maintaining health, bodily strength, physical energy, sex, passion, courage, protection, and defensive magic. This is the color of the element of fire. Throughout the world, red is associated with life and death, for this is the color of blood spilled in both childbirth and injury. Pink: Love, friendship, compassion, relaxation. Pink candles can be burned during rituals designed to improve self-love. They’re ideal for weddings and for all forms of emotional union. Orange: Attraction, energy. Burn to attract specific influences or objects. Yellow: Intellect, confidence, divination, communication, eloquence, travel, movement. Yellow is the color of the element of air. Burn yellow candles during rituals designed to heighten your visualization abilities. Before studying for any purpose, program a yellow candle to stimulate your conscious mind. Light the candle and let it burn while you study. Green: Money, prosperity, employment, fertility, healing, growth. Green is the color of the element of earth. It’s also the color of the fertility of the earth, for it echoes the tint of chlorophyll. Burn when looking for a job or seeking a needed raise. Blue: Healing, peace, psychism, patience, happiness. Blue is the color of the element of water. This is also the realm of the ocean and of all water, of sleep, and of twilight. If you have trouble sleeping, charge a small blue candle with a visualization of yourself sleeping through the night. Burn for a few moments before you get into bed, then extinguish its flame. Blue candles can also be charged and burned to awaken the psychic mind. Purple: Power, healing severe diseases, spirituality, meditation, religion. Purple candles can be burned to enhance all spiritual activities, to increase your magical power, and as a part of intense healing rituals in combination with blue candles. White: Protection, purification, all purposes. White contains all colors. It’s linked with the moon. White candles are specifically burned during purification and protection rituals. If you’re to keep but one candle on hand for magical purposes, choose a white one. Before use, charge it with personal power and it’ll work for all positive purposes. Black: Banishing negativity, absorbing negativity. Black is the absence of color. In magic, it’s also representative of outer space. Despite what you may have heard, black candles are burned for positive purposes, such as casting out baneful energies or to absorb illnesses and nasty habits. Brown: Burned for spells involving animals, usually in combination with other colors. A brown candle and a red candle for animal protection, brown and blue for healing, and so on.
”
”
Scott Cunningham (Earth, Air, Fire & Water: More Techniques of Natural Magic (Llewellyn's Practical Magick Series))
“
In 1799, the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge goes to Germany on a winter walking trip and writes home to his wife about the opposite sense: of winter as a mysterious magnetic season that the wanderer is expelled into for his own good, for the purification and improvement of his soul. “What sublime scenery I have beheld!” Coleridge’s’ words are one of those rare passages of prose that truly mark the arrival of an epoch. It would be impossible to find anything like it in European literature only twenty-five years before… This kind of love of the winter scene is not of the force outside pressing in on the window, bringing family together. Instead it is for the ice-spirit pulling us out. This winter window is wrenched open by the level of the sublime.
The new idea (of winter’s beauty) is associated with Edmund Burke’s great essay on the sublime and beautiful from the middle of the eighteenth century. Burke’s was one of the three or four most powerful ideas in the history of thought, because he wrenched aesthetics away from the insipid idea of beauty (physical, manicured) towards recognition of the full span of human sympathy. Oceans and thunderstorms, precipices and abysses, towering volcanoes and, above all, snow-capped mountains- they rival and outdo the heritage of classical beauty exactly because they frighten us; they fill us with fear, with awe, with a sense of the inestimable mystery of the world.
”
”
Adam Gopnik (Winter: Five Windows on the Season (The CBC Massey Lectures))
“
Contempt for causes, for consequences and for reality. Whenever an evil chance event a sudden storm or a crop failure or a plague strikes a community, the suspicion is aroused that custom has been offended in some way or that new practices now have to be devised to propitiate a new demonic power and caprice. This species of suspicion and reflection is thus a direct avoidance of any investigation of the real natural causes of the phenomenon: it takes the demonic cause for granted. This is one spring of the perversity of the human intellect which we have inherited: and the other spring arises close beside it, in that the real natural consequences of an action are, equally on principle, accorded far less attention than the supernatural (the so-called punishments and mercies administered by the divinity). Certain ablutions are, for example, prescribed at certain times: one bathes, not so as to get clean, but because it is prescribed. One learns to avoid, not the real consequences of uncleanliness, but the supposed displeasure of the gods at the neglect of an ablution. Under the pressure of superstitious fear one suspects there must be very much more to this washing away of uncleanliness, one interprets a second and third meaning into it, one spoils one's sense for reality and one's pleasure in it, and in the end accords reality a value only insofar as it is capable of being a symbol. Thus, under the spell of the morality of custom, man despises first the causes, secondly the consequences, thirdly reality, and weaves all his higher feelings (of reverence, of sublimity, of pride, of gratitude, of love) into an imaginary world: the so-called higher world. And the consequences are perceptible even today: wherever a man's feelings are exalted, that imaginary world is involved in some way. It is a sad fact, but for the moment the man of science has to be suspicious of all higher feelings, so greatly are they nourished by delusion and nonsense. It is not that they are thus in themselves, or must always remain thus: but of all the gradual purifications awaiting mankind, the purification of the higher feelings will certainly be one of the most gradual.
”
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Friedrich Nietzsche (Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality)
“
Spiritual tradition counsels that spiritual masters purify the souls of their students. Actually, it is the constant inner spiritual work of the more mature human being that not only continues the purification process for the master, but also has its effect on the student. The detoxification in one appears in the other as a result. Therefore the whole world is responsible for the whole world. Everyone is potentially responsible for everyone.
The ultimate happiness of everyone is to love and be loved. Therefore there is no greater and more effective work than loving, living without judgment, blessing AND TRANSFORMING every negative thing that comes into our consciousness.
No negative thought within ourselves is completely contained within ourselves, nor is a positive thought limited within ourselves. We can heal other souls, transform relationships, bring order and harmony into the world by the continual consciousness of, acceptance of, and gratitude for what is.
”
”
Kabir Helminski
“
Methods to dispel the impurities of the Heart
What are the impurities of the heart? The meditator has to dispel all impurities of the heart.
1. Compassion
Fill the heart with compassion and then violence, anger and jealousy will disappear.
Before moving into meditation, feel unconditional love and compassion towards the whole world.
The first purification of the meditator is that when you sit in meditation, begin by feeling compassion for the whole world.
Compassion will dissolve the impurities that accumulate in your heart and mind.
2. Friendliness
The second thing to purify the heart is friendliness towards the whole World - not only towards man, but towards everything.
3. Cheerfulness
The third thing to purify the heart is cheerfulness, a feeling of joy and cheerfulness.
When we are in joy, no impurity flows towards us from the world.
When we are said, we immediately start thinking of making the whole world miserable.
Cheerfulness is to fill your heart with joy and cheerfulness.
4. Indifference
The fourth method to purify the heart is indifference, no matter what happens.
Whether good or bad things happen. whether success or failure happens, whether self-realization happens or not - remain indifferent.
One remains centered and balanced between the two, one does not choose between the two.
These four methods are the essence of religion.
”
”
Swami Dhyan Giten (When the Drop becomes the Ocean)
“
Love is not something that becomes your weakness, love is something that becomes your strength. It is the process of purification, love does exist in responsibilities of taking care of each-other's character, it protects you from the evil eyes, wrong hands & from the wrong track. it's the process of getting the most valuable strength by falling in it so deeply that you stay focused and immersed in your beloved ones soul because without falling into the depth of love, despair, depression or any form of emotion, we cannot rise or reemerge. Reaching in its depth where you see the light of the truth of this universe which becomes the ultimate rise for you if you understand and follow your heart, which becomes the reason that you live an eternal life even after your death on planet earth, you win the hearts of lovers and show them the sacred path. Most of all it keep the society pure and blessed. So, let’s not break the eternal laws, let’s bring the Law of faithfulness in our society by playing our role. So
"Let's not just fall in love, let's rise in love
”
”
Mohsin Ali Shaukat
“
The divine meaning of the Scriptures has to be gleaned from the letter of it and beyond the letter, through contemplation guided by the Spirit. In the Fathers we do not find any fundamentalism, but Scripture opened by the Spirit to its very heart, namely the mystery of the Trinity, the source of love, and Christ's victory over death and hell, the triumph of love.
If you try to reduce the divine meaning to the purely external signification of the words, the Word will have no reason to come down to you. It will return to its secret dwelling, which is contemplation that is worthy of it. For it has wings, this divine meaning, given to it by the Holy Spirit who is its guide ... But to be unwilling ever to rise above the letter, never to give up feeding on the literal sense, is the mark of a life of falsehood.
Origen Commentary on Proverbs, 2.3 (PG 17, 2.2.1-4)
Origen, whose Brilliant thought fertilized all Christian spirituality, especially, but not only, in the East, compares Scripture to an almond. He himself is an inspired interpreter of Scripture, and if his thought has had to be corrected on other points, it remains fully and directly nourishing in this field.
The bitter rind is the letter that kills and that has to be rejected.
The protecting shell is the ethical teaching, that, as a necessary part of the process of going into greater depth, requires a course of careful purification.
Then the spiritual kernel is reached, which is all that matters, which feeds the soul on the mysteries of divine wisdom.
”
”
Olivier Clément (Roots of Christian Mysticism: Texts from Patristic Era with Commentary)
“
We all are like filthy rags in the site of God; not one clean enough, good enough, righteous enough, to stand before a holy God.
”
”
Robin Bertram (No Regrets: How Loving Deeply and Living Passionately Can Impact Your Legacy Forever)
“
The Church's social teaching argues on the basis of reason and natural law, namely, on the basis of what is in word with the nature of every human being. It recognizes that it is not the Church's responsibility to make this teaching prevail in political life. Rather, the Church wishes to help form consciences in political life and to stimulate greater insight into the authentic requirements of justice as well as greater readiness to act accordingly, even when this might involve conflict with situations of personal interest. Building a just social and civil order, wherein each person receives what is his or her due, is an essential task which every generation must take up anew. As a political task, this cannot be the Church's immediate responsibility. Yet, since it is also a most important human responsibility, the Church is duty-bound to offer, through the purification of reason and through ethical formation, her own specific contribution towards understanding the requirements of justice and achieving them politically.
”
”
Pope Benedict XVI (Deus caritas est: Of Christian Love (ICD Book 2))
“
Whenever the Lord speaks through her, it’s very simple. He says do not fear but put on the whole armor of God. Repentance, sacraments, prayer, obedience. Love the Church with a great love and offer your sufferings for her purification
”
”
Michael D. O'Brien (Elijah in Jerusalem)
“
Form always turns towards crystallization. To change form, one has to let go of one’s structure and move through a fluid state into another one. You all call that purification, or reactivity, or doubt or, “It’s too hard!” And it is hard. It’s hard to turn one’s life in a different direction. But, if one has an intuition of love (and all of you do)—if you allow yourself to be convinced and converted, and confess it (this love), then that outweighs the hardness of the path.
”
”
T.K. (An Opening Lotus of Wisdom: Topics in Vajrayana, Vol. I)
“
The mystic attempts to overcome dogma, insisting that God, Christ and heaven are not ‘up there’ but are to be found in the heart by desire, by love, by the will; that is, by a path of inner purification.
”
”
Don Cupitt (The Sea of Faith (SCM Classics))
“
In the realm of divine, there is no punishment through pain. There is only purification. There is only encouragement to connect with the source. Those who truly loved the Lord removed every bit of obstacle within to manifest Godliness as for them there was no suffering but only God’s will. However, they never tolerated what was meant to be discarded even if it meant sacrificing their lives. It was unconditional surrender, but in dignity not in degradation.
”
”
Rabb Jyot
“
“Many,” sighed Ashuri, “and from various faculties. A considerable number of them are not even registered at the university. They come to register, and I ignore the fact that they are not on the roster. This year, I closed registration after seventy-five students had signed up, but in reality over a hundred attended each lecture. For purely selfish reasons, because of my age, I suppose, I refused to accept any more. I have found lately that Kabbalah has shown signs of a resurgence of interest. As a result, many charlatans earn a fine living from it.” Elijah remembered that he was really on his way to the library. He parted from Prof. Ashuri in his normal awkward, hesitant and apologetic manner, thanking her profusely no less than three times; he would even have bowed down to her if that was what would have enabled him to expedite his exit. However, Prof. Ashuri had one more important observation to make. “I hope that your interest in the Kabbalah will not infect you with that dreaded disease...” she smiled. “What disease do you mean?” “Kabbalistic literature is generally divided into three major streams. The first and most important one is the cosmological, mission-oriented one. Here we find a direct line between ourselves and the Master of the Universes, by way of His influence on all the intermediate worlds. Note the term, ‘Master of the Universes’ in the plural. In this view, there are mutual influences, going from the upper worlds to us, and from us to the upper worlds. All the commandments and all the proper intentions and all the prayers are ultimately aimed at mending those spheres, which were damaged at the time of the Creation. In the language of the Kabbalah, this means repairing those vessels which were broken. “The second stream is Kabbalistic-prophetic. It is an attempt to attain what is known as cleaving to God and to achieve spiritual elevation. This can be accomplished by internal meditation, which includes reciting the Holy Names, internal and external purification, combining sacred letters and repeating them over and over, singing and moving the head, and breathing techniques. This can unite one with the higher worlds. One who does this properly can reach the level of prophecy. There are even books with detailed instructions on how to actually accomplish this and how to ascend to a higher spiritual level. I often hear of students who have embarked on such a course, and it is, indeed, a disease.” “Don’t worry about me. And what about the third stream?” “The third stream is the one which has elicited the most criticism. It is referred to as Practical Kabbalah. By that, we mean people who use the Kabbalah for their own personal purposes, as a way to exploit the secret knowledge to which they have access in order to control nature and man’s fate. Practical Kabbalah appeals directly to supernatural forces and sometimes even makes them solve the problems of the one calling upon them. These include attempts to foretell the future, to converse with the dead, to heal the sick, to banish evil spirits and the evil eye, and of course to acquire wealth, respect, and/or the love of a man or a woman. That, too, is a dangerous game to play.” Prof. Ashuri laughed, but Elijah could not tell whether or not she was serious.
”
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Nathan Erez (The Kabbalistic Murder Code (Historical Crime Thriller #1))
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Without purification of the heart, all worship is unholy, insincere and a total waste.
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Riaz Ahmed Gohar Shahi (The Religion of God (Divine Love): Untold Mysteries and Secrets of God)
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When St. John warns us not to love the world (1 John 2:15), he is not telling us to disdain art and culture. He is not denying what God’s Word already taught in creation. By “world” he means all those systems, institutions, and structures of a fallen humanity that, like the building of the ancient ziggurat in Babel (Gen. 11:1–9), trusted in human ingenuity and ability alone, thus arraying themselves against the reign and word of God. What St. John rightly warns against here are the schemes and organizations of worldly power that vandalize God’s shalom, carelessly destroy or thoughtlessly misuse his good creation, or oppress and dehumanize those Christ came to save. The Gospel is centered on a cross that promises salvation not just for souls but “far as the curse is found.”11 The fire in the earth’s future that St Peter speaks of is not one of annihilation but of purification.
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Doug Serven (Firstfruits of a New Creation: Essays in Honor of Jerram Barrs)
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A trace of love's purification is evident the moment instinct wears a human face, even the most anonymous, the most despicable.
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Thomas Mann (Doctor Faustus)
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The Emperor is a hardy, strong card that requires a hearty, strong spell to channel his energies. This dish, Emperor Tofu, is a spell dedicated to the powerful, fiery leadership qualities of the Emperor. Feast on it when you need to be fearless and to make a stand. •As you prepare this meal, focus on channeling Emperor energy—intelligence, courage, masculine yang-vibes. Imagine yourself taking a stand, fighting to win, and succeeding. Continue the visualizations throughout your meal and into your cleanup process. This is best eaten the night before a big action, though leftovers can be snacked on at any point in the following days. If your need for raw, Mars energy is so powerful that you are craving some meat between your teeth, substitute the tofu for something bloodier. First, take a half-teaspoon of ground coriander (sacred to Aries, the Emperor’s ruling sign), a half-teaspoon of black pepper (same), a teaspoon of salt (purification), a pinch of cloves (to keep people from talking shit about you), a quarter-teaspoon of cinnamon (protection), a quarter-teaspoon of cardamom (sacred to Mars, the Emperor’s ruling planet), a quarter-teaspoon of cayenne (Aries), and a half-teaspoon of turmeric (good health). Mix it together and set it aside. Next, sauté an onion (Mars) and a jalapeño (protection from negativity) in coconut oil over high, fiery heat for three minutes. Then add a tablespoon of fresh grated ginger (to move your plan along), three cloves of garlic (protection), and your pile of spices; cook for another minute. Throw in a can of coconut milk and a block of tofu that you’ve drained, pressed, and cut up into chunks. Cover and simmer for twenty minutes. Before serving, add some fresh, shredded basil leaves (sacred to Aries) and a squirt of lime (to attract love and support). Voilà!
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Michelle Tea (Modern Tarot: Connecting with Your Higher Self through the Wisdom of the Cards)
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The Qur’an states that there are people who desire to continue in their wrongdoing throughout the entirety of their lives. They ask, “When will this Day of Resurrection come?” (QUR’AN , 75:6). One interpretation of this verse, according to scholars, is that although people may be aware of ultimate accountability, they put off repentance as if they are guaranteed a long life. This is an ethic exemplified by the saying, “Sow your wild oats,” which advocates getting all the lewdness and sin out of one’s life when one is young, and then later calming down and adopting religion. Besides the obvious error of this ethic, another terrible flaw is that people die at all ages, and some never get the chance to repent and make amends. Moreover, what kind of repentance is this when people intentionally indulge in sin banking on the possibility that later on in life—after all the energy and drive diminishes—they will turn in penitence to God? We know that God loves those who spend their youth obedient to Him and His commandments.
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Hamza Yusuf (Purification of the Heart: Signs, Symptoms and Cures of the Spiritual Diseases of the Heart)
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The root source of ostentation is desire, wanting something from a source other than God. The Imam says that the cure for ostentation is the same as the cure for reckless compromise (mudāhana). It is to actively and sincerely seek purification of the heart by removing four things: love of praise; fear of blame; desire for worldly benefit from people; and fear of harm from people. This is accomplished by nurturing the certainty (yaqīn) that only God can benefit or harm one. This is at the essence of the Islamic creed. The Prophet said: Be mindful of God, and God will protect you. Be mindful of God, and you will find Him in front of you. If you ask, ask of God. If you seek help, seek help from God. Know that if the whole world were to gather together to benefit you with anything, it would benefit you only with something that God had already prescribed for you. And if the whole world were to gather together to harm you, it would harm you only with something that God had already prescribed for you. The pens have been lifted, and the ink has dried.
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Hamza Yusuf (Purification of the Heart: Signs, Symptoms and Cures of the Spiritual Diseases of the Heart)
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It is anathema to give away in charity what is shoddy and inferior. There is parsimony and miserliness in this. The Muslim tradition is to give away from what one loves; God blesses this charity and extends its goodness. “O you who believe, spend from the good things you have earned and from what We brought out for you from the earth. And do not seek what is inferior in order to spend from it, though you yourselves would not take it unless your eyes were closed to it. And know that God is ever-rich and worthy of praise” (Qur’an, 2:267). And, “You will not attain to righteousness until you spend of what you love” (QUR’AN, 3:92).
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Hamza Yusuf (Purification of the Heart: Signs, Symptoms and Cures of the Spiritual Diseases of the Heart)
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The etiology of miserliness is love of the fleeting, material aspects of this world. The miser ardently clings to his wealth and hoards it.
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Hamza Yusuf (Purification of the Heart: Signs, Symptoms and Cures of the Spiritual Diseases of the Heart)
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Love becomes ecstasy when a person attains the freedom to give himself completely to another, where there is, in the loving, a purification of desire.
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Francis E. George
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The fact that we fail at seeing these things, that our interpretations may perpetrate violence against a text, and so on, is only more evidence of the Lord’s grace is granting us participation in the love of the Trinity, through existence and in the body of Christ. That same grace is offered to us who are granted the privilege of literacy. Meaning-making through reading, after all, is another testimony of the attributes of the invisible God being clearly seen in what has been made (Rom. 1:20). That we fall into idolatry is undeniable—in reading and the rest of life: the image in Romans of exchanging “the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles” is as aesthetic and poetic as it is magic and earthen (Rom. 1:23). It harkens back to the idolatries of both noninstrumental and instrumental reading discussed in the introduction. God will bring the entire cosmos into the beloved community of the new creation through the purification and repurposing work of judgment—as idolatry and violence and sin and death become the nothing to which they have always pointed. God’s judgment will differentiate those who seek the glory of God from those who seek the nothingness of their own glory. But text may be cultivated by anyone; its becoming gives glory to the God of all meaning-making regardless. The special office of the reader in the body of Christ is the express veneration of the word—is, in short, praise.
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Tiffany Eberle Kriner (The Future of the Word: An Eschatology of Reading)
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This book has been about community . . . But when all is said and done, each of us, and in the deepest part of our self, has to learn to accept our own essential solitude.
In each of our hearts, there is a wound - the wound of our own loneliness, which hurts at moments of setback and can be even more painful at the time of our death. Death is a passage which cannot be made in community. It has to be made completely alone. And all suffering, sadness and depression is a foretaste of that death, a manifestation of our deep wound which is part of the human condition. . . . We can experience moments of communion and love, of prayer and ecstasy - but they are only moments. We quickly find ourselves back in the incompleteness which is the result of our immortality and limitations and those of others. . .
Even the most beautiful community can never heal the wound of loneliness that we carry. It is only when we discover that this loneliness can become a sacrament that we touch wisdom, for this sacrament is purification and presence of God. If we stop fleeing from our own solitude, and if we accept our wound, we will discover that this is the way to meet Jesus Christ. It is when we stop fleeing into work and activity, noise and illusion, and when we remain conscious of our wound, that we will meet God. . . .
Those who enter marriage believing that it will slake their thirst for communion and heal their wound will not find happiness. In the same way, those who enter community hoping that it will totally fulfil and heal them, will be disappointed. We will only find the true meaning of marriage or community when we have understood and accepted our wound. It is only when we stand up, with all our failings and sufferings, and try to support others rather than withdraw into ourselves, that we can fully live the life of marriage or community. It is only when we stop seeing others as a refuge that we will become, despite our wound, a source of life and comfort. It is only then that we will discover peace.
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Jean Vanier (Community and Growth)
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For emotions: different hues of yellow, gold, orange, or rose are great for inducing cheerfulness, confidence, and optimism. Hues of rose from intense to pastel can create an inner feeling of Love. One needs to experiment for oneself to find just the right color to help generate the desired mood. For thoughts: color is also invaluable to calm your mind. You can surround yourself with luminous green. For clear thinking and mental stimulation, you might try a shower of bright yellow over and around your head. A tint of yellow-orange may very well get you out of a mental fog. If your will to live is not very strong, try rose. Two or three shades of rose will build your will to live. Color is already used to create healing and restful environments. Colors are energy and use by the angels and man. It is well to take note of and make use of color for health evolution and purification.
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Joshua D. Stone (How To Clear The Negative Ego)
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Paul believed that self-control was so important that when he had opportunity to witness to a very important ruler, it was one of the three main topics he spoke about.3 But Paul wasn't the only one who talked about it. Peter also
wrote about self-control and said that it helps us to avoid becoming useless and unfruitful. He wrote that Christians are to strive diligently to grow in moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love (2 Peter 1:5-7). All of these virtues are intertwined and are necessary for your usefulness and fruitfulness to Christ. Growing in these qualities is so important that "he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins" (2 Peter 1:9).
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Elyse M. Fitzpatrick (Love to Eat, Hate to Eat: Breaking the Bondage of Destructive Eating Habits)
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For at sixteen I had imagined that Blake, like the other romantics, was glorifying passion, natural energy, for their own sake. Far from it! What he was glorifying was the transfiguration of man’s natural love, his natural powers, in the refining fires of mystical experience: and that, in itself, implied an arduous and total purification, by faith and love and desire, from all the petty materialistic and commonplace and earthly ideals of his rationalistic friends.
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Thomas Merton (The Seven Storey Mountain)
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Have patience . . .
It is difficult to get people to understand that the ideal doesn't exist, that personal equilibrium and the harmony they dream of comes only after years and years of struggle, and even then only as flashes of grace and peace.
Loving is not only a voluntary act which involves controlling and overcoming our own sensibilities - that is just the beginning. It also demands a purified heart and feelings which go out spontaneously to the other. These deep purifications can only come through a gift of God, a grace which springs from the deepest part of ourselves, where the Holy Spirit lives. "I will give them a new heart, and put a new spirit within them; I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh" (Ezekiel 11:19).
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Jean Vanier (Community and Growth)
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Purification of the soul. — First origin of higher and lower.
The aesthetically offensive thing about the inner person without skin - bloody masses, feces, entrails, all those sucking, pumping monsters - shapeless or ugly or grotesque, and embarrassing for the smell. So thought away! What comes out of it arouses shame (feces, urine, saliva, seed) Women do not like to hear about digestion. Byron not seeing a woman eat (so the ulterior motives go their way). This skin- covered body that seems to be ashamed! The garment on the parts where its essence emerges: or hold the hand over the mouth while spitting out saliva. So: there are disgusting things; the more ignorant a person is about the organism, the more he thinks of raw meat, putrefaction, stench, maggots. Man, unless it is shape, is located disgusting — he does everything to not mind to think. —The pleasure that is evidently connected with this inner man is considered to be a lower — after-effect of the aesthetic judgment. The idealists of love are enthusiasts of beautiful forms, they want to deceive themselves and are often outraged at the idea of coitus and semen. Man has ascribed everything painful, tormenting, excessive force to this inner body: the higher he raised seeing, hearing, the form, and thinking. The disgusting should be the source of misfortune! — We learn the disgust around!
Second origin of the distinction between higher and lower. Everything that is terrifying is considered to be higher than that which is more powerful; anything but lower or even contemptible. As the highest — fear and yet do good and good will!
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Friedrich Nietzsche
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There is a long history of loneliness in literature. Of loneliness as a prerequisite to love. Almost like you can’t really love someone unless you’ve been alone and loveless for a long time. At least, if you’re a woman. Almost as if this protracted alone time is a purification, prepares a girl to be worthy of a man’s love.
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Alisson Wood (Being Lolita)
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Spirituality is a path towards the purification of inner-self. Restoring the heart to its original condition and position. And to become truth, light, and epitome of love. A flag-bearer of God's love with all his characteristics.
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Aiyaz Uddin
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A sound heart has knowledge and trust, not doubt and anxiety. Shubuhāt alludes to aspects closely connected to the heart: the soul, the ego, Satan’s whisperings and instigations, caprice, and the ardent love of this ephemeral world. The heart is an organ designed to be in a state of calm, which is achieved with the remembrance of God: Most surely, in the remembrance of God do hearts find calm (QURAN, 13:28). This calm is what the heart seeks out and gravitates to. It yearns always to remember God the Exalted. But when God is not remembered, when human beings forget God, then the heart falls into a state of agitation and turmoil. In this state it becomes vulnerable to diseases because it is undernourished and cut off, Cells require oxygen, so we breathe, If we stop breathing, we die. The heart also needs to breathe, and the breath of the heart is none other than the remembrance of God. Without it, the spiritual heart dies. The very purpose of revelation and of scripture is to remind us that our hearts need to be nourished.
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Hamza Yusuf (Purification of the Heart: Signs, Symptoms and Cures of the Spiritual Diseases of the Heart)
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Purgatory as Process Nothing unclean shall enter it. — Revelation 21:27 “In following the Gospel exhortation to be perfect like the heavenly Father (cf. Mt 5:48) during our earthly life, we are called to grow in love, to be sound and flawless before God the Father ‘at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints’ (1 Thess 3:12f.). Moreover we are invited to ‘cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit’ (2 Cor 7:1; cf. 1 Jn 3:3), because the encounter with God requires absolute purity. “Every trace of attachment to evil must be eliminated, every imperfection of the soul corrected. Purification must be complete, and indeed this is precisely what it means on the Church’s teaching on purgatory. The term does not indicate a place, but a condition of existence” — St. John Paul II (General Audience, August 4, 1999).
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Susan Tassone (Day by Day for the Holy Souls in Purgatory: 365 Reflections)
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My Feather Weight Heart!
It wasn’t this way clean and lightweight before,
It all started when I met the spiritual surgeon after,
It was filled with jealousy, greed, lust, stinginess and envy before,
It got cleaned when I started to meditate on the name of beloved after,
It was all dark filled with all black spots before,
It got lighter when the name of God entered after,
It was filled with hate towards oneself and others before,
It’s now filled with love towards oneself and others after,
It was disconnected from the truth of reality,
It’s now connected with reality of truth after,
It was once ignorant and arrogant before,
It is now awakened and mindful after,
It was out of the side of the truth of oneself before,
It is now in truth with insights of oneself after,
It was oppressive, aggressive, and transgressive before,
It is now submissive, merciful and compassionate after,
It was racist, filled with malice and hateful before,
It is now united, filled with love and acceptance after,
It was searching for the truth outside in the mosque, church, synagogues and temples before,
It is now in awareness of the temple inside me after,
It was not aware of God, temple of God (heart) and the soul before,
It is now when I met beloved reviving my dead heart after!
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Aiyaz Uddin (The Inward Journey)
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If something’s blocking the stream, don’t waste your time trying to make the water flow around the blockage—just remove it. The same is true of the flow of shakti through the heart—just remove the blockages and love will be your natural state. Removing blockages is spiritual purification. That is what life is all about. As you remove your blockages, the energy will start to flow freely and love will no longer be something you need or something you look for.
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Michael A. Singer (Living Untethered: Beyond the Human Predicament)
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Thus the Sūrah of Opening has comprised eight of the ten divisions [of the Qur’an]—divine essence, attributes and works, description of the life to come and of the straight path together with both its sides, i.e. purification [of the soul] and making it beautiful, description of [God’s] favour to His friends and of His anger towards His enemies, and [finally] description of the resurrection. Only two divisions [of the Qur’an] fall outside this sūrah, namely, [God’s] argument with infidels and judgements of jurists—two subjects from which the sciences of theology and jurisprudence stem off.[136] From this it becomes clear that [in reality] these two subjects fall into the lowest of the grades of religious sciences. It is only the love of wealth and influence [obtainable by them] which has raised them to a higher status.
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Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (The Jewels of the Qur'an: A-Ghazali's Theory: A translation, with an introduction and annotation of al-Ghazali's Kitab Jawahir al-Qur'an)
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All Things Working for Good Dr. Octavius Winslow It is palpably clear and emphatically true that all that occurs in the Lord’s government of His people conspires for, and works out, and results in, their highest happiness, their greatest good. The gloomiest and most painful circumstances in the history of the child of God, without a solitary exception, are all conspiring, and all working together, for his real and permanent good. The painful and inexplicable events, which at the present moment may be thickening and deepening around your path, are but so many problems in God’s government, which He is working out to their certain, satisfactory, and happy results. All things under the government of an infinitely great, all wise, righteous, and beneficent Lord God, work together for good. What that good may be, the shape it may assume, the complexion it may wear, the end to which it may be subservient, we cannot tell. To our dim view it may appear an evil, but to God’s far seeing eye it is a positive good. Oh, truth most divine! Oh, words most consolatory! Beloved of God, all these things are for you! Do not be afraid! Will it not be a good, if your present adversity results in . . . the dethronement of some worshiped idol; in the endearing of Christ to your soul; in the closer conformity of your mind to God’s image; in the purification of your heart; in your more thorough fitness for heaven? Will it not be a real good if it ends with: a revival of God’s work within you; a stirring you up to more prayer; in enlarging your heart to all that love the same Savior; in stimulating you to increased activity . . . for the conversion of sinners, for the spreading of the truth, and for the glory of God? Oh yes! good, real good, permanent good must result from all the Divine events in your history. In a little while; oh, how soon! You shall pass away from earth to heaven, and in its clearer, calmer light you shall read the truth, often read with tears before, “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them.”1
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Todd Friel (Stressed Out: A Practical, Biblical Approach to Anxiety)
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There will be only saints in heaven, whether they enter there immediately after death or after purification in purgatory. No one enters heaven unless he has that sanctity which consists in perfect purity of soul. Every sin though it should be venial, must be effaced, and the punishment due to sin must be borne or remitted, in order that a soul may enjoy forever the vision of God, see Him as He sees Himself, and love Him as He loves Himself.
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Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange (The Three Ages of the Interior Life (Illustrated))
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Taking and giving meditation (tong len) Tong len is a foundational meditation in Tibetan Buddhism in which we envision taking away the suffering of others and giving them happiness. There are many different versions of this meditation. The following is a very simple version, and no less powerful because of that. Adopt the optimal meditation posture—remember to keep a straight back. Take a few deep breaths and exhale. As you do, imagine you are letting go of all thoughts, feelings and experiences. As far as possible try to be pure consciousness, abiding in the here and now. Begin your meditation with the following motivation: By the practice of this meditation, may NAME of PET and all living beings be immediately, completely and permanently purified of all disease, pain, sickness and suffering. May this meditation be a direct cause for us to attain enlightenment, For the benefit of all living beings without exception. Focusing on your in-breaths, imagine that you are inhaling radiant, white light. This light represents healing, purification, balance and blissful energy. Imagine it filling your body, until every cell is completely permeated with it. Keep on breathing like this, with the focus on the qualities of the light that you inhale. After some minutes, change the focus of your attention to your exhalations. Visualise that you exhale a dark, smoke-like light. The darkness represents whatever pain, illness or potential for illness, negativity of body, speech or mind you experience. With each out-breath imagine you are able to release more and more of this negativity. Keep on breathing like this, with the focus on the qualities of the light that you exhale. After some minutes, combine the two, so that you are both letting go of negativity and illness as well as breathing in radiant wellbeing. Now that you have some practice, imagine that you are inhaling and exhaling these qualities on behalf of your pet/s. Whatever you breathe in, you direct into their being. Whatever you exhale, you do so on their behalf. You are a conduit for healing energy, and for letting go of all suffering. Make this the main focus of your meditation session—the taking away of your pet’s sickness and suffering and the giving of purification, healing and wellbeing. You may decide to assign, say, three or four breaths to each of the following qualities to give structure to your meditation: In-breaths Out-breaths Taking in healing energy Getting rid of all physical and mental disease Complete purification/cleansing/healing All physical sickness/pain/suffering Radiant wellbeing—energy and vitality All mental negativity/distress/anxiety Peace, balance, mental tranquillity Hatred, craving and all delusions Love and compassion End the session as you began: By the practice of this meditation, may NAME of PET and all living beings be immediately, completely and permanently purified of all disease, pain, sickness and suffering. May this meditation be a direct cause for us to attain enlightenment, For the benefit of all living beings without exception.
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David Michie (Buddhism for Pet Lovers: Supporting our closest companions through life and death)
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The soul is so engulfed in the pain, it does not see the purification. It is not aware of any change taking place. It feels only more weakness and the distance between itself and Jesus widening. It does not realize that the blindness comes from the strong light of God’s grace shining upon it. This light brings out hidden weaknesses, changes old ones, and destroys past guilt. The soul is so overwhelmed by its own weaknesses that in desperation it reaches out to God as its only good, its only love. Inordinate self-love is slowly changed into an unselfish love—a love like unto God.
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Mother Angelica (Mother Angelica on Suffering and Burnout)
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In the original Orphico-Pythagorean sense, philosophy meant wisdom (sophia) and love (eros) combined in a moral and intellectual purification in order to reach the “likeness to God” (homoiosis theo, [Plato, Theaet. 176b]). This likeness was to be attained by gno-sis, knowledge. The same Greek word nous (“intellect,” understood in a macrocosmic and microcosmic sense) covers all that is meant both by “spirit” (spiritus, ruh) and “intellect” (intellectus, ‘aql) in the Medieval Christian and Islamic lexicon. Thus Platonic philosophy (and especially Neoplatonism) was a spiritual and contemplative way of life leading to enlightenment; a way which was properly and intrinsically intellectual; a way that was ultimately based on intellection or noetic vision (noesis), which transcends the realm of sense perception and discursive reasoning. Through an immediate grasp of first principles, the non-discursive intelligence lead to a union (henosis) with the divine Forms. “Knowledge of the gods,” says Iamblichus, “is virtue and wisdom and perfect happiness, and makes us like to the gods” (Protr.
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Algis Uždavinys (The Golden Chain: An Anthology of Pythagorean and Platonic Philosophy (Treasures of the World's Religions))
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[Rose]
• Blue/Lavender for enchantment
• White for purification and new beginnings
• Pink for beauty and heart healing
• Yellow for joy and friendship
• Orange for energy and confidence
• Red for unconditional love
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Paige Vanderbeck (Green Witchcraft: A Practical Guide to Discovering the Magic of Plants, Herbs, Crystals, and Beyond (Practicing Green Witchcraft))
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To lead the soul through ascetic praxis to erotic ecstasy was the aim of Platonic spirituality, described immortally by Plotinus:
'Exulting like Bacchus ... straining upwards, ... and longing to break away from the body ... are emotions of souls under the spel of love .... The ancients teach that ... every virtue ... is purification .... In the soul's becoming a good and beautiful thing is its becoming like God.... Therefore we must ascend again towards the Good, the desired of every soul ... until, passing on the upward way all that is other than God, each in the solitude of himself shall behold that solitary-dwelling Existence, the Apart, the Unmingled, the Pure .... And one that shall know this vision - with what passion of love shall he not be seized, with what pang of desire, what longing to be molten into one with This, what wondering delight?'
Despite the sensual language, love's proper object is immaterial, and eros must escape the world in order to meld with the One.
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Brian P. Copenhaver (Magic and the Dignity of Man: Pico della Mirandola and His Oration in Modern Memory)
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The Sufi Way is to follow the model provided by the Prophet‘s representatives on earth, the saints, who are the shaykhs or the spiritual masters. Once having entered the Way, the disciple begins to undergo a process of inward transformation. If he is among those destined to reach spiritual perfection, he will climb the ascending rungs of a ladder stretching to heaven and beyond; the alchemy of the Way will transmute the base copper of his substance into pure and noble gold. The Truth or „attainment to God“ is not a simple, one-step process. It can be said that this third dimension of Sufi teaching deals with all the inner experiences undergone by the traveler on his journey. It concerns all the „virtues“ (akhlaq) the Sufi must acquire, in keeping with the Prophet‘s saying, „Assume the virtues of God!“ If acquiring virtues means „attaining to God,“ this is because they do not belong to man. The discipline of the Way coupled with God‘s grace and guidance results in a process of purification whereby the veil of human nature is gradually removed from the mirror of the primordial human substance, made in the image of God, or, in the Prophet‘s words, „upon the Form of the All-Merciful.“ Any perfection achieved by man is God‘s perfection reflected within him. (p. 11-12)
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William C. Chittick (The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi)
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A three year journey
has caused us suffering and pain
but we have grown stronger,
bound together by patience, determination,
trials, pain, perseverance, suffering, and love.
When I say, “I love you”
this part is bound up into that statement.
This is has been trial by fire,
purification by fire, our love is gold.
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Eric Overby (Legacy)
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the Nahash or "Deprived" —preferred the curse of incarnation and the long cycles of terrestrial existence and rebirths, to seeing the misery (even if unconscious) of the beings (evolved as shadows out of their Brethren) through the semi-passive energy of their too spiritual Creators. If "man's uses of life should be such as neither to animalize nor to spiritualize, but to humanize Self,"[308] before he can do so, he must be born human not angelic. Hence, tradition shows the celestial Yogis offering themselves as voluntary victims in order to redeem Humanity—created god-like and perfect at first—and to endow him with human affections and aspirations. To do this they had to give up their natural status and, descending on our globe, take up their abode on it for the whole cycle of the Mahayuga, thus exchanging their impersonal individualities for individual personalities—the bliss of sidereal existence for the curse of terrestrial life. This voluntary sacrifice of the Fiery Angels, whose nature was Knowledge and Love, was construed by the exoteric theologies into a statement that shows "the rebel angels hurled down from heaven into the darkness of Hell" —our Earth. Hindu philosophy hints at the truth by teaching that the Asuras hurled down by Siva, are only in an intermediate state in which they prepare for higher degrees of purification and redemption from their wretched condition; but
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Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (The Secret Doctrine - Volume II, Anthropogenesis)
“
Nietzsche's feelings of being dirty and his need for self-purification, combined with seeing humans as a 'polluted river', mentioned before, is not surprising, in light of the hypothesized sexual abuse from childhood. Given this, his lack of trust in people 'accepting and eating a meal in whose cuisine one has no confidence', his fear of getting hurt again in close relationships is understandable. Nietzsche compared 'close proximity to a person' to touching a good etching with one's fingers, and by so doing, dirtying and losing its beauty 'A human being's soul is likewise worn down by continual touching'. It seemed to him that one always loses in being in too intimate a relationship with women and friends 'sometimes one loses the pearl of his life in the process'.
This trauma-ridden person was only defending himself. Adopting the role of a hermit, was one defense, but there were also others mentioned by him, such as using roles (dresses), disguise (masks) and disappearance. He put a chair at the door to avoid intrusions and played 'ghost' not responding , hiding, and making people afraid of him. He felt and played dead as if he was already posthumous. Still being human (all too human), Nietzsche needed love too. Hence his dilemma, which he called 'from the land of cannibals' 'In solitude the solitary man consumes himself, in the crowd the crowds consumes him, Now choose'.
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Uri Wernik
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Every man is where he is by the law of his being; the thoughts which he has
built into his character have brought him there, and in the arrangement of his life
there is no element of chance, but all is the result of a law which cannot err. This
is just as true of those who feel "out of harmony" with their surroundings as of
those who are contented with them.
As the progressive and evolving being, man is where he is that he may learn
that he may grow; and as he learns the spiritual lesson which any circumstance
contains for him, it passes away and gives place to other circumstances.
Man is buffeted by circumstances so long as he believes himself to be the
creature of outside conditions, but when he realizes that he is a creative power,
and that he may command the hidden soil and seeds of his being out of which
circumstances grow, he then becomes the rightful master of himself.
That circumstances grow out of thought every man knows who has for any
length of time practiced self-control and self-purification, for he will have noticed
that the alteration in his circumstances has been in exact ratio with his altered
mental condition. So true is this that when a man earnestly applies himself to
remedy the defects in his character, and makes swift and marked progress, he
passes rapidly through a succession of vicissitudes.
The soul attracts that which it secretly harbors; that which it loves, and
also that which it fears; it reaches the height of its cherished
aspirations; it falls to the level of its unchastened desires; and
circumstances are the means by which the soul receives its own.
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James Allen
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Basically each religion has certain practices that form the essence of vedic dharma. Yegyes, literally meaning ‘to offer’, forms the backbone of the vedic absolute knowledge. Traditionally, a ritualistic fire ceremony in which various herbs, clarified butter (ghee), specific wood, etc. are offered to the fire with predetermined mantras (charged with vibrations) chanted by predetermined people (priests, host, pandits etc.) with a resolve or sankalpa, a Yegyes has far-reaching effects that encompass physical, soul, social, spiritual and ecological spheres, causing purification at all these levels.
A devout householder is supposed to perform five Yegyes on daily basis>
1. Brahma Egyes = Daily jap, daily meditation, daily yoga, offering into the interior fires of prana, mind, intellect and consciousness
2. Deva-Egyes = Worship offering to the Divinities, God, the Sun, Devi and Devtas through fire in the Vedic times, through watering and Pooja, flowers, fruits rituals.
3. Pitr-Egyes = Offerings to ancestors, manes, and daily worshipful service to one’s living parents and elders
4. Atithi-Egyes = Worship offering to guests the word Atithi means one who comes without making a date hospitality is not a social act but a worship.
5. Offering-Egyes = offering to God, Goddess, Devi, Devtas and Bhagawan, beings, spreading knowledge putting aside the first food for the wandering cows or other animals as well as putting aside daily before cooking similarly like some uncooked rice, daal, grain, flour, for giving away to the temple, church, gumba, gurudwar, priest, monk, beggar or orphanage nowadays.
The philosophy of Egyes, which essentially is: make yourself into a worshipful offering and pour yourself into the divine fire of knowledge, the immortal soul of knowledge. The fire offering you witnessed is an embodiment of all this teaching and the participants are actually very conscious of it.
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Shreeom Surye shiva devkota
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It is part of love's growth towards higher levels and inward purification that it now seeks to become definitive, and it does so in a twofold sense: both in the sense of exclusivity (this particular person alone) and in the sense of being “for ever”. Love embraces the whole of existence in each of its dimensions, including the dimension of time. It could hardly be otherwise, since its promise looks towards its definitive goal: love looks to the eternal. Love is indeed “ecstasy”, not in the sense of a moment of intoxication, but rather as a journey, an ongoing exodus out of the closed inward-looking self towards its liberation through self-giving, and thus towards authentic self-discovery and indeed the discovery of God
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Pope Benedict XVI
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Goddess of: • the dissolution of outworn structures • radical rebirth • dynamic power of change • the process of childbirth • death • the fury of battle • release of constriction and stuckness • radical purification and detoxification—both physical and internal • righteous anger • wildness and radical audacity • liberation through “dying” to the egoic self • absolute voidness beyond all forms • fierce love and ecstasy Recognize Kali in: • lightning storms • volcanic eruptions, tornados, and tsunamis • battlefields • wild outbursts of ecstasy • the act of pushing the child out of the womb (literally and figuratively, as in a dramatic creative process) • radical creative freedom • purification experiences • sudden changes in life, especially those that involve disruption
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Sally Kempton (Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga)
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The more difficult the journey, the greater the depth of purification. — SEVEN YEARS IN TIBET
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Joanne Cacciatore (Bearing the Unbearable: Love, Loss, and the Heartbreaking Path of Grief)
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