Question: If somebody is totally pure, is it really possible for him to lose his purity?

Sri Chinmoy: Certainly. Some people can be absolutely pure, but then again they can lose their purity. Does a child not lose his purity? Here is the proof. When a child is a few months old or one or two years old, when the child is all heart — before the mind is developed — he is absolutely pure. Then, when the other parts of his being start developing, at that time it becomes difficult for him to maintain his purity. The mind enters, the vital enters and in this way the child loses his purity.

But there is something called aspiration. When we enter into the spiritual life, we do not allow the mind to think wrong thoughts or to direct us in a wrong way. The mind itself cannot say, “This is pure; that is impure.” No, only the heart can be the judge of purity. The heart will be the judge by virtue of its implicit faith either in the soul or in something deeper than the heart.

Many human beings do not know about the existence of the soul. I use the term ‘soul’, but others may not use this term. But they do know that there is something that can be deeper, infinitely more beautiful and infinitely more powerful, let us say, in their life. That something they have to think of.

The heart everyone knows. Immediately we think of the muscle, or we just feel our heart palpitating. But something is inside the heart. Let us call it the soul, or we can say it is God. God is everywhere. He is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient. But if we meditate on the heart or concentrate on the heart, either the soul or God will tell us what is right and what is wrong, what is pure and what is impure.

When the mind becomes the judge, many wrong things the mind will say are right. Similarly, many undivine things the mind will say are pure. The mind cannot be the judge; the heart has to be the judge. Again, the heart is not the actual judge, but the heart begs the soul or God to be the judge. When the heart has faith in either the soul or God, then the heart waits for the message from within. And when the heart gets the message, it can keep the entire mind, vital and physical body pure.

Purity is in oneness with God’s Will. When we accept God’s Will in God’s own Way, there is always purity. But in order to accept God’s Will in God’s own Way, at every moment we need faith in God. For anything that we want, whether it is purity or something else, the first thing God will ask us is, “Do you have faith in Me?” And we also have to ask ourselves if we have faith in God.

The second thing that we have to ask ourselves is how many times we have become happy by pleasing ourselves in our own way and how many times we have become happy by pleasing God in God’s own Way. We will see the difference between making ourselves happy by saying something or doing something in our own way and making ourselves happy by listening to our heart or our soul or our Master.

One second of joy if you can get by pleasing me, then this one second of joy can last for days, for weeks, for months. When you have pleased me by doing something or by becoming something, then immediately you can say, “I have pleased Guru in his own way.” The joy that you get at that time will last for a very long time. Again, if you have pleased yourself by doing something in your own way, then you may be happy, but that happiness is nothing in comparison to the other happiness — nothing, nothing, nothing.

Purity is only a part of divinity. There are so many other good qualities: simplicity, sincerity, gratitude, oneness with God’s Will and so on. These good qualities we can lose, and again, we can get them back. It is not that once we lose them, we shall never regain them. But a time comes when, if we go on losing our divine qualities for days, weeks, months and years — losing and losing and losing — we will have no inclination, no eagerness to regain them. That is what happens. Not only purity, but all the divine qualities that a seeker has, he can lose, he can lose, he can lose.

Real purity is your oneness with God’s Will and your one-pointed faith in God’s Will. All the divine qualities can be found in your oneness with God’s Will. If you want these divine qualities to blossom, if you want them to increase, abundantly and infinitely, then this is the way. There is no divine quality that cannot be increased in boundless measure if you have constant and conscious oneness with God’s Will.

I wish to tell you a humorous story about oneness with the Master’s will. One day I asked one of my ‘famous’ disciples to do something. I said to him, “On other days I have asked you to do something in a totally different way, but this time I am requesting you to do something else. I am making it very clear to you. Now tell me what I have just said.”

He repeated what I had said. Then he did exactly the opposite! I said, “What did I ask you to do?” Again he repeated what I had asked him to do.

“Why did you do otherwise?” I asked him. He answered, “Usually you ask me to do it the other way.”

I asked him to do it one way, and he repeated my request. Then he did it the other way! I said to him, “For centuries and centuries, I meditated inside the Himalayan caves and prayed to God. What for? Only for one disciple like you. God did listen to my prayer, and He gave me you!”

Again, who can tolerate this type of affectionate public comment from me except this famous disciple of mine?

From:Sri Chinmoy,You belong to God, Agni Press, 2012
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/ybg