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Polarity and Purity – two components of our lives that were brought up for our weekly #SpiritChat conversations on twitter. Some thoughts that inspired the questions that were asked of the community:

ON POLARITY

“There has to be evil so that good can prove its purity above it.” — Gautama Buddha
“Purity is an inherent attribute of the soul.” — Mahatma Gandhi
The Law Of Polarity : Within the darkest of life’s perceived trials and hardships lies the means as well as the ability to find and experience the light. – Chuck Danes
“For thirty years people have been asking me how I reconcile X with Y! The truthful answer is that I don’t. Everything about me is a contradiction and so is everything about everybody else. We are made out of oppositions; we live between two poles. There is a philistine and an aesthete in all of us, and a murderer and a saint. You don’t reconcile the poles. You just recognize them.” Orson Welles (1915 – 1985)
Across planes of consciousness, we have to live with the paradox that opposite things can be simultaneously true. -Ram Dass
“When we’re identified with Awareness, we’re no longer living in a world of polarities. Everything is present at the same time.” — Ram Dass

ON PURITY

“I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.” — Mahatma Gandhi
“Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.” — Mahatma Gandhi
The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves—say rather, loved in spite of ourselves; the conviction the blind have. In their calamity, to be served is to be caressed. Are they deprived of anything? No. Light is not lost where love enters. And what a love! A love wholly founded in purity. There is no blindness where there is certainty.” — Victor Hugo (Les Misérables)
“I am a lover of truth, a worshiper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance.” — Stephen Fry
“Purity or impurity depends on oneself, No one can purify another.” — Gautama Buddha
“And it is you, spirit—with will and energy, and virtue and purity—that I want, not alone with your brittle frame.” — Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
“The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love color the most.” — John Ruskin (The Stones of Venice)
“True beauty lies in purity of the heart.” — Mahatma Gandhi
“There has to be evil so that good can prove its purity above it.” — Gautama Buddha
When we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children, when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet, Basho, we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash – at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the “newness,” the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, all these provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance.” — Thomas Merton
“One must be a sea, to receive a polluted stream without becoming impure.” — Friedrich Nietzsche (Thus Spoke Zarathustra)
“I have also seen children successfully surmounting the effects of an evil inheritance. That is due to purity being an inherent attribute of the soul.” — Mahatma Gandhi

Here are the questions asked during the live chat. The answers are compiled in the storify summary. A full, complete transcript is also available at the hashtracking site (1069 tweets, 90 contributors, 5.8M timeline deliveries, 0.83M reach). Enjoy!

Q1. What kind of life 'polarities' (opposites) have you experienced lately? What is your response to them? #SpiritChat 

Q2. Does exposure to polarities work to our (inner) benefit or to our detriment? How so?  #SpiritChat 

Q3. We seek silence/solitude. We also seek connection with others. Is there a polarity here? Why or why not? #SpiritChat

Q4. The 'polarity' of good and evil? Why does evil even exist? Is it necessary? #SpiritChat

Q5. A single experience of purity. Can you describe it? What did it feel/sound/look like? #SpiritChat 

Q6. "Purity or impurity depends on oneself. No one can purify another." Agree or disagree? #SpiritChat 

Q7. How do we become (or remain) pure of heart in the midst of polarizing influences? Can we? #SpiritChat 

Q8. What personal spiritual practice(s) help you in creating purity amidst polarity? Do share.  #SpiritChat

Do YOU have a question related to polarity and/or purity? Please ask. Mark it as Q9. Thank you. #SpiritChat

Final Q10. To those dealing with polarity, adversity... searching for purity, you would say... ? #SpiritChat