68. Shaucha – Keeping Body and Mind clean…….!

Shaucha is cleanliness of body, and mind. Without the mind we cannot perform any action. The mind gives the order to the body to perform action. Every action that is performed by the body is already performed in the mind. A clean mind gives a clear message to the body to do the task. So a clean body does not necessarily be the reason for a clean action, but a clean mind involuntarily makes the body perform clean action. Isn’t cleaning the mind as important as cleaning the body????? To clean the body we take bath daily using variety of body cleansers. We take care not to get tanned by Sunlight and apply sunscreen lotions. 

Likewise our ancient seers had modulated meditation to clean our mind and to sit in seat of silence to keep our mind from getting tainted. If we do not take bath for a day we feel uncomfortable, but for the whole lifetime we don’t clean the mind. What exactly does cleaning the mind mean then???? Cleaning the mind is washing away all negative emotions like hatred, jealousy, hate, lust, greed, impatience, envy, bitterness, frustration, anger and so on. Generally a pure-minded person is very often referred to as one who is too good to live in society and appears to be lacking common sense as he is in his own world. It may be true; but it is not his fault. It is the fault of the immoral world. This world has gone from bad to worse. 

A person who is pure in mind is now looked as an outcaste and regarded unfit to live in this society filled with frauds and swindlers. But that does not matter. One can just as well be pure in mind and wise at the same time. A pure-minded person can work in sophisticated matters as efficiently and capably as a worldly man and attain everlasting success. While a person without purity in mind may be able to achieve success, but not an everlasting one. A pure mind is naturally relaxed, unruffled and quiet it radiates positive energy. It is undisturbed by negative thought patterns and is never in boredom as boredom often stems from negative thoughts. But there are other benefits as well. Suppose a man is looking for certain book for his research and does not know which book stall to go in the city. But he has a definite idea in his mind of what it should be like and as soon as he enters the very first shop his eyes falls upon the very book he is searching for. Perhaps throughout the whole city he could not have found another, but his mind brought him straight to the book he was looking for. 

How does this happen? 

It comes from purity of mind. When one’s mind is pure, the joy will follow him just like the shadow that never leaves him. When one’s mind is impure, the suffering will follow him just like the shadow that never leaves him – Bhagavan Buddha