The Courage to Be: on the spiritual purgation

Dare we have the courage to be who we are meant to be? Dare we have the courage to be the human beings God wishes us to be? This is the true meaning of the overused and misunderstood phrase “be true to yourself.”

To do this, abandonment and total submission to God is crucial. Although I think that we can come to God in any condition that we’re in because God is all-merciful and all-compassionate, the union with God (and the submission, which precedes it) is possible when we cleanse ourselves.

Today’s society loves to talk about a physical purgation (whether it has to do with food or alcohol or drug addictions), and these types of purgations are necessary and will certainly lead to a better and productive life. But spiritual purgation is just as (if not more!) significant. Spiritual cleansing of one’s soul is at the heart of an individual’s (and ultimately collective) morality. If the individual is transformed and cleansed, then that gift and choice will perpetuate itself into the community as well, and others will be affected by the light, rather than darkness.

Today’s society also loves to focus on the psychological (therapeutic) aspects of human betterment. But I think that we need to move away from this and focus on the exploration of human vices and virtues. Only by admitting to our fallible nature and that we are certainly capable of sin, will we be able to step outside of ourselves. People don’t need to hear any more about “cognitive therapies” or worse, keep taking medication for what is for most, a problem of spiritual sloth, or acedia. What people do need is to hear about virtues firmly rooted in Truth.

In many ways, when we sin, we are inevitably slaves to a particular sin (whether it’s envy or sloth or pride…). Sin becomes the “master” we serve on a daily basis. Not only does the sin stain our soul but it is also a “thing” rooted in a non-reality, a non-ontology. It is an illusion. One of the most famous Islamic poets, Jelalludin Rumi focused in many of his works on the importance of spiritual purgation in order for a soul to unite with God. Speaking to God, Rumi wrote: “Under nine layers of illusion, whatever the light, on the face of any object, in the ground itself, I see your face.”


In Islam, Qur’an speaks of two spiritual conditions: qabd (constriction) and bast (expansion). Constriction is to be understood as a spiritual dryness or desolation, and expansion is to be understood as a spiritual ecstasy. During the time of qabd, an individual is advised to have patience and to take this as an opportunity to cleanse his soul as he appears before God. Echoing back the quote from Rumi, we are called to be careful about any light, which might be swept up in an illusion and masquerading as light.

Some of these illusions maintain to keep us in a constant “master-slave” dialectic, and during the purgation, an individual needs to be careful. The focus, in the end, should not be the experience of either spiritual dryness or ecstasy. Rather, it should always be union with God.

Spiritual cleansing is so important because it relates to not only spiritual development but to ethics. To me, spirituality is never divorced from morality. One cannot be “spiritual” but suspend value judgments. One cannot be “spiritual” but be indifferent to moral choices we make. One cannot be “spiritual” but think that there is no such thing as conscience or the formation of conscience.

St. John of the Cross (who knew a thing or two about spiritual purgation, to put it mildly!) writes in such beautiful way on how to reach the way of the purity:

To reach satisfaction in all
desire its possession nothing.
To come to posses all
desire the possession of nothing.
To arrive at being all
desire the knowledge of nothing.
To come to the knowledge of all
desire the knowledge of nothing.
To come to the pleasure you have not
you must go by a way in which you enjoy not.
To come to the knowledge you have not
you must go by a way in which you know not.
To come to the possession you have not
you must go by a way in which you possess not.
To come to be what you are not
you must go by a way in which you are not.