Inner Purification in Ezekiel

Neville's Inner Vision

That which Ezekiel calls the furnace is your own consciousness. The scattering and the dross are metaphors for thoughts, affections, and habits you have mistaken for self. By refusing to identify with them, you awaken to the I AM, the sole awareness in which you live. What the prophet calls ‘dross’ becomes your false states of possession—brass, tin, iron, lead—these are the stubborn beliefs that cling to you in the heat of life. The cleansing is not punishment but a shift in inner knowing: when you, in quiet imagination, acknowledge I AM as your true self, the sense of separation dissolves, and the fire burns away automatic reactions. Then you take your inheritance in yourself — you realize that you are the LORD's, and thus you are free from the illusion that you are merely the product of circumstance. As you dwell in this awareness, you discover that the so-called exile is simply the mind's purification, revealing the gold of your nature beneath the dross.