Blessed Are the Pure In Heart

This past Sunday I was speaking at the Sunday service at our local Ananda Center in York, Maine and the scripture reading included Christ’s words in the Bible, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” One can contemplate and meditate upon these words for a lifetime or for many lifetimes to experience the glorious truth of these words. Another may experience in an instant the promise of these words due to already having a pure heart.

What is a pure heart? The great Masters share it is a heart that is free of any egoic attachments, desires or preoccupations. A pure heart feels love and devotion to God and the realization of God’s presence in all things including one self.

How do we free ourselves from the bonds that contaminate the heart’s purity? The entire Bhagavad Gita is about the battle of slaying the evil qualities in our hearts that the Divine may shine forth triumphant in the end. Arjuna’s faintheartedness and questions to Krishna are our own.

It is a long, difficult battle to say the least and yet it is the one battle we simply have no choice but to fight. The alternatives sooner or later only promise misery and we will ultimately be confronted with the same choices. The choices of truth verses dishonesty, love verses hate, sharing and giving of oneself verses anger and greed. The list goes on and on.

Fortunately we have the opportunity to use the tools Krishna advises, the tools of devotion to God and Guru, (Divine Teacher, one who has realized his oneness with the Infinite, such as Christ, Krishna, Buddha, Paramhansa Yogananda, and other masters). In addition, we have the teachings of yoga and meditation which the Masters have taught, “Be still and know that I am God.”

The teachings our Masters brought for all who care to have inner communion with God are our “sacred keys of awakening” as our Festival of Light ceremony mentions. Any of us who have been practicing the techniques of Kriya Yoga can attest to the power of transformation that occurs in purifying the heart.

We ourselves know from experience the lures of the world are but “stale cheese” as Yogananda described them compared to God’s bliss in meditation. Today as I was meditating on “purity of heart” I felt Divine bliss in my heart, the essential bliss of being. Is this not God? The ancient scriptures define God as Satchidanandam, ever existing, ever conscious, ever new bliss.

Each of us is starting right now with whatever purity of heart we have within. We are all destined to realize the sacred promise of Christ’s words. Are we willing to simply practice these teachings daily with devotion and love for God? I am and I invite you to join me.