Shaoca means purity, both external and internal: the four kinds of purity, how to maintain them, and how purity affects life and meditation.
The power of purity
*Shaoca* means purity. It can be external (cleanliness of the body, clothing and surroundings) or internal (purity of mind).
Why should we follow this principle? Cleanliness is next to godliness: if you have attained purity, you are five minutes away from divinity, and if you are dirty, you are very far from it.
The philosophy of yoga distinguishes 4 kinds of purity. Below we will look at how to get rid of impurity and maintain purity.
1. External physical purity
External physical purity is the cleanliness of the body, clothing and living environment. This kind of purity is the easiest to maintain. Physically cleaning a space means tidying up, putting things in order, washing the floors, clearing away dust and dirt.
The space you are in can absorb information, remember events and the habits and traits of the people who lived there, and this energy affects you negatively.
What can you do about it? The most effective way is to fill a bucket with water, take a cloth and, while repeating a A sound or set of sounds that, repeated with its meaning in mind, carries the mind toward the Infinite., clean the space, filling it with your own energy. In this way you will remove all the energy of others.
A renewed space will take away pain and negative memories, give a person the chance to feel purity, and attune them to a new way of life
In the same way you can try to help people who suffer from alcohol addiction and do not want to change their habits. People who practice meditation immediately feel the effect of a transformed environment.
Wash your clothes. In caring for your body, try not to use cosmetics with chemical scents. You can use natural fragrances of natural origin: essential oils, plants (roses and the like). One who avoids scents altogether is a saint.
Such a person has such deep balance within that they do not want their inner being to be shaken in any way, since scents disturb the balance. In other words, the fewer scents around you, the better.
2. Internal physical purity
Internal physical purity is health, the cleanliness of the internal organs. To keep physically healthy, you need to follow a diet. If you suddenly want something unhealthy, make sure you don't throw just anything into yourself without measure. Otherwise the body quickly becomes polluted.
The recommendations are simple: drink plenty of water and keep to a lacto-vegetarian diet, which excludes foods that affect the human body and mind negatively, such as meat, fish, eggs, onions, garlic, mushrooms, alcohol and tobacco. It is intuitively clear that these foods are "heavy" and pollute our digestive tract, circulatory system and other systems. This is bad both for health and for a person's mental state.
We cannot always tell what foreign substances are in vegetables and fruit, or how harmful those substances are to our body. So from time to time we need to give the body a chance to restore itself. That is what the practice of fasting is for. During a fast the body switches from "digesting food" mode to "removing toxins and other blockages" mode. After coming out of a fast you feel purity both inside and out. That is why after fasting you sometimes want to stay quiet and meditate.
3. External mental purity
External mental purity is control over the information coming in from the outside world. What we read, watch and listen to, and whom we spend time with — all of this needs to be controlled.
We should give our attention only to things that are useful and beneficial for the mind, and avoid what leads to the degradation of the personality.
4. Internal mental purity
Internal mental purity is control over our own thoughts. There are 6 kinds of expressions in us that pollute the mind most of all:
- krodha (anger)
- lobha (greed)
- moha (blind attachment)
- mada (vanity)
- káma (lust)
- mátsarya (envy)
They can be overcome by reprogramming ourselves: when a thought arises, we need to replace it with its opposite.
For example, you feel anger toward another person. At that moment it is worth picturing this person as a friend rather than an enemy. Perhaps not at once, but over some time your feelings toward them will change. This approach has a scientific basis: when an idea is replaced by its opposite, other glands and other nerves come into play, the brain begins to work differently, and in the end the desired result is achieved.
Greed is transformed through generosity. You need to learn to give away at least a drop of what is most precious to you and what you love very much. It doesn't matter whether it is money, food or something else. Just share, and gradually you will begin to enjoy it, and the greed will disappear.
Blind attachment, from which many people suffer greatly, often shows itself toward loved ones and children. A person then cannot even imagine life without the object of their attachment. But this attachment is very selfish. Parting with the object of attachment even for a short time, you feel discomfort. Here you need to create the opposite thought: "I want you to be happy." That is, you should learn to think first not of yourself but of the good of the other person and of the whole of society. This is a powerful medicine.
Vanity is replaced by humility. If someone praises or criticizes you, don't become conceited or angry. Be grateful to the person for showing you facets of your inner world. If there is even a grain of truth in their words, simply thank them in your heart (truly). This is the medicine for vanity.
Lust means attraction to the opposite sex. Here too there is a way of retuning. A man should think, "This is my mother." A woman should think, "This is my son." And through this reprogramming lust is healed.
Envy is healed by humility. Envy is a feeling of hostility, a refusal to accept the situation when someone else has something better than you. In that case you should be glad for the person that something good has come into their life. And think of yourself as very rich and self-sufficient, so that you need nothing. Be glad that others receive even a small share of happiness. Then envy dissolves.
You have now become acquainted with simple and effective methods of getting rid of mental impurities.
The seeds sown by good and negative actions done in the past are called A reaction of a past action waiting in the mind to be lived through; what people often call fate..
They are stored in the mind and, like little springs, are ready to uncoil and drive you into an action that will bring you either suffering or pleasure. Meditation makes these seeds sprout; the saḿskáras begin to express themselves in the mental sphere, thereby purifying our spiritual sphere. Singing and constantly repeating a mantra is also a "scrubbing sponge" that cleans all the dirt out of the mind.
Start practicing shaoca at least on the physical level, and you will find inspiration. When your home is clean and beautiful, what do you feel like doing? You feel like sitting down and stopping the moment, enjoying the silence, meditating.
If after fasting and yoga exercises the body becomes light and flexible, your mood and your outlook on the world change for the better too. Shaoca is a very powerful practice. If you begin to follow just this one principle, it will turn your life around.