The principle of purity begins to emerge when you see that all are not different from you and all belong to you. Only when you feel that everything is part of you can there be purity and sacredness.

*Chapter 4 - Honour Desires* 

*Day 30*

You massage your body, decorate it and protect it. In the same way, look after nature because all of nature is your body. Look at a vegetable, which will become your body tomorrow. 

The food, which is in the market today, will be in your house tomorrow and will be eaten by you the next day. It all becomes two ways to look at anything. 

One is with the heart and the second is with the intellect. If you look at the moon with the heart, it appears alive. But if you look at it scientifically, it is just soil and stone, it can be treated as a planet. 

Children only see the moon with the heart, and so to them. It becomes an uncle. A relationship is established. You may look at the River Ganga and say it is just flowing water, and others may see her as "Mother Ganga." 

We see her as a mother when we perceive her through our hearts. When seen with the intellect, material things are mere matter, and you cannot see life in them.

Soldiers receive specific instructions to look at enemies as mere objects, and not as human beings. If you look at enemies as human, your heart will take over and you will not be able to kill them. 

What you see belongs to you only when the mind is placed in the heart. What is happening today? People see the world through the mind instead of looking at it with the heart. 

Feelings dry out and then troubles start. We can recognise God in any object, animal or bird, provided we look with the heart. 

You will feel that they are also just like you. Merging the mind with the heart is also a type of meditation. When we sleep, the mind merges with the heart. 

The moment we wake up, we feel a difference between heart and mind. In bhavpurna samadhi, the feelings are awake, and the mind also is alert and awake. 

Other forms of meditation tell you to get rid of all your feelings and keep the mind as a witness. However, in this process you do not feel that all that is seen is actually you.

In India, people have always seen God everywhere. Even nature is considered a part of Divinity, and is called "shri." Vishnu has two wives, Shri Bhudevi, Mother Earth, and Shri Devi, the goddess Lakshmi.

Vishnu's wife, Shri, is shakti, or power. We treat the Himalayas and the ocean, called Samudra raja, as kings. All the puranas, including bhagavat, describe them this way. 

We see the whole world as alive, not as inert matter. Nature is not inert or dead. Why? This is because we see it with the heart. 

Just like children, we have looked at nature, merging the mind with the heart. Children see the sun, moon, trees, plants and even stones as alive. 

For them everything is alive. Whatever you see, you will see as belonging to you. This is very important in today's world

where friendship, feelings and compassion are missing between individuals. 

Positive qualities are lacking and human values are ignored. This is a very simple sutra, teaching an important lesson. When you are absorbed in purity, a sense of belongingness arises in you.

The principle of purity begins to emerge when you see that all are not different from you and all belong to you. Only when you feel that everything is part of you can there be purity and sacredness. 

It is not inhuman, animal energy, which is aggressive. "Apashu" means that which is non-violent, which accepts everything in itself and kindles the energy of love. 

This energy is stronger than aggression or physical force, and it is never violent or harmful. In reality, children are the true masters of a household because anyone, whether he is a big industrialist or businessman, has to obey his children. 

Children rule the house because they have purity in them. They derive strength from purity. Purity is an energy of such high value.

Understand the difference between purity and impurity. Purity is to have a feeling of oneness with everything, and impurity is the absence of that feeling, a feeling of separation. 

When you mix water and oil, they do not blend - the water never feels that the oil is of its own nature, and the oil does not accept the water. This is impurity, such a mixture is called impure water or impure oil. 

Similarly, if sugar is mixed with sand, such a mixture is called impure sugar since sugar never considers sand as its own.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

SHIVA SUTRAS