What is Purity

“I heard in a spiritual discourse that purity means to ‘Speak the truth, not to steal, be kind and not to do anything wrong.’ I tried practicing all of that because I want to become pure. However, I could not. I realized that I may not tell big lies, but I tell many little ones. So what should I do, will I never become pure in my life?”

The Gnani Purush, the Enlightened One, has prescribed four steps to overcome any particular impurity that we may have within us. Let us learn:

“Oh yes, I want to learn those 4 steps. What are they, please tell me”

Say, you want to get rid of your habit of lying. Therefore, here are the four steps that you should follow:

• Step 1: Firmly believe and decide with conviction that ‘the habit of lying is not good.’

• Step 2: Investigate and find out ‘why or how this habit of lying is not good? Here, you can take the help from the Gnani too; you can ask him questions and get to the right answer. However, it is very important that you properly understand all the ill effects of lying. For instance, due to this habit of lying,
-People may not trust you even when you are saying the truth.
-People may insult you by calling you a liar.
-In future, you will have to suffer the consequences of uttering lies, at the hands of nature, etc.

• Step 3: Every time you lie, confess it, repent for your lying and resolve never to lie ever again in your life. Yet you may again lie, so once again you repent. Do not panic, just keep repenting for every such lie spoken by you, because every fault has multiple layers and accordingly the fault occurs as many times as the count of these layers. Eg. A hundred layered fault will occur hundred times. If you sincerely repent for your fault each time when it occurs, that particular layer of mistake is forgiven and cleansed, and it sheds. The more you repent, the more layers are destroyed. When you wash off all the layers, your fault is totally cleaned.

• Step 4: Never protect your habit of lying. The reason why you lie is mostly because either you want to gain something i.e. respect, money or something else, or you are afraid of something. One of these reasons made you develop this habit of lying and due to the very same reasons; you may now tend to protect this habit too. However, do not fall into this trap anymore, instead set yourself free from it. Even if someone calls you a liar and you feel hurt, you constantly focus on the fact that it is your mistake that you lied, and you keep repenting for it. Doing so, will certainly liberate you from this vice and make you pure one day.

These four steps can be applied to any wrong habit or vice or fault or impurity that you may have knowingly or unknowingly cultivated in the past and that now exists within you.

“Oh! Just four steps and I become pure? Is it that simple?”
Yes, these are practical steps given by the Gnani, and hence are certainly simple. When followed sincerely with a pure intent to come out of your mistakes, it works wonders and you actually get rid of the mistake.
However, to get rid of any mistake, you must first know what the mistake is. Only when you know all your mistakes, you can work on getting free from them, And only when you get free from all mistakes, you are said to become pure.

“Oh! So what are all my mistakes? How will I know them? I want to become pure, you see…”
We shall learn more about it in our next article…

Please visit this:- https://www.dadabhagwan.org/path-to-happiness/self-help/science-behind-honesty-and-purity/purity-and-liberation/