(thesouljourney) Purity !

"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is: infinite." -- William Blake

Purity is an essential quality we must have in order to experience the Universal Presence in our lives. When blockages to the Universal or Divine Presence are removed, purity results - purity of thought, feeling, intention, and motivation, just to mention a few.

When something is pure it is understood to be free from anything which might degrade it, or diminish it, or make it in some way different from what its essence is. Pure gold means that there is nothing there but gold.

When a person is pure that person is true to his/her essence. It means that the person is transparent, that others can see who they are because there are no impediments or obstructions in showing their true self. It means that the personality does not distort the essence or soul from showing itself.

When the essence is thus revealed it is the Universal Presence that shines through the form or personality. The Presence can be seen or felt in such a person. One’s thoughts and actions then are soulful and resonate the soul in others. It can be said that such a person grounds or incarnates the Universal, the one through whom Spirit finds expression. This ‘grounding’ results in creating soul.

Purity is the sign of one who participates in the authenticity of living the material life in constant reference to the spiritual from which the material is created. Purity always results from an alignment of the personal will with the universal/divine will.

It is a dogma of the Catholic Church that Mary is the Immaculate Conception, which means ‘conceived purely’ or ‘conceived without sin’. The idea of the Immaculate Conception is not confined to the Church. It is, in fact, a universal myth or principle that is an aspect of soul consciousness. Sin must be understood in a non-religious sense as that state when material reality (form) is isolated from its spiritual reality, when the specific material form or reality is perceived as the ultimate reality without reference to anything greater than it. To be without sin is to be pure (immaculate). This means to be free from Original Sin.

‘Original sin’ is the perceived and experienced state of separation of the form from Spirit, interpreted as the separation of Man from God. One overcomes this original duality by becoming conscious - listening to the angel (Soul) announcing (the Annunciation) that Spirit wishes to express itself (Nativity) through our bodies - through living in the consciousness of Spirit and form united. This union enables us to experience reality as it truly is.

Impurity of the bodies inhibits our ability to experience reality. Our experiences are then based on illusions.

1.) Impurity of the physical body inhibits the experience of Life. (Examples of this might include not enjoying nature, not participating in group activities, not active in giving and receiving, being in a state of inertia.) Physical impurity can be caused by such things as stress, lack of good nutrition, inadequate exercise and rest, laziness, etc.

2.) Impurity of the emotional body inhibits the experience of Love. (Examples of this might include selfishness, insensitivity toward others, inability to accept love, not feeling loveable, not able to express love.) Impurity of the emotional body can be caused by such things as taking things too personally, anger, hatred, insensitivity, lack of self esteem, etc.

3.) Impurity of the mental body inhibits the experience of Light. (Examples of this might include not being able to think clearly, not able to be present, losing a good memory, lacking in clear thought and verbal expression, not understanding beyond the simplest things.) Impurity of the mental body can be caused by such things as lack of attention, confusion, anxiety, constant distractions, negative thinking, criticism, judgmental attitudes, cursing, etc.

Exercises:

1. Give other examples of what might be examples of ‘impurity’ in each of your bodies.

2.What is each body like when it is pure? Relate this to the above three statements regarding the experience of Life, Love and Light.

3.How could you purify each of your bodies? What is the greatest need you now have in this regard?

(thesouljourney) Life Purpose - 4 levels

There are three fundamental purposes to everyone’s life. One general purpose is on the personality level. The other is on the soul level. And the third is on the level of spirit. No matter how one’s specific purpose is described or expressed, it must come down to one of these. On the personality level our purpose is to learn. On the soul level our purpose is to express love and thereby to serve. Our third purpose is at present very elusive - to be.

Our three purposes are related to our threefold nature as spirit, soul and personality. To understand life and to live effectively we must increase our knowledge and expression of this triune nature. At the present time our collective development is focused on understanding and expressing our soul nature and integrating our personality nature with it. We can only do this if we understand the purpose of each.

Purpose is so essential and basic because it is the underlying motivation, attraction or urge that moves us to do what we do. It is also what gives meaning to what we experience.

When a person has a difficulty of any kind in terms of the physical, emotional or mental realms of functioning, feeling or thinking, the issue must ultimately relate to purpose. Either the soul purpose is not being expressed or the individual is not learning what needs to be learned in order to express one’s purpose. The ultimate solution or healing cannot be found without referring to purpose.

This implies that in order for one’s experiences to be understood or related to in terms of meaning, one must be able to relate to purpose, for meaning is always found in relation to purpose.

There is a principle that governs purpose which is that the greater purpose of anything is beyond itself, and must serve some greater reality than itself. It can only do this, however, to the extent that it is true to itself, expressing who or what it really is.

As the soul increasingly influences the personality through our growth, we must share what we learn - i.e., our learning must serve the greater good. The soul makes us more inclusive, therefore our learning must be shared in a way that reflects greater inclusiveness. When it is shared, others are assisted or empowered to be more true to themselves and to be able to increase their ability to fulfill their needs, and in turn assisting others.


The two purposes that we are capable of responding to are on the personality level, where learning is required, and on the soul level where service is the purpose. Learning requires becoming more aware. Serving requires becoming more conscious.

Learning is not just growing in awareness, although that is usually the expression used. There are actually three aspects to learning which we must always remember, and use practically. Learning involves one or more of the following:

(1)Becoming more aware (mental) - This involves overcoming ignorance. As we do this, we develop understanding.

(2) Becoming more open (astral/emotional) - This involves overcoming selfishness. As we do this we develop love.

(3) Becoming more willing (physical) - This involves overcoming inertia. As we do this we develop the capacity to make choices and act in ways that empower ourselves and others.

Serving is often understood as doing something for others. The emphasis on service, however, must be service as a state of soul consciousness. This may, and usually does, result in doing something for others. But the beneficial effect on others, even when action is involved, is not primarily due to what is done, but to the loving state of soul consciousness that the doer has.

Service is an emanation of soul qualities. It therefore only exists when one is soul conscious. This means that the service is understanding, loving and empowering. These qualities make connection with others and resonate those same qualities in others. Service therefore is always a soul support or a soul awakening.

From this you can see that in order to serve by emanating these three qualities (understanding, loving and empowering), learning in the three ways described above is essential. The degree of our service is therefore limited by the degree to which we have overcome ignorance, selfishness and inertia. The overcoming of these three limitations automatically purifies and refines our mental, astral/emotional and physical bodies through which service is expressed.

Our third and highest purpose is to be. Being is the state of Spirit within. Being implies wholeness, being all. Until we build the higher bridge of consciousness, integrate soul and personality, we do not know how to just be. When people say ‘just be,’ they often imply an unconscious avoidance of effort, striving, thinking or responsibility - almost a state of inertia.

In order to be, we must first master learning as we here describe it and become fully soul conscious. These are our current tasks. However, we do experience indirectly the presence of Spirit as being within each of our bodies, and through that experience we grow toward being whole.

(1) In our physical bodies it is present through the animal soul which has the natural intelligence of the physical world, embodied as instincts. It is important that we do not attribute to this body an intelligence that it does not have. It cannot tell us anything about our higher purpose, either as human being or as a spiritual being.

(2) In our astral bodies it is present as our ability to feel other energies that are present, to feel our own energies, and to relate the two.

(3) In our mental bodies it is present as our capacity to think. It is present here through our human soul.

(4) In our soul bodies it is present as our soul purpose and manifested universally as Intelligence, Love and Power.

Let us determine at this stage in our life what specific opportunities for learning are presenting themselves to us, and how we are responding to them.

Let us also focus on the soul qualities of understanding, love and empowerment and deepen our consciousness along these three lines of connection to the universal.

And finally let us be more frequently sensitive and open to the presence of Spirit in each of our bodies.

Exercises:

1. What are you currently doing to overcome some specific ignorance and gaining understanding?

2. What are you currently doing to overcome some specific selfishness and becoming more open?

3. What choices are you currently making that serve to empower others?

4. How would you describe your current service in life?

from :

http://www.thesouljourney.com

( Bill Bodri) Nature of Reality & Tao

People have asked what's it like upon awakening. What'sit like to "see the Tao" - what's that mean?

What's it like to see the Tao? It's as if a long time perimeter, border, or veil has been lifted and you can now see things as they really are. You suddenly realize - through the knowing nature that is you - that everything you hear, see, perceive is just the Mind. And then you realize there is no ego because there is only Mind. That's it - that's the only existence, but the mind's substance is empty so you can't say it's existent either. But you call it Reality because now you know what's truly Real in all your experiences, in all the universe - for the whole universe is inside it. You can laugh with joy, cry with joy, or laugh and cry at the same time for you instantaneously recognize with true certainty that you've come home and that there is no Tao other than This One. Everything is just this knowing essence we call the Mind.

But the thickness of long time habit energies still exists and can reassert itself so you can lose this realization, this insight, this direct perception even though you now KNOW, REALIZE, SEE, PERCEIVE that this is the Truth,theultimate state. This is not normal worldly knowing, but BEING KNOWING, true knowing - there are no words that would describe it accurately since you're outside of all the falsity that was before. Another way of saying this is you have no doubts, you have true belief. But this recognition is a direct perception, it isn't a belief or idea but a true knowing - you know this because you're in TRUE knowing and out of all phenenal knowing. True knowing, or transcendental prajna wisdom knowing, is the term most schools give this self-realization. With a wink of turning around, you understand, and then you also realize why you were in illusion. It was all the habit energies of mental clinging to thoughts, to using the mind incorrectly.

Dang! It was there all along like a jewel sewed into a coat which you can't see though it's there. Dang! It was there for so long unnoticed, right there in front of you, and all you did is foolishly cover it over because you refused to let go. When you tried to let go in meditation you kept trying to impose comprehension and understand what was happening when that state of not understanding was the right way. Drop your habit of trying to impose comprehension as its born. Why? Because the Mind's knowing is the correct knowing - the thought of confusion is just a thought it KNOWS. You realize that you should just let things arise in this Mind without imposing comprehension. After awhile, chaos sorts itself out and dies down naturally. Don't try to sort out the chaos with your mind - just reflect its presence that it's there.

Confusion departs without any effort. The clarity of wisdom is knowing what's clear or unclear, so trying to discriminate clarity out of chaos is wrong - you are already clear that there's chaos so don't impose discrimination trying to transform it. Whatever is transforming just let it transform without adding internal words or names or labels to it. Shut off the commenting chatter. The chaos of confusion is not a hindrance that has to be solved. The darkness of chaos is temporary and is also just another illusion arising within Mind. Darkness, chaos, confusion all arise within the Mind which, while being clear knowing, knows their nature as dark and leaves it at that since that is their phenomenal nature -- they are just phenomena without meaning, so let them go and don't try to impose comprehension. How confused you have been mistaking that for millennium.

The original Mind itself in which they and everything else arises is empty, is clear, it has no thinness so we say it is substanceless or, the term I prefer is "indivisible." What arises in it has no reality but is just mind stuff. Everything that arises is ALL mind-stuff, and our distinguishing or discriminating forms and appearances is the incorrect use of the mind, for that discriminating is the very definition-being-essence-function of clinging. Phenomena may arise and transform but that original nature is unbecoming. It never changes or transforms or turns into something else.

The empty mind that gives rise to everything is the true nature of reality. Everything arises in there. It contains the universe. All things appear in it, and then you realize the Tao, you next laugh how silly it is to run after anything because the mind is substanceless and empty and cannot possess anything. It cannot possess ANYTHING. It's impossible. So all those struggles are fruitless and pointless - pointless to even start, and fruitless because they can never be attained. All that arises within the mind is just an illusion, an illusion where everything depends on everything else through cause and effect. Karma holds the tapestry together but with this initial enlgithenment or awakening you cannot fully fathom the emptiness of phenomena yet, just the emptiness of being a self or person.

And other beings? They are This Mind as well ... beings are like the reflection of the moon in infinite puddles of water. There is only one moon in the sky but infinite reflections, all of which capture the moon's light and seem real, but there is only one moon. So imagine an invisible sphere projecting internally inside itself these puddles that can reflect images or know images like the water; the surface of the sphere projects those tiny knowing reflective surfaces inwardly. That knowing sphere is Mind or awareness, and the small internal reflections or projections inside are also this same sphere - the surface of the sphere. That's why imaginary beings also have this wonderful power of awareness but are all this same One Mind. They are illusions that are projected, for they are really just the surface of the sphere. They all return to the same One Source. Now remove the idea of this invisible sphere - remove any ideas of thickness, shape or infinity entirely because it has no beginning, ending, borders, substance, nothing whatsoever - there isn't a sphere there -- and you get a poor analogous description of how beings think they are all independent natures when they are all the same source essence, the same original nature, the same prajna wisdom. They are all inside the Mind's bright clarity nature. That's the only way I can describe it as an analogy. All sentient beings share in that original source perceiving, we are all the original nature. But are you using it to be bound to thoughts from attachment to the small, or letting go to return to the Real All.

The Mind is the nature of things. You see this when you "see the Tao." It is empty but gives birth to everything that arises, which are just temporal images, illusions or appearances within its pristine presence or nature. For so long, since beginningless times, you have subtly held on the feelings of the body, or chi, or thoughts or consciousness and made them into a cocoon you called "yourself." But the cocoon was never real and all the intertwining and envelopments and einvolvements you ever tried could bnever make it real either. All thoughts and feelings were like "reflexive pingings" against this imaginary border or perimeter of thoughts which always seemed to be there but which weren't. You have been trying for endless time to define yourself through these reflections, trying to create a reality where there is none, trying to spin another layer of entanglements to make it real, but the effort was fruitless. All you ever did was increase your confusion and remain invo lved in the dark, refusing to see the light.

But all of a sudden, due to your cultivation work and merit, you let go and the veil lifts like Saran wrap being peeled away from a smooth surface. The veil lifts, the perimeter disappears and you realize this is all only mind. The barrier that always seemed to be there, as if a haze, and by which you shut yourself off from what's true, cocooning yourself, is gone. It was never real to begin with but was just the obscuration of clinging incorrectly, and you realize if you had just ignored it and refused to use it and mentally let go you could have known the truth ages ago. For years you clung to that hazy barrier, trying to use it to define yourself when you really were this greater All. You gave up the great for the small, the inconsequential, the false, the non-existent. Everything real you've been searching for you could never find because whatever you searched for was always within this false realm. But now you "see the Truth." You "see the Tao." You "see the Path." You e xperience awakening. You now know what the self is, and the internals doubts, fears and worries are gone because you now have surety - you KNOW you can never be rid of This Knowing One. And you know that with security, with knowing, with truth, with faith so your realization is true and real and called self-realization. As Confucius said, you have no more doubts. You are no different than all the Buddhas, and so are all sentient beings. They are nothing different than this same This One.

Even the thoughts of being a "you" are only thoughts. You realize there is no personal identity, just the mind, but the habitual problem of perceiving incorrectly still remains - the habit of clinging or attachment to what arises still remains, the habit of using thought incorrectly still remains, the habits of the passions and desires still remains that can reassert themselves in obscuration once again -- so the problem of phenomena or what arises in the mind is not yet seen through clearly. However, now you have seen the Way, the Truth, the Tao. You have true knowing, or True belief. Another way of saying this is you have no doubts. You know this.

Now you know how to cultivate correctly. Habit energies of clinging and attachment can obscure this clear knowing from time to time. Even these habit energies are false and non-existent (from the standpoint of the original nature), so obscuration is unreal ... the clinging is unreal. How do you return to non-delusion? You just jump out with one moment of letting go. It's like using the Wisdom Buddha Manjushri's sword - "woosh" with a swish you're back home. All you do is detach from thoughts and instantaneously all of true reality arises. The doing is no doing because you're not doing anything in the pheneomal realm but just letting it continue to spin without your mental involvement. You just let go of clinging, or we can say "let go of clinging to delusion," or we can say "let go of delusion," or we can say "just let everything arise without attachment," or "drop falsity." "Woosh" swings the sword of detachment, cutting off clinging, and the All Body of Reality arises in stantly. For an ordinary meditation practitioner their chi will change instantly, they won't know what's ging on, and those trasnfromations are the right transformations as they'll all settle down to reveal clarity. That's the right way to cultivate.

The funny thing is, that original pristine clarity knowing has always been there, so you're not creating it. You just turn around and realize what's doing the perceiving. And you also realize that since you cannot possess anything, but phenomena still arise in the mind, the best and only way to act is to offer to others without holding to anything, to do things for others unselfishly. You don't exist, but the karmic result of happiness, joy and peace for others, even though empty of reality, is the right response to engender because this unreality of karmic appearances, even though samsara, is of the same nature of the mind. Hence one ends up choosing to do good rather than evil. And in offering, giving charity, and practicing all good works unselfishly one is letting go, giving up, and practicing actions that accord with the very fabric nature of reality. These are the ONLY actions that accord with the fabric nature of reality.