Purification

A purified mind is an ideal instrument to receive knowledge. Most paths start with the process of purification first and when the student is ready, knowledge is imparted. However, Path of Knowledge being the direct path, it starts from the top where first knowledge is imparted, and with the grace of Guru if it is received, then automatically the purification process begins. Basic impurity is ignorance and cure is knowledge. To speed it up, still some practices are suggested and these practices are then arranged bottoms up.

Impurities create great obstacles on the spiritual path and it is important to recognise them and remove them. Suggested measures are based on personal experiences, think carefully before using them. Use your wisdom and assessment, because everyone is different. You are responsible for any experiment you do on yourself. It is always better to take advice of someone who has already done it, especially when the practices are more complex. Don't go extreme, consult your teacher. It may change your speech, thoughts, desires, relationships. It is a wild ride! The more the purification the more intense awareness.

Impurities: Environment

Environment is the bottom most layer, we are part of the environment. Nature rules us we do not rule nature. We are not above nature who can do anything with the surroundings. People are stupid and start destroying their environment. It is because of selfishness and greed. Majority only want to use natural resources, not protect them. Air is polluted, water is polluted, in the offices so many people stuffed in same room, people live in congested places, are pigeon holed in houses. Even villagers are getting polluted.

• All are living in a sea of pollution. Because of city life, worst water is available. Bottled water is used which is cleaned with chemicals and then people throw bottles around causing more pollution. Earth is used as a garbage bin.
• They buy food from outside because they do not have time to cook. Impure food causes diseases.
• People keep animals inside their house which is neither good for them nor for the animals. There is mass killing of animals for food.
• People want the biggest car and not use bus because they feel inferior. They do not even want to walk because walking is for slaves.
• There is so much of noise pollution. Complete lack of peace, so much noise of traffic or machines or loud music.

Motivation for most people is not to stay clean but to show off. They want to put a stamp of superiority on themselves. How can one contemplate on philosophical stuff when there is so much filth around? How will they practice?

Cure

• Earth is our home. Keep environment clean.
• Keep the city or village clean.
• Stop thinking of yourself as superior to others, you are only being retarded.
• Keep the house simple and clean. Do not worry about showing off stuff. Minimalism automatically makes it beautiful, there is more space too. Simplicity is good for contemplation.
• As far as possible, live in peaceful place, away from crowd.
• Reduce travel time. Take a job that meets your needs. Job does not give you prestige, it gives you heart attack, stress, cancer.
• If you think you will get treated in the hospital then know that hospitals are the filthiest places in this world.
• Don't be a fake seeker. Seek wisdom, not mob mentality.
• Prosperity need not mean greed and profit.
• Avoid staying in violent countries and cultures. If you live in a very polluted city or locality it is a good idea to change place.
• Avoid consumerist and capitalist cultures.
• Avoid violence towards animals for greed.
• Recycle, don't waste. Use minimum amount. Use technology for protecting the environment.
• Cleanliness and beauty affects the mind
• Keep only that which is absolutely necessary...no need to show off.
• Treat your country as your own. Clean it yourself. We are not attackers or settlers anymore.
• Quality of life is more important than profit and power.

Purification of Environment: Benefits

• Peace, bliss, happiness.
• Love, beauty, joy.
• Life is worth living.
• Acceleration of spiritual progress.

Impurities: Body

There can be many impurities in the body and one may not have all of them. One has to check and remove those that one finds in oneself. We know that body is not me nor mine yet we should take care of it.

• Don't make it impure and the body will take care of itself. Body has its own intelligence, it purifies itself, its own processes. Body has sufficient arrangements to take care of it. In the natural environment, animals, birds and insects are naturally clean and beautiful.
• We want a good experience and pure body helps to get positive experiences. Utilize natural ability of the body to keep it pure. One day we will be freed from it, but right now we are stuck with it so we might as well make use of it. Use it like a vehicle to work in this illusion. Don't break it. This vehicle is super smart but user is dumb, and ignorance is the basic impurity.
• Body is an ecosystem of tiny organisms composed of bacteria, viruses, chemicals, which have decided to come together to form a complex pattern. 70-80% of body are other creatures, it is part of the ecosystem. It is just a machine. Learn about the body, learn about the biology.
• Visit a medical college where they cut various parts and keep in glass bottles. You will no more be attached to the body. The result- detachment will be extremely useful.
• Body is a part of the environment and it continuously exchanges matter through 9-10 orifices which are continuously oozing out sticky substances. Skin is continuously oozing out sweat and oil. Even breath is polluting the environment. Microbes are continuously breaking out the organic matter which causes body odour.
• Clothing is a necessity and body makes the clothes dirty, they accumulate microbes and need to be washed. But chemicals are used to wash clothes. You think you are cleaning it and actually you can make it worse. The body forgets to fight and immunity drops when due to excessive use of chemicals, the microbes that are required to attack the body are killed.
• Make-up kills the good bacteria on the skin. There is an inferiority complex that if people do not look in a certain way others are not going to accept them. People colour their hair to avoid looking old. One can see many mental abnormalities here. Some people want to hide their ugliness through looking beautiful. There is fear of rejection.
• Perfumes and deodorants are used to fool others so they may think you are clean if you smell nice.
• Making holes in the body and putting metals. It is to make the body look attractive. A dirty body that already has holes, why make more holes?
• Humans think they are smart and over-eat, eat heavy food, food made in restaurants or factory; that makes them fat, ugly and sick. Through eating meat they eat diseased filthy animals. Bodies are fighting after each meal. Body can digest anything but we should not overtax it. When there is abundance to eat, why should we eat filth.
• Drinking sugary, carbonised, chemical drinks, alcohol; when all the body needs is pure water.
• Breathing polluted air, or stale air which is circulating in a closed AC room.
• People sleep too much or too less.
• Irregular excretion is a major impurity which people do not realise. When body does not defecate properly because of bad habits, it causes issues in all layers including upper layers. Not only the worldly matters are impacted, it is not possible to progress spiritually.
• Lack of exercise or over exercise, both are bad for the body.
• Bad posture can impact the spine that can be a deterrent in spiritual practices.

Abuse of body for pleasures like food and sex. Body generates pleasure and people want it again and again but over indulgence causes pain and suffering. Imbalance in the body due to ignoring the inbuilt mechanism causes diseases which become a big impurity. Genetic or accidental deformations. In old age there is degradation of bodily functions. They take strong medicines to stay alive, still eat the same kind of food, still want to do same amount of work as they did in young age. Other people cause impurities in us and we don't see them. Sit in the same train or bus, use same supports, eat in restaurants using same seats, plates, spoons; shoes accumulate disease every time we go out, we bring it all in the house. Some people have jobs where they are exposed to hundreds of people every day and that impacts the body. Violence, war, crime, rape; causing other bodies harm, millions of people become deformed. People do all kinds of adventure sports that can deform their body forever.

Cure

• Don't do all these things.
• Keep the body clean by bathing regularly.
• Wear clothes according to the weather.
• Do not wash clothes with chemicals.
• Use natural means to beautify your body instead of make-up. Don't try to be someone you are not. Do not fake beauty.
• Advertisers are only invoking your inferiority complex by using photoshopped models to sell you things. If people don't accept you, you accept yourself.
• Do not mutilate body, respect it. In the PoK we do not make politically correct statements.
• Eat most natural food that you can find.
• Cook your own food, do not eat food touched or cooked by other people.
• Do not eat restaurant and factory made food.
• Do not overeat. We eat to live. It should be nutritious. Do not kill animals to eat. If it will be a necessity it will happen automatically. If your teacher has advised you to avoid certain foods, do not eat that food.
• Drink pure water or fruit juices. Give up carbonated drinks, alcohol.
• Sleep well.
• Make your defecation an easy and regular process.
• Exercise when you are young, rest when you are old.
• Maintain a good posture. Movement is the best posture. Keep changing the posture, keep stretching the body.
• Treat diseases immediately.
• If there is any deformation, accept it. Now it is not an impurity anymore.
• There is nothing wrong in being old. Trying to be young in old age is not maturity. Age gracefully. Do not fake youth. Shift your role as per your age. Earn respect, do not demand it.
• When the body starts packing up, you also pack up.
• Maintain physical distance from people. Do not go near. Do not hold their hands.
• Do not go on a war. Do not kill.
• Do not take unnecessary risks. If you want entertainment, do it alone, do not put others at risk. Do not try to kill for fun.

Purification of Body: Benefits

• Fit, healthy, beautiful.
• Whatever you do you will succeed.
• Happiness, peace and speed.
• You sleep better.
• Intelligence grows.
• Elegant ageing.
• If your food is right you will not feel heavy. Light body.
• Long life.
• Easy to take any spiritual practices.
• Speech and thoughts become purified.
• Fearless.
• Attention will become steady and strong.
• This body is a temple- the most advanced instrument. Natural evolution happens with a pure body.

Impurities: Awareness

Awareness is the ability of the mind to know itself, to know its own existence. It is the knowledge of the true Self. It is the highest layer possible in a creature. It is a very evolved ability of the mind; an ability found in extremely few people; and this ability comes and goes. Just like intelligence it is not found in everyone.

It is an ability, an activity. Awareness is not the Experiencer, it comes and goes. Experiencer never goes away; what can go is the awareness. Those who know are aware of themselves as a presence, which comes only after Self Realisation. The knowledge of Self is the most natural. But in normal people, awareness is very flimsy, it hardly lasts a second and then becomes identified with body and mind. It is very easy to realise and that's why it is also very easy to fall to illusion.

I am aware that 'I am.' 'I am' is the Existence appearing as tiny creature. 

Biggest becomes a tiny speck of dust and becomes identified with it. A state of sleep while lower layers are awake. Not knowing our true nature we become tiny and lose the paradise. Because of disease of unawareness we have lost everything.

• Why are we identified with these forms that appear and disappear?
• Why and how this impurity happened?

Impurity is wrong knowledge that I am my body, my feelings, my thoughts, my desires. In PoK we chop off the impurities.

You are not an experience- that is the whole knowledge. I am this Eternal Presence, and this is my home. 

• Mistaking the illusion for reality, mind convinces itself that this is real. Dream appears real when you are in the dream. It is poison of the senses.
• Refusal of knowledge when Guru tries to show you the mirror.
• Fear
• Not knowing the true purpose of life. What is the purpose of this human experience?
• Afflicted intellect: To be powerful through money, power, status, more possessions, partners.
• Confuse momentary pleasures with happiness.
• Meaningless animalistic life.
• Staying unaware and ignorant. You are in bad company- surrounded by ignorant, stupid and cunning people.
• Ignorance that I am separate from everyone and everything.

Purification: Awareness

• Start listening to wise people.
• Get rid of conditioning.
• Be in company of aware people.
• It takes practise to stay in awareness, remember your true nature.
• With aware people your awareness is raised naturally.
• Give up stupid practices and dogma.
• How much time it takes for the gold ornament to become gold?
• Realise the Nonduality/Oneness.

Benefits: Awareness

• Life is full of peace, bliss, no running, no seeking.
• Feel in control all the time.
• Stability and fearlessness.
• Easy, beautiful, simple life.
• Rise in intelligence and wisdom.
• Natural purification- you will stop all impurities that impact you.
• Tremendous will power: very strong logical and rational, nobody can fool you
• No impurity will touch you.
• Freedom.
• Liberation.