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What is the Need for Cleaning?
We are more worried today about external pollution, about the ozone
layer, about the forests in Europe dying because of pollution, about
the rivers not being fit even for fish to live in. What about this universe
within, which we have polluted over millennia of existence from the
moment we were first created, and thrown out of our Original Home by
our ego? Have we cleaned it up? Have we ever thought that if we cleaned
this up, it will automatically become clean? Is it not this inner greed,
lust, that is polluting the outer universe of mine? Is the outer universe
anything other than the reflection of my inner universe? Therefore,
is not the possibility of cleaning the external universe only latent
in my cleaning up my inner universe? Otherwise, I am only cutting the
grass and, you know, gilding the lily, as they say. If this wisdom dawns,
then who will not come to meditate? Who will not subject himself or
herself to the cleaning process?
We find that our life has lost any meaning that it might have had.
Our successes are but empty shells. Our wealth is but a sham and a mockery,
incapable of procuring for us the things we most ardently desire - peace,
happiness and contentment. We begin to understand that in effect, we
are yet but animals in human form swayed by greed, lust and passion
to such an extent that if thwarted in achieving our desires, few of
us would hesitate to destroy anything that comes in our way. If such
tendencies are allowed to prevail and to grow, then surely that which
was born a human being does die an animal.
So, to humanise the animal-human being is then the first step in spiritual
practice. As my Master states it, animal-man has to become human-man
or man-man first, before he can think of further development of the
perfect-Man. To do this, the individual's tendencies have got to be
corrected and oriented in the proper direction. The impressions of the
past, engraved upon mind and memory, have to be erased. Such impressions
are the source of present thoughts and actions. Therefore, so long as
they persist, action along certain lines is compulsive. The cleaning
of the system is thus of paramount importance.
HOW ARE IMPRESSIONS FORMED? Every time we think of something,
and we become attached to what we think about, an impression is formed
in the mind. That impression which the thought creates becomes the parent
of an action or of an activity. And when the activity is indulged in,
when the activity is undertaken, the impression becomes deeper. And
as the impressions become deeper in this way, we enter into what we
may call a repetitive cycle of existence. It is perhaps in this fashion
that habits are formed. And as these impressions become deeper and deeper
they solidify. At that stage, we find that we are in a very real sense,
captives or prisoners of our own past.
It is our past impressions which hold us down and create patterns of
behaviour which we are unable to modify. We are the slaves of our past.
We think we are free to think and act as we like but, truly speaking,
this is a fallacy. We are conditioned in everything by the past. This
is Lalaji's greatness that by this process of cleaning he makes it possible
to completely remove the effects of the past, in stages of course. What
is the use of telling a person he must change? Of course everyone would
like to change, but it is not possible. Because the mind is conditioned
by the past. So, change can come only by cleaning the mind of past impressions.
This makes it possible for the abhyasi to be slowly liberated from his
past.
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