The next value Krishna takes up in the Bhagavad Gita is called shauchya or cleanliness, purity, and he mentions there `bahaya and antara’, meaning `external’ and `internal’. External is about hygiene, etc., and I need not talk about something so basic in this post because we are all aware of it. But we do need to talk about `antara shauchyam’ or inner purity. `Inner purity’ has a lot of sexual connotations for people; we are not talking about that here. Nowhere in the vedic tradition is there any guilt associated with sex.
If you can hold on when the muscles and sinews are long but gone, and all that is left is a will that says hold on, then you’re a man’…
When you’re talking about shauchya, you are talking about your psychological state. Many people have hurt, pain, guilt, excessive anger, unresolved issues…All this is the emotional baggage that many of us carry. `Shauchyam’ would mean dealing with all this baggage. It is too elaborate to go into every detail of the baggage a human being can carry. Generally, every human being has guilt with respect to what we have done to others, because as human beings we have all made mistakes and hurt other people in thought, word and deed, especially word and deed. We have said hurtful things and we have to learn to deal with that and remove that guilt from our minds. Similarly, it’s also common to have some hurt and pain because we have also, at times, been on the receiving end of hurtful words and deeds. This is fundamental in life—you do things to others and receive things from others. So some amount of pain can also be there and it has to be dealt with. There is no `one size fits all’ solution for this because each person’s pain is unique and different, and, depending on the situation, one may have to resort to a spiritual guide, a counsellor, guide, mentor, friend, etc. In the same way, some people have unresolved anger or grief or other psychological issues; a person may have lost somebody or may have gone through a divorce or some other problem…To be able to clean oneself of all the baggage one carries is called `inner cleanliness’ or shauchya, because otherwise this baggage will surely block the person from knowing what he or she really is.
Now all this may seem too much to study Vedanta but , please remember that the qualifications here are unusual as I mentioned in an earlier post. What I want to know and what I want to be is one and the same. If the teacher is unfolding the fact that I am ananda and in my mind there is hurt, guilt, anger, etc then the teaching will come in filtered through all this. There is no way I’m really going to understand the teaching much less own it up. The goal is to psychologically heal and this is usually taken care of by teachers for their students in one-to-one meetings, etc. It’s too elaborate to explain in detail in a post, but each one of us needs to work on the value of shauchya.
There are a lot of spiritual processes, psychological processes, body-mind work, breathing practices, various religious and spiritual meditations etc. The idea is to do what it takes to heal. What works for you is the right thing for you. The simplest way is to deal with it psychologically, to learn to let go, and supplement it with some spiritual learning. If there is guilt, for example, one needs to learn to let go.
The next value is `sthairyam’ or steadfastness. It reminds me of Kipling’s poem called `If’. `If you can hold on when the muscles and sinews are long but gone, and all that is left is a will that says hold on, then you’re a man’…Holding on to what one believes is right should not be mistaken for pig-headed stubbornness. One may recall the English poem here, ‘The boy stood on the burning deck’. He continued to stand obeying his captain’s (also his father) order. The whole ship is burning, his captain is dead, all the sailors have abandoned the ship but the boy continues to stand on the deck, true to his orders. While this may be heroic and even inspiring it is an exaggeration. The value of sthaiyam is more pragmatic. If conditions change drastically then I change my decision and course of action not otherwise. Of course some little rain does not make me change my decision to go for a vedanta class! Sthairyam is the ability to follow one’s dharma, stick on to this learning even though one may feel lost in the dark right now, but one takes one step at a time. You stick to it, you don’t quit…You stick to what you have taken up, you stick to your dharma, you stick to your learning and make it work. The value of `sthairyam’ is very important. This is connected to the next value called `atma vinigraha’ and cannot be done without it.
`Atma vinigraha’ is self-mastery. What is self-mastery? My mind listens to me, I don’t have to listen to my mind. A dog wagging its tail is beautiful to see, but when the tail starts to wag the dog, that’s a tail the cannot afford to have. The same thing happens to human beings. As long as it is my emotions, my impulses, it’s fine, but the trouble starts when my moods and impulses govern me. There are psychological processes that can help us master the mind. REBT, for example, Rational Emotiive Behaviour Therapy, something I do with my students, the simple ABC of thinking. One can do meditations, one can do what it takes to master oneself, including developing one’s will to be able to control one’s impulses, developing one’s self-awareness, being aware of an impulse that’s coming up and learning to hold it in check and channelize the energy into something that will help you. All this comes under `atma-vinagraha’ or self-mastery.