Outer
level: Cleanliness of the body. Cleanliness of environment which one
inhabits (including your home and car!), keeping to moderation in
diet, eating pure foods, wearing clean clothes
Inner level: The danger of practicing soucha on the solely physical
level is in developing deeper prejudices about what "purity"
is. Soucha at the inner level is discriminative awareness. Soucha
reveals the virtue and cleanliness arising out of a state of perception,
to be found everywhere and in all things, rather than the physical
quality alone. The implication is that when one realizes reality is
unstained except by mental projections upon it by the seer, one will
stop looking for purity as an ideal and experience it in everything--that
which is repugnant as well as that which is attractive. Seeing "good"
or "bad", "clean" or "unclean" can unlock
our preferential judgments about what we identify with, and help us
to develop real discrimination and skillful means as to how to interact
with our environment. Human beings get caught up in what we like and
do not like and affinity ourselves with what is desirable, rejecting
what is not. We tend to surround ourselves with what we would like
to identify with and then have problems relating to what we cannot
identify with. The practice of Soucha at the mind level is to break
down these prejudices and become increasingly contented (see Santosha)
and nourished by the indefatigable purity of the Light within, which
is simultaneously resting within everything else that is manifest.
That clear Light of awareness is always available to us whenever we
reduce our reliance on the information being brought to us solely
from the thoughts or senses (see Pratyahara). Being established in
Soucha at this level also reduces our tendency to grasp desperately
at the things we can manipulate externally as a source of connecting
with purity (see Aparigraha).
Secret level: "Cleanliness of body and mind develops disinterest
in contact with others for self-gratification".
Yoga Sutra II.40, Sadhana Pada, translation
from BKS Iyengar's Light on Yoga Sutras
see also Santosha,
Tapas, Svadyaya,
Isvara Pranidana
