How to purify your soul? We always want to have pure things, such as pure heart, pure mind, and even pure foods. Of course we don’t want to have any polluted stuff with us, especially when it comes to our souls. The purity of one’s soul is very essential in achieving the best of his personality and life as a whole. Thus, we must find the ways to clean it and keep it away from contamination. The following are five steps to purify our souls and live purely in this world full of corruption.
1. Know your soul. Firstly, we should have the knowledge on what we are trying to cleanse here – our souls. If you don’t know what a soul is, then you will be in a great darkness in your way to purifying it. Hence, we must have a clear picture of what this thing is. The soul is different from your body, for it is intangible. It is not the same as your spirit, since the latter purely comes from God, whom is also a spirit. Different from your flesh (which includes your muscles, bones, blood, and all the matters of Earth which compose you), your soul encompasses your thoughts, feelings, emotions, habits, attitudes and all the unseen items that make your whole personality. Unlike your spirit that comes totally from God, your soul is the persona that you choose and create. It is also the intermediary being between our flesh and our spirits. The soul is YOU – the one in the middle between God (spirit) and the flesh (body).
2. Conquer your flesh and be spiritual (Body purification). After reading the first step, you must now have an idea of what a soul is and know how to distinguish it from your body and spirit. By knowing that your soul is you, whom are in the midst of choosing between your spirit that comes from God and your body that is created from the elements of Physics, you must now serve your spirit and conquer your flesh. This also means you should serve God and overcome the earthly things. Conversationally, you must put yourself under the heaven while your feet are above the grounds of the Earth, and not the other way around. Does it sound geographically logical, isn’t it? Moreover, serving God is serving the heavenly things, such as love, faithfulness, gentleness, peacefulness, joy, self-control and righteousness. On the other hand, overcoming your flesh means conquering the desires of your flesh, such as greed, envy, lust, deceit and pride.
To be particular, you should overcome your greed of money, envy of material riches or fame, lust of body, acts of lying and pride for self-interest. Simply, you need to become truly spiritual rather than be material. By being spiritual and equipped with the virtue of self-control, you follow God while your body follows you (you are under the highest heaven, while you are on the top of the world). This is the result of keeping your body away from the weakness and diseases brought by lack of discipline, gluttony, drunkenness, sloth, carelessness and immorality. The discipline you gain from spirituality purifies your body.
3. Purify your wisdom (Mind purification). Wisdom is the ability to make righteous judgments based on your knowledge and realizations. With the knowledge you’ve acquired in the first step and the realizations you’ve achieved in the second step, you must now purify your choice. Here we must discern the wisdom that comes from God and the one that comes from evil. The wisdom that comes from God is pure and powerful, while the earthly wisdom is lowly and wicked. Since the heavenly things that include love and the likes are purer and more powerful than the things of the Earth, we must choose the things of God. We now have a choice based on our knowledge and pure wisdom. These spiritual knowledge and heavenly wisdom also purifies our mind and the way we think.
4. Practice and understand (Heart purification). Having the best choice to achieve purity of our souls does not mean we have already purified our souls. We cannot purify them by just cleansing our mind. We still need to cleanse the other parts of ourselves. We need to value and stand for the spiritual things we have chosen. Moreover, this value must lead us into actions. We will not understand the things of God if we will not practice them. To purify your soul, you must do the acts of loving, being faithful, being humble, and every acts of a spiritual person. This also means we need to actually depart from evil and never return to the practice of sinning, lying, immorality and iniquity. By practicing the things of God and actually leaving the evil things, we can gain spiritual understanding. This understanding verifies and justifies the Spirit of God in our hearts. Consequently, this purifies our heart and the way we feel.
5. Live it (Purification of the soul). Now, having pure body, mind and heart does not also mean you already have a pure soul. To have a pure soul you must have a pure life, pure personality and a pure you. You must not only purify your ways of thinking and feeling, but must also purify your living. If a choice is futile if not done, an action is also worthless if only done for a short time. Therefore, we must not only temporarily do the godly things that will purify our souls, but we must also practice them constantly. We must LIVE in love, in faithfulness, in righteousness and in all the spiritual things of God that purify our souls.
To purify your soul, you need to purify your body, your mind, your heart and your life. This includes purifying your health, thoughts, emotions, life and all the things that compose YOU.
1. Know your soul. Firstly, we should have the knowledge on what we are trying to cleanse here – our souls. If you don’t know what a soul is, then you will be in a great darkness in your way to purifying it. Hence, we must have a clear picture of what this thing is. The soul is different from your body, for it is intangible. It is not the same as your spirit, since the latter purely comes from God, whom is also a spirit. Different from your flesh (which includes your muscles, bones, blood, and all the matters of Earth which compose you), your soul encompasses your thoughts, feelings, emotions, habits, attitudes and all the unseen items that make your whole personality. Unlike your spirit that comes totally from God, your soul is the persona that you choose and create. It is also the intermediary being between our flesh and our spirits. The soul is YOU – the one in the middle between God (spirit) and the flesh (body).
2. Conquer your flesh and be spiritual (Body purification). After reading the first step, you must now have an idea of what a soul is and know how to distinguish it from your body and spirit. By knowing that your soul is you, whom are in the midst of choosing between your spirit that comes from God and your body that is created from the elements of Physics, you must now serve your spirit and conquer your flesh. This also means you should serve God and overcome the earthly things. Conversationally, you must put yourself under the heaven while your feet are above the grounds of the Earth, and not the other way around. Does it sound geographically logical, isn’t it? Moreover, serving God is serving the heavenly things, such as love, faithfulness, gentleness, peacefulness, joy, self-control and righteousness. On the other hand, overcoming your flesh means conquering the desires of your flesh, such as greed, envy, lust, deceit and pride.
To be particular, you should overcome your greed of money, envy of material riches or fame, lust of body, acts of lying and pride for self-interest. Simply, you need to become truly spiritual rather than be material. By being spiritual and equipped with the virtue of self-control, you follow God while your body follows you (you are under the highest heaven, while you are on the top of the world). This is the result of keeping your body away from the weakness and diseases brought by lack of discipline, gluttony, drunkenness, sloth, carelessness and immorality. The discipline you gain from spirituality purifies your body.
3. Purify your wisdom (Mind purification). Wisdom is the ability to make righteous judgments based on your knowledge and realizations. With the knowledge you’ve acquired in the first step and the realizations you’ve achieved in the second step, you must now purify your choice. Here we must discern the wisdom that comes from God and the one that comes from evil. The wisdom that comes from God is pure and powerful, while the earthly wisdom is lowly and wicked. Since the heavenly things that include love and the likes are purer and more powerful than the things of the Earth, we must choose the things of God. We now have a choice based on our knowledge and pure wisdom. These spiritual knowledge and heavenly wisdom also purifies our mind and the way we think.
4. Practice and understand (Heart purification). Having the best choice to achieve purity of our souls does not mean we have already purified our souls. We cannot purify them by just cleansing our mind. We still need to cleanse the other parts of ourselves. We need to value and stand for the spiritual things we have chosen. Moreover, this value must lead us into actions. We will not understand the things of God if we will not practice them. To purify your soul, you must do the acts of loving, being faithful, being humble, and every acts of a spiritual person. This also means we need to actually depart from evil and never return to the practice of sinning, lying, immorality and iniquity. By practicing the things of God and actually leaving the evil things, we can gain spiritual understanding. This understanding verifies and justifies the Spirit of God in our hearts. Consequently, this purifies our heart and the way we feel.
5. Live it (Purification of the soul). Now, having pure body, mind and heart does not also mean you already have a pure soul. To have a pure soul you must have a pure life, pure personality and a pure you. You must not only purify your ways of thinking and feeling, but must also purify your living. If a choice is futile if not done, an action is also worthless if only done for a short time. Therefore, we must not only temporarily do the godly things that will purify our souls, but we must also practice them constantly. We must LIVE in love, in faithfulness, in righteousness and in all the spiritual things of God that purify our souls.
To purify your soul, you need to purify your body, your mind, your heart and your life. This includes purifying your health, thoughts, emotions, life and all the things that compose YOU.
