Purification of the Heart

Feelings derive from our heart space and have a greater power than our thoughts. We need to focus on our emotional world just as much, if not more than our mental world. Emotions are the means to manifest desires. Thus purity of heart should be considered a necessity. One cannot live long with a tainted heart and the longer we allow psychic garbage to collect within our heart space the more our emotional, spiritual, physical and mental bodies will suffer. A tainted heart is something that all should strive to avoid because it is the smearing of your true self.

“As rust is natural to iron and as milk turns sour, so the feeling of the heart which by nature is as pure as milk, turns when it becomes rusted.” – Hazrat Inayat Khan

The transformation of the natural to the unnatural is a process that takes time. Slowly the innocence fades into nothingness as our heart goes sour. This is imperative to understand because it reveals to us all that this process of souring occurs over a duration of time. We can see that our innocence is intact at the beginning of life, but as we grow older and live a life many of us start to rust, thus our spiritual heart suffers greatly. Once this happens it is very difficult to turn things around, to restore oneself.

The way to cleanse our heart is to submerge it in the stream of love. A continuous inflowing of love will help heal our heart. This means we have to be willing to receive this love because that’s the problem many of us face. It’s not that love isn’t sent in our direction, but instead, it’s our inability to absorb this love that keeps us in a lack of it. Love is constantly flowing from the Creator to us, but because of our free-will and ignorance many of us cannot take in this love. We’ve hardened our heart with so much fear that it’s a very difficult task for love to penetrate.

Allowing love to enter one’s being is much easier than what we believe it to be. It can be simply described as being present in the Eternal Now. The Eternal Now is where you reside at all times, it is beyond the concept of time/space, thus it is the aspect of your being that exists in another realm of existence. This is where your higher self-resides and this facet of your being has the capacity to give you all the love you need. How do you become present in the Eternal Now you may be wondering, three words sum it up quite well; Love, Acceptance, and Joy. By accepting yourself and life you allow love to flow, by loving yourself and others, you allow love to flow, by being joyful to yourself and others, you allow love to flow. These three traits are invaluable when beginning the journey to self-empowerment.

“For it is the good quality of heart that will keep away undesirable impressions and thoughts, so that the heart will only reflect good impressions and desirable influences.” – Hazrat Inayat Khan

Only by nurturing the good qualities within ourselves will we be able to prevent the rust from settling within and around our heart. Good qualities are pretty self-explanatory, anything that makes you feel good and wholesome. Such as love, compassion, acceptance, joyfulness, and forgiveness. These qualities allow love to be channeled into every fiber of our being. This divine love will enrich our aura and allow healing to take place on the many subtle levels of being. The practice of mantras can assist in this endeavor and one mantra that Hazrat shares is the following:

“My thoughtful self! Reproach no one, hold a grudge against no one, bear malice against no one; be wise, tolerant, considerate, polite, and kind to all.” – Hazrat Inayat Khan

The need to remove and erase every undesirable impression is paramount in cleansing one’s heart. That means we need to be brave enough to explore aspects of our being that have been neglected for a great many years. We cannot think that we can just be positive and that will suffice, one must dive deep within their own consciousness and locate the darkness and negative impressions we’ve allowed to fester in our ignorance and lack of awareness.
READ: The 3 Lies That Block The Flow of Love

When one begins to locate their own various character flaws and fears, we are provided with an opportunity to transform them into assets (Divine Love). Only by becoming aware of these negative impressions can this be done. Thus one should take the time to think about his/her state of being, mental processes, and unconscious aspects whenever possible. Many of us are stuck in reactionary mode, we don’t quite understand why we do what we do or feel what we feel. Much of this has been programmed into our unconscious and subconscious minds without much awareness on our end. We pick up most of these learned behaviors from our parents, TV, school, media, internet, etc….

A perfect example of a programmed response is something along these lines. Let’s say you’re having a discussion with someone about UFOs and extraterrestrials, you start to make a claim and the individual whom your speaking to reacts very hostile and skeptical. They’ve been programmed with stereotypes that tell them that UFOs and extraterrestrials are absurd. This is a perfect example, because even though the person hasn’t done the research himself/herself they still react negatively. I’ve encountered this many times since my awakening and most of the time when I try to express to them the need to discover the truth themselves, they still dismiss it and choose ignorance. This is a reactionary behavior, we’ve been bombarded with so much fear that we perceive our reality through the modality of negativity. Thus everything is misconstrued to satisfy this bleak outlook we’ve incorporated into our belief system.

Many would rather be deceived rather than know the truth because they’re afraid of the prospect of being lied to. We have this fear of being wrong as if it invalidates who we are. We don’t want to believe that things could possibly be that bad, that our government would lie to us, that people would kill to get what they want, and corporations would suppress technology that would benefit mankind. This is reinforced by our fear of change as well, the prospect of many UFOs, extraterrestrials, free energy theories being correct would change the world. They subconsciously resist it because of the fact they’ve invested so much into this false paradigm.

That is the type of behavior we must become aware of within ourselves, we need to dive deep into these beliefs and discover the root cause. Upon exploration of my inner-world, I discovered that I was skeptical of a great many things because of fear. Fear is the reason many people choose ignorance, because as the saying goes, “Ignorance is bliss” and it’s easier for many to deny something than to confront it. We’ve been conditioned to resist change, especially if it differs from our reality in such a dramatic display. When I discovered this within myself, it suddenly opened the doors to my real self and I’ve learned a great deal since then. This can only be achieved if you have the willingness to explore oneself.

Hazrat emphasizes the need of developing innocence. Not innocence in the sense of avoiding being at fault, but instead, innocence in the sense that your desire is to be your real self. Our innocence is reproached upon when we give into the ideas of our synthetic self. The synthetic self-identifies with things of this world, constantly attempting to build its kingdom upon quicksand. As you all will no doubt learn over time, any attachment to this world will not satisfy one’s soul. This world is based upon the principle of impermanence, all shall return to the earth. Our bodies will decompose, our money will turn to dust and our thoughts will become psychic dust.

Innocence is a state of being that embraces the constants in life. When one firmly plants their feet on the immutable constants, innocence will increase. Loving, listening, accepting, appreciating and assisting others is the pathway to innocence, these are the constants that will assist thee. Bear no homage to the ways of cleverness, for they seek nothing but a worldly knowledge that can benefit oneself. To be clever is to identify with one’s own mortality. Cleverness is a trait that is fleeting and temporal, eventually, it shall fade back into the black or you will encounter someone who is more clever than yourself. Time diminishes cleverness, with age does one’s intelligence and cleverness start to wane. Thus it is a self-defeating delusion of attempting to gain significance within the temporal plane of existence.

“The innocent are oftener blessed by Providence than the worldly-wise who are always trying to get the best of everyone and to seize every opportunity that may seem in any way advantageous.” – Hazrat Inayat Khan

He who develops innocence is truly capable of removing the fear from the lives of others. Only they are able to bridge the gap between fear and love for their fellow brothers and sisters. They who are innocent within the heart are the shepherds that shall lead humanity once again to freedom. The clever and worldly-wise cannot do so, because they operate upon this plane of existence, while they who are innocent dwell within the consciousness of the divine. Only through the innocent shall the lost be found,only through the heart shall we be freed from the chains of fear.

“Purity of heart is the only condition that allows the inner stream to rise. The pure-hearted see more deeply, though they say little.” – Hazrat Inayat Khan

Through innocence, we rise through the different octaves of our being. Slowly ascertaining to who we are, why am we’re alive and what is the purpose of life.By purifying our hearts we get closer to these inner truths. Within us lies the answers to all our questions. Purification of the heart and development of innocence allows these answers to come into our awareness. This is the journey all must eventually embark upon in order to return to the source. Unavoidable this is, because in the end; we’re all One.