When this purity is reached man lives in virtue. Virtue is not a thing which he expresses or experiences from time to time; his life itself is virtue. Every moment that God is absent from the consciousness is considered by the sage to be a sin; for at that moment the purity of the heart is poisoned. It is lack of life which is sin: and it is purity of life which is virtue. It is of this purity that Jesus Christ spoke when he said, "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.'