Question: How can I overcome my impurity?

Sri Chinmoy: Purity is already inside your heart — inside everybody’s heart. The mind is the thing that lacks purity. So you have to exercise your imagination. Imagination has a reality of its own. Imagine that your mind is a most beautiful flower. All right, you may not know what the mind is. But you know your head; it is a solid object. So imagine that your head is a most beautiful flower — whatever flower you like most, which gives you utmost joy. Imagine that you do not have a nose, or ears, or eyes; only feel that your entire head is a most beautiful flower that is full of fragrance.

Then look at your flower-face in the mirror. While looking lovingly at the flower for a few seconds, you cannot have undivine thoughts. When the beauty and fragrance of the flower are entering into your mind, you cannot think of undivine things. So always think of a flower. There are other ways also to get purity, but this is the easiest way.

Impurity does not originate inside you; it is coming from outside — from the undivine consciousness of the outer world. It starts with the breath, when you inhale. Our impurity does not start below the navel; it starts in the nose, when we breathe in, and then it goes downward. So when you breathe in, you have to feel that it is the flower that is breathing in; you have to feel that the beauty and fragrance of the flower are receiving everything that is coming inside you.