Ashes of Purity: Inner Cleansing

Neville's Inner Vision

In the inner economy of your consciousness, the 'clean man' is your awakened I AM. The ashes of the heifer symbolize the remnants of past beliefs and acts that once polluted your seeing. To gather them outside the camp is to withdraw your attention from the old identities and set these memories apart, so they no longer feed your present actions. The water of separation is the living stream of awareness that purifies by realization, not by external ritual. When you apply this water, you reaffirm that sin is a mistaken sense of self, and purification comes as you assume the truth of your higher nature. The requirement that the gatherer wash his clothes and be unclean until evening signals that identification with the old self dissolves only as the cycle closes—until your inner day ends and a new state dawns. This is a perpetual statute in your inner life: return to this purification whenever you would awaken to a truer self, and the law remains for all who sojourn within.