Inquiry · “You Are Not Your Thoughts”
Purgation
To examine where the self is ‘enslaved by the verb to have’ — the cravings, possessions, and demands that keep attention feverishly bound to things — and then, by deliberate detachment and mortification, simplify the affections and will around one centre so the self is free to turn toward the Real.
In 5 lines: Honestly list where you’re “enslaved by the verb to have” — the cravings, possessions, demands that grip you. See how they scatter and enslave the will. Practise detachment: hold things loosely, value them for their own sakes, be lord of them not under them. Practise mortification: let the warring lesser desires die back so you simplify around one love (artist/lover). Aim at loosening “I, Me, Mine” — freedom, never self-punishment.
What it is
Before the attention can be poured toward the Real, Underhill says the self must be put in order — the stage the mystics call Purgation and she calls “Self-Adjustment.” Her diagnosis is sharp: ordinary life leaves us “enslaved by the verb ‘to have’” — our reactions are a chain of “corporate or individual demands,” cravings, comparisons, and possessions, so the will is kept in “feverish attachment to things” and has no freedom to turn elsewhere.
The cure has two classic moves: Detachment (ceasing to “anchor” yourself to things, holding them loosely, viewing them “for their own sakes” rather than for what they get you) and Mortification (resolving the conflicting passions and desires that pull the self apart, so character simplifies around a single centre — as it does, she notes, in the artist or the lover).
The aim, in Kabir’s line she quotes, is that “the I, the Me, and the Mine” loosen their grip; in à Kempis’s, that “all things be under thee, and thou not under them.” This is inquiry-and-release work on the clinging self (All Is One), powered by a turn of the affections (The Inner Creates the Outer) toward surrender (The Inner Creates the Outer).
The Method
From Practical Mysticism, ch. V (faithfully described, short quotes only). It has an examination phase and an ongoing-practice phase:
- Name your enslavements to “having.” Honestly survey where you are “enslaved by the verb ‘to have’”: the possessions, status, opinions, comforts, and outcomes you grip; the running ledger of “corporate or individual demands” you make on life. Write them out. Notice especially the “I want / I must keep / mine.”
- See the cost. Recognise the “disharmony” between these surface-self cravings and your deeper longing — how the feverish attachment scatters and enslaves the will, leaving no freedom to attend to anything higher.
- Practise Detachment — loosen the anchor. Toward each attachment, deliberately “refuse anchoring to material things”: keep using and enjoying them, but hold them loosely, willing to do without. Cultivate “disinterestedness” — viewing things “for their own sakes,” not for what they yield you. The test (à Kempis): be “lord and governor” of things, not “under them.”
- Practise Mortification — resolve the warring desires. Where passions conflict and pull the self apart, adjust them: let the lesser cravings die back so the self unifies “around one center,” the way “the artist or the lover” is simplified by a single love. Mortification here means ordering and dying-back of disordered desire, not self-punishment.
- Aim at “I, Me, Mine” loosening. Hold the goal Underhill borrows from Kabir — that “the I, the Me, and the Mine” stop running the show — as the direction, not a flagellation. The surface self is being simplified and freed, not attacked.
- Make it daily and concrete. Choose specific, small renunciations and disinterested acts; re-examine periodically. Purgation is a continual self-adjustment, not a one-time purge — it clears the ground so recollection and contemplation become possible. (Sourcing note: the quoted phrases — “enslaved by the verb ‘to have,’” “corporate or individual demands,” “for their own sakes,” the Kabir “I, the Me, and the Mine” and à Kempis “lord and governor” lines, and the artist/lover image — are from ch. V; the step ordering is a faithful structuring of Underhill’s discussion, which she presents more as principle than numbered drill.)
Source & Lineage
Evelyn Underhill (1875–1941), the leading English interpreter of the mystics, placed Purgation as the second stage of her practical scheme (recollection → purgation → the three contemplations → the Quiet → union), echoing the classic three-fold way (purgation, illumination, union).
Detachment and mortification are core to the whole Western ascetic-mystical tradition — Eckhart’s Abgeschiedenheit (detachment), John of the Cross’s nada, the desert and Carmelite disciplines — and she explicitly quotes Kabir and Thomas à Kempis (Imitation of Christ).
The Traditions' versions
Eckhart — detachment (Abgeschiedenheit) — releasing attachment so the soul is free for God.
- John of the Cross — nada / the active night of sense — disciplining the appetites that bind the will.
- Stoic discipline of desire — distinguishing what is “up to us,” holding externals loosely (cf. Epictetus’s “lord and governor” parallel).
- Buddhist non-clinging (tanha / non-attachment) — craving as the root of bondage; loosening grasping.
- ACT — cognitive defusion & values clarification — unhooking from compulsive wants, choosing values over acquisitive autopilot.
- Minimalism / voluntary simplicity — secularised detachment from “the verb to have.”
Common refinements
Turning mortification into self-punishment. The single most dangerous distortion. Underhill means ordering desire, not hurting yourself, starving, or denying legitimate needs. Simplify, don’t mutilate.
- Confusing detachment with coldness or neglect. Detachment is holding things loosely while still loving and using them well — not numbness, avoidance, or shirking responsibilities to people who depend on you.
- Repression instead of resolution. “Mortification” by white-knuckle suppression breeds the very fever it’s meant to cure. The aim is genuine re-ordering around a real, chosen love.
- Making it a one-time purge. It’s “self-adjustment” — continual, gentle re-tuning, not a dramatic clear-out you do once.
- Skipping the honest inventory. Vague “I’m not attached to anything” defeats the practice. Name the specific “haves” that actually grip you.
- Doing it without a centre. Mortification only simplifies if there is a unifying love to simplify toward (the “artist or lover”). Detachment-from with no devotion-to becomes bleak.