How to purify our life
15/10/2007 Filed in: Personal
Development
So much in our
lives is intoxicating. Toxic eating habits, toxic
emotions, toxic thoughts, toxic beliefs. Not to mention
what TV, radio, and the internet throw at us
continuously. If we decide to take a break from all
that and to purify our lives for the healthier and
happier, it can be difficult to know where to start.
Though identifying the source of the filth may give us
some valuable clues.
We are all fundamentally made up of the same stuff: bodies, senses, emotions, and thoughts that all overlap to a certain extent. And the way each of those parts interact with the others and with the outside world determines to a great extent our health and happiness. Maintaining a good balance is key to leading the most fulfilling life in the physical, emotional, moral and intellectual realms.
If you were to examine yourself right now — and I invite you to do so as you read this — how would you rate yourself?
Are you fit, do you exercise regularly, do you eat and drink healthily, do you sleep well?
Do you always have too much on your to-do list?
Are you ever annoyed or angry about things, people or yourself?
Do you need to make an effort to understand others, other cultures, other opinions, or do you tend to act - even unintentionally - as though you were the golden standard of Truth?
I don’t know about you, but there are a few things I need to work on! I guess if I didn’t, I'd be a saint, right? But I'm just a regular guy. I ought to cleanse myself of my dirty habits, to unclutter all the intoxicated aspects of my life. And that is just to function normally!
What if I wanted to grow spiritually? Wouldn’t I need to consolidate and purify the very foundations of what and who I am? To have the luxury to pursue any metaphysical aspiration, I must at the very least ensure that nothing more mundane and earthly can deflect my desire to migrate ever further towards the divine.
I like to think of the process of shedding unnecessary stuff in our lives as a purification: picture someone walking through life towards a Light and as she approaches, outer crusts fall away piece by piece revealing gradually her purest core. The motivation can be found in something as simple as the desire to live more healthily, or as a part of an infinite journey towards a greater moral or spiritual perfection. Whatever the motivation, one should not jeopardise any aspect of our lives by focussing too much on another, but one should rather work on purifying everything with balance.
1. Purifying our physical life.
Our bodies are, needless to say, the basis upon which all our activities rest, however “elevated” they may be. Even reading a book can be a challenge when one is afflicted with something as minor as a cold. Thus, taking good care of our physical health is crucial. Exercising regularly, following balanced diets, getting good sleep are all trivial things to point out, but they must be mentioned. For the more spiritually attuned, reducing red meats, coffee, alcohol, smoking, as well as sexual activity will allow to pacify and harmonise ones mind, since they all excite the brain’s activity. Full abstinence is certainly not necessary at all times, should only be practised occasionally, and be always compensated with a ‘higher’ activity - in this case, intellectual or spiritual. Putting oneself through too much austerity would in itself be a grave source of imbalance.
2. Purifying our emotions.
The next step, which in fact should be simultaneous with all the other steps presented here, is to keep a check on our emotions. A certain amount of introspection is needed to dissect the various emotions that we drift through. It takes a little practice to be able to watch emotions as if from a distance without getting involved. Meditation is an obvious help here. We want to be able to identify emotions like anger, jealousy, envy or pride early enough to block them. And I would consider stress, an ever more pressing modern affliction, as a primary emotion to rein in and stop. Stress, as you know, really messes you up not only emotionally and intellectually, but also physically because it weakens the immune system. I mention it here because I think it can be addressed in the same way as other negative emotions, although it is a tougher fight. On has to realise that stress is self-imposed, contrary to what people may think. It is a response to exterior circumstances, obviously, but the source of any emotional response is us. And like anger, frustration or contempt, it must be deflected or blocked as soon as it props its ugly head up. Luckily, stress is very distinctive: a slight constriction and acidity in the stomach, a faster heart beat, the sensation of cold extremities, etc. You know it.
Try asking yourself if <</span>insert emotion here> is good, useful, and necessary. If it isn’t any of those, let it go and move on — there are better things to do in life. For less trivial situations, when things seem to get out of hand, the usual network of psychological support should be considered before things get desperate, needless to say.
3. Purifying our thoughts.
A more profound source of emotional and physical imbalance is our thoughts. Your mind must become the guardian of your heart. Learning to control one’s thoughts will be the best way to avoid negative feelings and emotions, since they go together and because thoughts are where it all starts. Thoughts coalesce into emotions. And before they become thoughts, they are simply ideas. This takes a bit more practice, but it is very useful to be able to examine ideas as they come in. I have examined the origin of ideas in a previous post (read it here), which may shed light on what I am saying here.
As an idea forms, if it isn’t just part of an ongoing reflection, try to analyse how it makes you feel. Based on that, you will know whether to reject it, our to go along with it. Most ideas obviously don’t cast an emotional shadow, so you will have to examine those based on their intellectual merit as you do anyway without having to actually be conscious of that.
4. Balance.
Moderation in everything is paramount. One often tends to focus on one aspect of our lives while neglecting all others: sportsmen would neglect their education, mystics would neglect their body, computer programmers would neglect outdoor activities, and spiritual ‘leaders’ would have you reject academic knowledge. However, if there is a goal we can all agree upon, it would be to live a fulfilling life - which ever since Socrates one could call a life of virtue. Neglecting any one of these doesn’t make it go away, but on the contrary creates obstacles for the progress of the more favoured activities. Likewise, we shouldn’t focus solely on one of the realms described above, but should vary what we choose to tackle. If you decide that you should take up a martial art, make an effort to choose something more intellectual the next time, like learning a foreign language, or vice versa. And make it a rule that if you drop a bad habit, always replace it with something better.
We are all fundamentally made up of the same stuff: bodies, senses, emotions, and thoughts that all overlap to a certain extent. And the way each of those parts interact with the others and with the outside world determines to a great extent our health and happiness. Maintaining a good balance is key to leading the most fulfilling life in the physical, emotional, moral and intellectual realms.
If you were to examine yourself right now — and I invite you to do so as you read this — how would you rate yourself?
Are you fit, do you exercise regularly, do you eat and drink healthily, do you sleep well?
Do you always have too much on your to-do list?
Are you ever annoyed or angry about things, people or yourself?
Do you need to make an effort to understand others, other cultures, other opinions, or do you tend to act - even unintentionally - as though you were the golden standard of Truth?
I don’t know about you, but there are a few things I need to work on! I guess if I didn’t, I'd be a saint, right? But I'm just a regular guy. I ought to cleanse myself of my dirty habits, to unclutter all the intoxicated aspects of my life. And that is just to function normally!
What if I wanted to grow spiritually? Wouldn’t I need to consolidate and purify the very foundations of what and who I am? To have the luxury to pursue any metaphysical aspiration, I must at the very least ensure that nothing more mundane and earthly can deflect my desire to migrate ever further towards the divine.
I like to think of the process of shedding unnecessary stuff in our lives as a purification: picture someone walking through life towards a Light and as she approaches, outer crusts fall away piece by piece revealing gradually her purest core. The motivation can be found in something as simple as the desire to live more healthily, or as a part of an infinite journey towards a greater moral or spiritual perfection. Whatever the motivation, one should not jeopardise any aspect of our lives by focussing too much on another, but one should rather work on purifying everything with balance.
1. Purifying our physical life.
Our bodies are, needless to say, the basis upon which all our activities rest, however “elevated” they may be. Even reading a book can be a challenge when one is afflicted with something as minor as a cold. Thus, taking good care of our physical health is crucial. Exercising regularly, following balanced diets, getting good sleep are all trivial things to point out, but they must be mentioned. For the more spiritually attuned, reducing red meats, coffee, alcohol, smoking, as well as sexual activity will allow to pacify and harmonise ones mind, since they all excite the brain’s activity. Full abstinence is certainly not necessary at all times, should only be practised occasionally, and be always compensated with a ‘higher’ activity - in this case, intellectual or spiritual. Putting oneself through too much austerity would in itself be a grave source of imbalance.
2. Purifying our emotions.
The next step, which in fact should be simultaneous with all the other steps presented here, is to keep a check on our emotions. A certain amount of introspection is needed to dissect the various emotions that we drift through. It takes a little practice to be able to watch emotions as if from a distance without getting involved. Meditation is an obvious help here. We want to be able to identify emotions like anger, jealousy, envy or pride early enough to block them. And I would consider stress, an ever more pressing modern affliction, as a primary emotion to rein in and stop. Stress, as you know, really messes you up not only emotionally and intellectually, but also physically because it weakens the immune system. I mention it here because I think it can be addressed in the same way as other negative emotions, although it is a tougher fight. On has to realise that stress is self-imposed, contrary to what people may think. It is a response to exterior circumstances, obviously, but the source of any emotional response is us. And like anger, frustration or contempt, it must be deflected or blocked as soon as it props its ugly head up. Luckily, stress is very distinctive: a slight constriction and acidity in the stomach, a faster heart beat, the sensation of cold extremities, etc. You know it.
Try asking yourself if <</span>insert emotion here> is good, useful, and necessary. If it isn’t any of those, let it go and move on — there are better things to do in life. For less trivial situations, when things seem to get out of hand, the usual network of psychological support should be considered before things get desperate, needless to say.
3. Purifying our thoughts.
A more profound source of emotional and physical imbalance is our thoughts. Your mind must become the guardian of your heart. Learning to control one’s thoughts will be the best way to avoid negative feelings and emotions, since they go together and because thoughts are where it all starts. Thoughts coalesce into emotions. And before they become thoughts, they are simply ideas. This takes a bit more practice, but it is very useful to be able to examine ideas as they come in. I have examined the origin of ideas in a previous post (read it here), which may shed light on what I am saying here.
As an idea forms, if it isn’t just part of an ongoing reflection, try to analyse how it makes you feel. Based on that, you will know whether to reject it, our to go along with it. Most ideas obviously don’t cast an emotional shadow, so you will have to examine those based on their intellectual merit as you do anyway without having to actually be conscious of that.
4. Balance.
Moderation in everything is paramount. One often tends to focus on one aspect of our lives while neglecting all others: sportsmen would neglect their education, mystics would neglect their body, computer programmers would neglect outdoor activities, and spiritual ‘leaders’ would have you reject academic knowledge. However, if there is a goal we can all agree upon, it would be to live a fulfilling life - which ever since Socrates one could call a life of virtue. Neglecting any one of these doesn’t make it go away, but on the contrary creates obstacles for the progress of the more favoured activities. Likewise, we shouldn’t focus solely on one of the realms described above, but should vary what we choose to tackle. If you decide that you should take up a martial art, make an effort to choose something more intellectual the next time, like learning a foreign language, or vice versa. And make it a rule that if you drop a bad habit, always replace it with something better.