READ THIS!!! "Blessed are the Pure in Heart"

This article was written by Shining_Angel on 2011-09-11 under Religion & Our Mind.

Reading this really touched my heart, so I thought I'd share it with all of you.  All credit goes to the immortal Swami Vivekananda.  So be it.

 

"There are three ways in which human beings perceive God.  First, the undeveloped intellect of the uneducated man sees God as being far away, up in the heavens somewhere, sitting on a throne as a great Judge.  He looks upon Him with fear.  Now you must remember that humanity travels not from error to to truth, but from truth to truth -- if you like it better, from lower truth to higher truth.  All forms of religion, high or low, are just different stages in the upward journey toward the Eternal Light, which is God Himself.  Some embody a lower view, some a higher, and that is all the difference.  Therefore, the religions of the unthinking massess all over the world have always taught of a God that is outside the universe, who lives in heaven, who governs from that place, who is the punisher of the bad and the rewarder of the good, and so on.  As we advance spiritually, we begin to feel that God is omnipresent, that God must be within us, that He must be everywhere, that He is not a distant God, but clearly the Soul of all souls.  As my soul moves my body, even so is God the mover of my soul -- the Soul within the soul.  And there are a few individuals of pure heart and highly developed mind who go still further, and at last find unity with God.  As the New Testament says:  "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."  And they find at last that they and the Father are one.

      

You will find that these three stages are taught by Jesus.  Note the common prayer that he taught:  "Our Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name," and so on; a simple prayer, mark you, a child's prayer.  It is the common prayer because it is intended for the uneducated masses.  To a higher circle, to those who had advanced a little more, he gave a more elevated teaching:  "I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you."  And then, when the Jews asked him who he was, he declared that he and his Father were one.  The same thing had been taught by the Jewish Prophets:  "Ye are Gods; and all of you are children of the Most High."  Mark the same three stages.

 

Jesus came to show the path:  that the Spirit is not in forms; that it is not through all sorts of vexations and knotty problems of philosophy that you come to know the Spirit.  Better that you had no learning; better that you had never read a book in your life.  These are not at all necessary for salvation  -- neither wealth nor position nor power nor even learning.  But what is necessary is that one thing, PURITY.  "Blessed are the pure in heart," for the Spirit in Its own nature is pure.  How can It be otherwise?  It is of God; It has come from God.  In the language of the Bible, "It is the Breath of God."

 

Can the Spirit of God ever be impure?  Of course not!  But, alas, it has been covered over with the dust and dirt of ages, through our own actions, good and evil.  Various works that were not correct, that were not true, have covered the Spirit with the ignorance of ages.  It is only necessary to clear away the dust and dirt, and, when we do, the Spirit will shine immediately.  "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God...The kingdom of heaven is within you."  Where goest thou to seek for the kingdom of God, asks Jesus of Nazareth, when it is there within you?  Cleanse the Spirit of the impurities that cover it, and you will find it there.  It is already yours.  It is yours by birthright.  You are the heirs of immortality, children of the Eternal Father.

 

How can you cleanse the spirit?  By renunciation.  This is the one ideal Jesus preached, and this has been the ideal preached by all the great Prophets of the world.  What is meant by renunciation?  Unselfishness.  Be selfless.  That is the only ideal in morality; perfect unselfishness.

 

Here is the ideal:  when a man has no more of his little self in him, no possessor, nothing to call "me" or "mine," when he has given up that little self to God, destroyed his selfishness -- then in that man God is manifest; for in him, all selfish will is gone, crushed out, annihilated.  That is the ideal.  We cannot reach that state yet; nevertheless, let us worship the ideal and slowly struggle to reach it, though it may be with faltering steps.  It may be tommorrow or it may be a thousand years hence, but that ideal has to be reached.  For it is not only the end, but also the means.  To be unselfish, perfectly selfless, is salvation itself, for the little man dies within, and God alone remains."

 

--Swami Vivekananda

 

Brightest blessings to you all!

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