Understanding Purification

Wisdom Is Self-Insight

Unlike most enterprises, Lucky Six Farms has learned what wisdom is. Why is this so? Our certified organic White Sage products - essential oil, hydrosol, smudge sticks, cones, and whole leaves - are well-known for their spiritually purifying properties. But there exists much popular misunderstanding concerning exactly what such purification entails. As with many concepts rooted in actual spiritual experience, purification may easily be approached one-sidedly or erroneously. That’s where our years of wisdom come into play. When potential customers ask questions such as: “Can purification wipe out the consequences of wrong-doing? Will others ignore any harm I commit if I purify afterwards? If I hurt someone, will subsequent purification make it alright? Does a rite of purification cleanse my karma?” we can reply authoritatively. We understand the beginning of wisdom is self-insight.

Wisdom Is Moral Clarity

The wise truth abut what purification is and isn’t can be communicated quite vividly through an illustrative example. Suppose a person plans to attend a ceremonial purification at a sanctified site, a church, synagogue, mosque, temple, or monastery. Prior to the sacred service, (s)he steals a valuable relic from a nearby shrine. The rite of purification will in no way obviate their crime. Instead, when the chain of cause and effect - the karma - set into motion by the theft matures days, months, years, or even lifetimes later, the perpetrator will not be able to remain oblivious. They will have a sudden, possibly even preternatural, insight into the underlying reason for their intense suffering. While they may not be able to identify the precise act that created their painful predicament, they will nonetheless be made explicitly aware of the negative inner quality that has generated their misery. This is because the purification rite ultimately provided cleansing insight. The purifying environment entered near the time of their crime worked to create an unusual sense of moral clarity. 

Wisdom Is Empathy

Traditional forms of spirituality operate on the principle that no one is perfect. Thus, they all stress a central tenet which we usually identify as the “golden rule.” They advise devotees not to treat others in ways they themselves would find loathsome were they to end up on the receiving end. Although chains of causality may often appear interminable to those who disregard empathy, this perception is illusory. What is proudly and exultantly grabbed at another's expense will eventually be received with a tearful face. Purification provides a powerful tool whereby irrelevant and superfluous impressions may be readily cleared away, thereby opening space for our own inner Light of the Divine to shine through. Lessons we learn through such a process may be extremely hard, but they ultimately devolve to our lasting benefit.

By Alan Beck