What is meant by being pure?
According to Rumi it is being filled with lust and greed and other wantings.
Here is an extract from one of his poems:
- No one is grown up except those free of desire.
God says: “the world is a play, a children’s game and you are the children.”
God speaks the truth.
If you haven’t left the Child’s play how can you be an adult?
Without purity of spirit,
if you are still in the midst of lust and greed and other wantings,
you’re like children playing at sexual intercourse. - Recognise that your imagination and your thinking and your sense perceptions
are like reed canes that children cut and pretend are horses. …
Deny your desires and your wilfulness, and a real mount may appear under you.
For more on Rumi’s poems visit my earlier article below:
Two questions.
Why do we identify with lust and greed and other wantings?
If we don’t identify with lust and so on then what are we to do with our time?
We identify with our desires because of the ego’s search for a feeling of wholeness. When one of our desires is satisfied then for a short period of time we experience a feeling of wholeness. We feel at peace and are fulfilled. It is that feeling that drives our ambitions and motivates pretty much the whole of our worldly life.
According to Eckhart Tolle (from the book The Power of Now) the ego is a derived sense of self and needs to identify with external things. It is not real. It needs to be both defended and fed constantly.
This is one of the basic concepts of spirituality as I understand it. The Hindu scriptures also say that the Body-Mind-Intellect aggregate (the BMI) is not the self. We are actually the witnessing spirit, the Atman.
Quoting from The Power of Now:
The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, personal and family history, belief systems, and often also political, nationalistic, racial, religious and other collective identifications. None of these is you.
(You can browse the book at Amazon. Not an affiliate link) https://www.amazon.in/Power-Now-Guide-Spiritual-Enlightenment/dp/8190105914/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+power+of+now&qid=1637645406&sr=8-1 )
We all have the option to let go of these temporary satisfactions which is all that the ego can offer us and aim for lasting happiness on a moment to moment basis. This is what we can and should do with our time (this is the answer to what we should do with our time).
In short practice present moment awareness or Mindfulness. This is also taught by Buddhist monks and also J. Krishnamurti.
I can testify from my personal experience that being the witness gives rise (sometimes) to a feeling of deep stillness. Once you are free of your identification with the mind and the ego you have this experience. And you can experience this here and now in this very moment.
Mindfulness and dis-identification with the ego can be treated as the solution to pretty much 90% or more of our troubles. Please visit my earlier article below;
I highly recommend that you read Eckhart Tolle and start practising present moment awareness. Being happy is simpler and faster than you think. If our basic necessities of life are given to us then not much more is required.
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