Humans are on the trail of a pure consciousness
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." In this famous line from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus asks his listeners to maintain a pure consciousness. If we can assume that "see" means being somehow directly aware of God, what is the "purity" needed for this?
We refer to things as "pure" when they're completely of a single quality, with no inferior ingredients. "Pure" butter is "nothing but butter in here." Pure water means without pollutants nor additives. So then, what is consciousness without the pollutants? People often define a pure heart in terms of love of others, self-sacrifice, suffering for the sake of a principle, and the spiritual nature of our inner being. Recently I spoke with a woman about the latter point.
"If anyone told me I did not have a pure consciousness, I would tell them where to get off!" she said. As I laughed, she went on to explain that everyone has purity of consciousness in their very nature as soul since we are made in "the image and likeness of God."
"We are all pure," she said, "but we may not choose to use it." On the one hand, "Purity is the truth of the soul dwelling in God," writes Paul Twitchell in "Stranger by the River." For most people, realizing this is a slow process of self-awareness that penetrates finally to their spiritual core.
On the other hand, soul shows itself in our outer actions by using the tools nature provides, especially thoughts and feelings. Because thoughts also govern feelings, they may offer us the handiest leverage for changing our inner state. How can we develop pure thoughts?
A pure thought attunes us to the actions of God, and not just those that are distant and historical. Thoughts can also be "warmed" by their direct, real-time presence to Divine Spirit through the window of soul. In this window, you can evaluate each thought as it comes by asking yourself "Does it reflect God's presence in my life now?" If the answer is "no," you can decide to go to work on it at once.
An approach to purifying your thinking overall is based on the patterns that tend to occur in thoughts. I've found that people seldom have more than a dozen such patterns that, taken together, may absorb 90 percent of their waking consciousness and often entirely crowd out their flexible thinking. Only with a small residue do they think freshly, in an unpatterned way, about all the changing details of their lives. Have you, for instance, ever found yourself seemingly trapped inside a circle of thinking?
To use this understanding, sit down with a pen and a blank sheet of paper. Write down any thoughts you have repeated more than once in the past week, and synthesize any that say the same thing in different words.
Some thoughts will be positive like "I really love my (child, spouse, pet, job, etc.), or "I'm looking forward to my prayer time," or "I am going to figure out the answer to this problem." Other thoughts may have a negative cast like "These people are against me," "My (child, spouse, pet, job, etc.) really irritate me," or "I feel (helpless, angry, depressed, fearful or hurt) about this problem."
Once you've identified your habitual thinking, next write out an altered version for all the negative thought-habits, converting them into positive ones. To make a thorough change, learn the new list by heart like you would a school lesson and refer to it until it becomes second nature. You're re-instructing your consciousness in how to view your life; for instance "I welcome it when people get under my skin because it always teaches me something about myself" is probably a better avenue to a pure consciousness than "These people bug me." Similarly, you can replace your thoughts of helplessness, unhappiness, or anger with thoughts like "I have faith that if I do my part, Divine Spirit will do the rest," or "I release any feelings I wouldn't want to carry before the throne of God."
As you do this with more of your thoughts, a serenity of consciousness can more easily occupy your inner space, and within it, Divine Spirit more gently bring to your attention the other means It wishes you to use.
John Jensen is a member of the Juneau clergy of Eckankar.