Greco-Christian stream·The Imitation of Christ·Book II — Admonitions Concerning the Inner Life·Chapter IV. Of A Pure Mind And Simple Intention
IV. Of a pure mind and simple intention
Duabus alis homo sublevatur a terrenis, simplicitate et puritate — by two wings man is lifted from earthly things, simplicity and purity. Simplicity in the intention; purity in the affection. The doubled disposition that makes flight possible.
Source context
- Theme
- purity of intention and simplicity of inner motive as conditions for genuine spiritual cognition
- Soul-faculty
- Consciousness Soul
Steiner
not engaged in the GA corpus
Cross-tradition
- Vedanta (Advaita)The requirement of citta-śuddhi (purity of mind) as prerequisite for jñāna shows cross-tradition congruence with the Imitation's insistence that a pure and simple intention must precede interior knowledge.
- Neoplatonism (Plotinus, Enneads I.6)Plotinus holds that the soul must become single and unencumbered before it can contemplate the One, a structural parallel to the chapter's teaching that multiplicity of motive obstructs inner vision.
- Rhineland mysticism (Meister Eckhart)Eckhart's doctrine of Abgeschiedenheit (detachment) and the notion that the soul must be free of all creaturely images to receive divine light shows cross-tradition congruence with the chapter's demand for simplicity of intention.
Chapter IV. Of A Pure Mind And Simple Intention
OF A PURE MIND AND SIMPLE INTENTION
By two wings is man lifted above earthly things, even by simplicity and purity. Simplicity ought to be in the intention, purity in the affection. Simplicity reacheth towards God, purity apprehendeth Him and tasteth Him. No good action will be distasteful to thee if thou be free within from inordinate affection. If thou reachest after and seekest, nothing but the will of God and the benefit of thy neighbour, thou wilt entirely enjoy inward liberty. If thine heart were right, then should every creature be a mirror of life and a book of holy doctrine. There is no creature so small and vile but that it showeth us the goodness of God.
2If thou wert good and pure within, then wouldst thou look upon all things without hurt and understand them aright. A pure heart seeth the very depths of heaven and hell. Such as each one is inwardly, so judgeth he outwardly. If there is any joy in the world surely the man of pure heart possesseth it, and if there is anywhere tribulation and anguish, the evil conscience knoweth it best. As iron cast into the fire loseth rust and is made altogether glowing, so the man who turneth himself altogether unto God is freed from slothfulness and changed into a new man.
3When a man beginneth to grow lukewarm, then he feareth a little labour, and willingly accepteth outward consolation; but when he beginneth perfectly to conquer himself and to walk manfully in the way of God, then he counteth as nothing those things which aforetime seemed to be so grievous unto him.
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