Shaoca

Shaoca means purity or cleanliness. It can be subdivided into two parts, one relating to external sphere, i.e., external cleanliness, and the other to mental sphere, i.e. internal cleanliness.

The proper use of soap, water or other cleansers to keep the body, clothes or surroundings clean is external cleanliness. By this cleanliness the physical objects with which people are directly associated are cleaned and made fit for use.

When people, driven by instincts, direct their mental propensities blindly towards the objects of pleasure without taking any help from their conscience -- or when mind ultimately gets crudified by being constantly goaded by selfish motives -- whether or not they think of doing harm to others, their minds get distorted. The complexes by which this distortion occurs are the impurities of the mind. For example, if any acquaintance suddenly earns much name, fame or knowledge, many will develop a feeling of jealousy towards him. People suffer from envy and jealousy at the prosperity of others; they do not give the least thought as to how much potentiality they themselves possess to earn those things or to acquire those qualities. Though that fortunate person did no harm to them, yet being overpowered by jealousy they create trouble for, or think ill of, him or her.

Where selfish interest is hampered, the minds of even the so-called honest people also become distorted within a very short time. Just as one's clothes and houses get dirty very quickly in a dust storm, so also the mind becomes much more polluted by the storm of even insignificant passion in much less time. Therefore, it is a necessity to maintain the cleanliness of body, dress and house, but the need to keep the mind clean is still greater. Cleansing the mind is a far more laborious job than cleansing the body, clothes, house, etc.

Intelligent people should not, therefore, allow their mental purity to be stained. You must always guard against the tempest of passion. You must not yield to such storms. One more difference between external and internal cleanliness is that to remove external dirt - while cleansing the body, clothes or house - one has to come in contact with impurities for some time. But in the mental sphere the cleansing process does not require your coming in contact with any filth. The application of force is necessary to remove the impurities. The weight of the actual gold can be determined only by removing the impurities from the gold.

The application of force must be a special type of action. External shaoca is an external activity and mental shaoca is an internal activity. If the impurity of selfishness, which, by entering into every cavity of the mental body, makes it weak--makes life a heavy burden - it has to be removed, it has to be burnt and melted in the fire of meditation. This meditation must be such that no impurity, no black spot, remains in the mind. The feeling of selflessness, the feeling of universalism is the only remedy to remove mental impurities. People who have fascination or temptation for any material object, can gradually remove that mental pollution arising out of selfish motives by adopting just the reverse course. Those who are very greedy for money should form the habit of charity, and they can serve humanity through such a practice. Those who are angry or egoistic should cultivate the habit of being polite, and they should serve humanity through that practice. Therefore, only selfless service to humanity and the effort to look upon the world with a Cosmic outlook alone can lead to establishment in mental shaoca.

Human beings' desire to acquire things from others knows no bounds. Their hopes are never quenched, but their spirit of giving to others is very meager. Generally when people do give something to others, the intention of charity or service is absolutely secondary; their predominant feeling is to receive something in exchange. In other words, they have extreme greed to garner fame by one hand and give charity by the other. A spiritual aspirant will have to adopt the opposite course to get rid of the burning flames of greed; s/he will have to develop an infinite desire to give to others with no intention at all of obtaining anything from them. You will have to establish yourselves in the realm of infinity by smashing the fetters of unit ego.

You must have seen many people who become angry and sorrowful at the time of their distress saying, "I helped those persons in their adversity, served them so much on their sick-bed, but today they are so ungrateful that they do not even cast a glance at me." They may even curse, "God is witnessing everything -- they will have to reap the consequences of their actions." You know that such remarks are an extremely vulgar expression of mental meanness. Such persons have not done meditation for mental purification, nor have they truly served anybody in adversity or sickness. In fact they took advantage of other people's distress and gave them some assistance as an advance; but the motive behind such assistance was to recover it with full interest.

A question may be raised as to how much people should donate for achieving mental purification. Should they make paupers of themselves? Where service is the goal, people should fully observe aparigraha, acquiring only the bare necessities of life, for themselves and their direct dependents, without which they cannot live, and utilize the rest for the collective welfare of the universe.

But one who is dedicated to an ideal must be prepared to gladly and eagerly give up one's all -- even one's life -- for the collective interest. Even in a house where food is not abundant, you should keep something for the residents of the house to appease their hunger, and donate the rest to the needy. In this case, thinking of the residents' necessities is not narrowness or meanness, because the preservation of life is certainly very important, though not the ultimate aim. When one is fighting for an ideal, however, to accept defeat means to plunge into severe gloom. Where there is not the least possibility to remove the gloom, one will have to sacrifice everything to uphold one's ideal. You should always be ready like an armed soldier to meet such exigencies.