Purity

Relates to the three planes (the physical, emotional and mental)

February 16th 2014
If you tell someone they ought to work on purity, you can be certain you will be misunderstood: they will immediately think you want them to deprive themselves, especially sexually. In fact, often they confuse not only purity and chastity but even chastity and continence. However, purity does not really relate that much to the physical plane. It is a virtue of the heart and soul, and you will meet it in men and women who are fathers and mothers to numerous children, whereas it may be lacking in some others who claim they avoid the temptations of the flesh like the plague. Of course, purity is also concerned with the sexual sphere, but when I speak of purity I mean, above all, purity of thought, feeling and desire, for that is where loose living begins, giving rise later to dissoluteness in sexual behaviour. Purity is a huge subject, which we must study on the three planes: the physical, the emotional and the mental. On the physical plane it is the basis of health, on the emotional plane it provides the conditions for receiving and expressing love, and on the mental plane it provides the conditions for receiving and expressing wisdom.