Views From the Ground Floor, Part VII: Pure in Heart

Capital representing purification

Prieure of Serrabone

(Link to my monograph here)

Blessed are the pure in heart,
For they shall see God.

To be pure means to be unadulterated. That is, nothing else is mixed in.

We can appreciate the complexity of the meaning of the word heart by knowing that its definition covers more than four pages in the Oxford English Dictionary. Yet the definition we should zero in on out of these many alternatives is definition number five, that is, mind, in the widest sense, including the functions of feeling, volition, and intellect.

This particular definition dates circa 825 in its first citation; and several other critical citations date from the high point of the middle ages, that is, 1175 through 1225, when the esoteric Gothic schools dominated religious thinking. An auxiliary definition is one’s innermost being or the depths of the soul, this meaning also being cited for the first time around 1000 A.D.

Yet let us focus on the first meaning, since it refers back to the three main centers in mankind, feeling, the action of the body, and intelligence.

There is a secret meaning contained here which is difficult to explain, but I shall try to do so for you. The three different functions of being, which are actually independent minds with completely different capacities for taking in and understanding the nature of our sensations and impressions, each exist as organs which receive impressions before the impressions arrive. If each one receives an impression on its own without interference, then it is “pure.” This can only take place, however, if the organ I speak of is awakened, that is, it is not asleep. This means that:

1. Its inherent intelligence is active within its own sphere of context and ability to recognize.
2. Its will, or force towards action, is unadulterated and belongs only to itself.
3. Its physical functions are structurally unmixed with the physical functions of the other organs.

Such a condition is quite rare in human beings, especially with all three of these functions. Yet it is not impossible to "purify" the functions of a particular organ on its own, which can lead to quite high inner work. Super-functioning autism of the type that creates idiot savants is an example of this kind of work, which takes place when one or several of the organs—especially the thinking center—have gross deficiencies that functionally cripple the parts that usually interfere with one another. Paradoxically, the organs without issues then excel beyond measure in their own sphere.

We could get into a long discussion about what it means for organs to be awakened; in the reality of being, Jeanne de Salzmann describes the awakened function of sensation as voluntary. In this state, what it means is that the function (in this case sensation) appears as its own mind which functions independently of my ordinary mind. In this condition, there is no need to search for sensation in the body, to invoke it or "work" with it, because it acts under its own force and is always present. Suffice it to say here that the intelligence of feeling also have the same ability.

In this specific esoteric sense, to be pure in heart means to have voluntary function in feeling, intelligence, and sensation in the same moment.

Now, for the second part of the couplet. They shall see God.

The word see does not at all mean what it appears to mean in this verse.

I'm reminded of Meister Eckhart's comment in sermon 14 B:

…some people want to see God with their own eyes as they see a cow, and they want to love God as they love a
cow. You love a cow for her milk and her cheese and your own profit. That is what all those men do who love God for outward wealth or inward consolation - and they do not truly love God, they love their own profit.

We aren’t, in other words, going to see God with our eyes. The very idea is the construction of our own vanity.

The translators of this passage actually intended for the word see to mean seat, which is intended to indicate the seat of authority, for example, the place where a cathedral church stands. The word itself, used as a noun, is derived from the latin sedes, seat.

A bishop’s see is the domain over which he presides. The phrase, in other words, means that to be pure in heart creates a place for God to reside –God becomes seated, or dwells in, the person who is pure in heart. This is exactly what Brother Lawrence’s The Practice of the Presence of God refers to.

Those who are pure in heart become a see for God: a place for the residence of God’s authority.

A rough and informal translation of this beatitude, then, says, if we become whole and unadulterated in Being, God will come dwell in us.

I'll leave you with one other interesting derivation to ponder. The word is from the original old English sēon, of Germanic origin and related to Dutch zien and German sehen. These two words are probably derived from an Indo European root shared by the Latin sequi, to follow. The German word ziehen, which needs to pull (that which by inference follows you) probably also derives from this word.

While the word see means nowadays to take in through vision, in its ancient roots it preserves rich references to the function of location and relationships. When we see something visually, the impression enters us and is seated in us. It sits in us, connecting to our emotions, as in the phrase, "that does not sit well with me.” We can thus see that our ordinary expressions carry unconscious, subtle, yet specific references to how our inner lives actually function.

We say and do all these things automatically, without any attention. We don't think about them. The whole point of a mindful practice is to think about all of this a bit more actively.



May your heart be close to God, 

and God close to your heart.

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.