PURITY OF LIFE
Khaliqur Rahman
Man is a queer admixture of the animal, the human and the divine. A simpler way of looking at Man is to see Man as body mind and soul. Freud sees Man as id , ego and super ego.
Then, there are the dichotomies: physical – ethereal, impure – pure and mortal – immortal .
God is one of the two opposites: ethereal, pure and immortal .
Ghalib in one of his couplets has said that the Pure cannot manifest itself without what is Impure. The glass needs a layer of mercury to reflect the seer’s image. You are able to perceive the spring breeze by looking at the spring blossoms that in effect mirror the spring breeze.
I was initiated by my Peer-o-murshid in 1972. He used to say: murshid Allah ,Allah murshid naheen and I used to get rattled as I was not able to swallow the statement: Guru is God…God is not Guru. But I never asked him to explain. Instead, I prayed for a purer mind so that I could understand what he meant. I took 10 years to understand that Ghalib’s couplet and his statement were, in fact, the same. God as such will never come to show the path. He comes in the garb of a Guru. The Pure has to put on the Impure. The Nirakaar has to attain aakaar for the benefit of our sense receptacles.
The Niraakaar is Pure. The Saakaar is Impure. Only He, the Pure, the Niraakaar, is Permanent. The Creator is Permanent, the created is not.
We, the created, have a life to live, before death unifies us with the non-physical. We attain purity in death – the death of the physical. Then, what is purity of life?
We have been told at school Cleanliness is next to Godliness. I believe, the cleanlier we get, the nearer we are to God. In other words getting cleanlier is getting purer.
How can we get cleanlier? The journey starts in the mind. In the mind one says: I have to get cleanlier every day. The very idea is a Godsend. Sheer Grace of God it is. The mind tells you to take care of the body because you learnt at school: sound mind in a sound body. You begin to do everything to keep your body fit and fine so that you can keep it cleanlier everyday on your own. Soon, you begin to perceive, this body, in fact, is the temple or the church or the mosque in which your God resides. You are the caretaker of His Residence.
To keep the residence clean, you do everything that is necessary. In order for your body to be fit you do all possible physical exercises. Your body looks good. But does it look good inside? Only you can see! That’s where honesty, the inside cleanser joins in and you begin all the necessary mental and religious exercises. Exercises need nutrition – the right kind of food that suits your system, not just your palate.
You can choose from meat or vegetables or both.
Meat comes from the animal world. The animals move around in search of food. Their movement is on the horizontal plane. Vegetables and fruits come from plants and trees. Their movement is in the vertical plane. They get their food from the earth beneath and the environment above.
Look at the meat eaters. They have, like animals, moved all over the world. They are the imperialists. Look at the vegetable eaters. They haven’t crossed seas. They are the spiritualists. The conclusion is: for worldly progress, eat meat; for spiritual progress, vegetables. What about Christian and Muslim saints? A careful study reveals they have reduced or even stopped eating meat in their advanced stages of spiritual pursuit.
Cleanlier food generates cleanlier thoughts. You begin to eat less but maintain a sound body and a sound mind.
As you get cleanlier, the impurities decrease and the purities increase. The animal in you leaves. The id is out .You are left with a few traces of ego and the super ego. If you are now blessed by the Grace of God and those few traces of ego, too, recede into nothingness, you are Super Ego! That, I believe, is the ultimate in the purity of life.
Please pray for me to get cleanlier.
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