Siddha tradition shared in excerpt from book

Part of an email I sent to a friend years ago-

I want to share this bit of the book with you. I'm sure you'll understand it. In all of the book's chapters the Guru starts and ends it by saying, “With great respect and love, I welcome you with all my heart.”

Enjoy this:

The next requirement for discipleship is purity. You might think that once there is humility, there is also purity, and this is true. However, we need to cultivate this purity through cleanliness of mind, speech, and body. All need to be cleansed, one by one.

I said before that we may be quite nonviolent on the outside, but what about our thoughts? In the same way, outside we might appear very clean, but what about inside? Do we feel clean? Do we feel worthy all the time, wherever we are? Do we have a constant experience of our own purity?

Jnaneshwar Maharaj continues: If the heart is not pure, The display of outer actions Serves only to deceive others, Like adorning a dead body, Bathing a donkey in a holy river, Sprinkling a bitter pumpkin with sugar, Hanging flags on a deserted and broken-down house, Pasting food on the body of a starving man, Laying gold over an empty dome, Or painting fruit made of clay.

If there is no purity inside, external purity is in vain. Inner purity comes about only through discipleship. When we are humble and unpretentious, when we become nonviolent inside, when we have a forgiving and upright nature, when we serve, then there is purity, which can also be called integrity.

This integrity, and nothing else, holds us together. Inner purity is our strength, our solid foundation.

And this will always be there, no matter what our outer circumstances may be. The whole house may be broken, but the foundation will remain.