This is purity, to accept no other influence but only the influence of the Divine.
The Mother – Words of the Mother: CWM, Vol. 14, p149
What I call purity, the true purity, is not all those things morality teaches: it is non-ego.
There must be nothing but Him.
Him, not only because we have given Him everything and consecrated ourselves totally to Him (that is not enough), but Him because He has taken total possession of the human instrument.
The Mother – Agenda: Vol. 1, p369
Purity or impurity depends upon the consciousness; in the divine consciousness everything is pure, in the ignorance everything is subject to impurity, not the body only or part of the body, but mind and vital and all. Only the self and the psychic being remain always pure.
Sri Aurobindo – Letters on Yoga: CWSA, Vol. 29, p48-49
It [purity] is more a condition than a substance. Peace helps to purity—since in peace disturbing influences cease and the essence of purity is to respond only to the Divine Influence and not to have an affinity with other movements.
Sri Aurobindo – Letters on Yoga: CWSA, Vol. 29, p48
Out of the sphere of Mind he had arisen,
He had left the reign of Nature’s hues and shades;
He dwelt in his self’s colourless purity.
Sri Aurobindo – Savitri: CWSA, Vol. 33, Book Two, p297
While this transformation is being done it is more than ever necessary to keep yourself free from all taint of the perversions of the ego. Let no demand or insistence creep in to stain the purity of the self-giving and the sacrifice. There must be no attachment to the work or the result, no laying down of conditions, no claim to possess the Power that should possess you, no pride of the instrument, no vanity or arrogance. Nothing in the mind or in the vital or physical parts should be suffered to distort to its own use or seize for its own personal and separate satisfaction the greatness of the forces that are acting through you. Let your faith, your sincerity, your purity of aspiration be absolute and pervasive of all the planes and layers of the being; then every disturbing element and distorting influence will progressively fall away from your nature.
Sri Aurobindo – The Mother with Letters on The Mother : CWSA, Vol. 32, p13
These obstacles are usual in the first stages of the sadhana. They are due to the nature being not yet sufficiently receptive. You should find out where the obstacle is, in the mind or the vital, and try to widen the consciousness there, call in more purity and peace and in that purity and peace offer that part of your being sincerely and wholly to the Divine Power.
Sri Aurobindo – Letters on Yoga: CWSA, Vol. 31, p638
If one lives only for the Divine and by the Divine, there follows a perfect purity.
The Mother – Words of the Mother: CWM, Vol. 14, p149
If you really accept and give yourself to me, you must accept my truth. My truth is one that rejects ignorance and falsehoods and moves to the knowledge, rejects darkness and moves to the light, rejects egoism and moves to the Divine Self; rejects imperfections and moves to perfection. My truth is not only the truth of Bhakti or of psychic development but also of knowledge, purity, divine strength and calm and of the raising of all these things from their mental, emotional and vital forms to their Supramental reality.
Sri Aurobindo – Autobiographical Notes and Other Writings of Historical Interest: CWSA, Vol. 36, p373
A pure mind means a mind quiet and free from thoughts of a useless or disturbing character.
Sri Aurobindo – Letters on Yoga: CWSA, Vol. 29, p49
Ignorance is not a state of innocence or purity; that is an old blunder. Only a consciousness full of light can be pure. For instance, when you are conscious, your mind is clear and you have the right ideas about things and people; your mind is pure of ignorance. But when the mind is clouded by some impurity,—say, anger, jealousy or pride or some unreasonable desire,—you at once become ignorant and mistake and misunderstand everything.
Again, when your heart is turned to the Mother and satisfied with her love, when you are full of peace, contentment and happiness, then there is no room for wrong feelings and desires; your heart is pure.
This is what the Mother meant by purity; to be free from false ideas, wrong feelings, desires, demands etc. is to be pure.
Sri Aurobindo – Letters on Yoga: CWSA, Vol. 29, p49
Purification—rejecting from one’s nature all that is egoistic or of the nature of rajasic desire.
Aspiration for peace and calm and a perfect equality.
Purification and a basis of calm are the first necessary steps in the spiritual life.
Sri Aurobindo – Letters on Yoga: CWSA, Vol. 29, p46
Very often the earlier stage of the sadhana is successful, because there is an opening of the mind to first workings of the Force—afterwards the lower vital consciousness and the physical rise up and if these are not ready or inclined for the sadhana, it ceases. The sadhaka has first to purify and open them and call in the Force to work there and make all ready until he can bring the true consciousness and experience there. Yoga implies a long and difficult work and one must be ready to accept the necessity of years of preparation and purification and increasing consecration before the greater results can come.
By meditation alone and trying to concentrate you will never succeed. There must be an aspiration from the heart and a giving up of all yourself to Krishna.
In your nature there are many obstacles, chiefly a great activity of the outward-going mind and a thick crust of the impure lower Prakriti that covers the heart and the vital being. Quieting of the mind and purification of the nature are what you must have before you can fulfil your aim. Aspire for these two things first; ask for them constantly from above. You will not be able to achieve them by your own unaided effort.
Sri Aurobindo – Letters on Yoga: CWSA, Vol. 29, p47
As for the way out of the impasse, I know only of the quieting of the mind which makes meditation effective, purification of the heart which brings the divine touch and in time the divine presence, humility before the Divine which liberates from egoism and the pride of the mind and of the vital, the pride that imposes its own reasonings on the ways of the spirit and the pride that refuses or is unable to surrender, sustained persistence in the call within and reliance on the Grace above. Meditation, japa, prayer or aspiration from the heart can all succeed, if they are attended by these or even some of these things. But I do not know that you can be promised what you always make the condition of any inner endeavour, an immediate or almost immediate realisation or beginning of concrete realisation. I fully believe on the other hand that one who has the call in him cannot fail to arrive, if he follows patiently the way towards the Divine.
Sri Aurobindo – Letters on Yoga: CWSA, Vol. 29, pp47-48
The aspiration must be for entire purification, especially (1) purification from sex, so that no sex imaginations may enter and the sex impulse may cease, (2) purification from desires and demands, (3) purification from depression which is the result of disappointed desires. It is the most important for you. Particularly what you must aspire for is peace in all the being, complete equanimity, samata. The feeling that peace is not enough must go. Peace and purity and equanimity once established, all the rest must be the Mother’s free gift, not a result of the demand from the being.
Sri Aurobindo – Letters on Yoga: CWSA, Vol. 29, p46
Purity
True purity has a lovely fragrance.
Jasminum
Jasmine, Jessamine
All varieties of small single white salverform flowers with a slender tube and four to nine pointed or rounded lobes; the flowers are typically highly fragrant; borne in terminal or axillary cymes. Shrubs or vines.
