Bathing the Soul

 

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Bathing the Soul

As a matter of hygiene most of us bathe every day, some twice, thrice a day to get the dust, grime, sweat off our body. After bathing we feel nice and fresh, we are energised and feel good about ourself. Similarly, we need to give our soul a bath too, so that we can cleanse whatever much has accumulated on it throughout the day!

When it comes to purifying ourselves many of us believe that bathing every day, chanting mantras will purify us but in an actual sense, they are trying to purify something that is deteriorating continuously and anything that deteriorates continuously has to end one day, but the soul is something that is constant, infinite. It is the life force that enters the body and gradually over several births and continuous progress it realises itself with higher awareness. The more the awareness, the greater the realisation that one is a soul rather than the physical body, the greater this awareness, the greater the detachment from worldly pleasure – and hence the need to continuously purify this life force by bathing. The soul’s equivalent of a bath is meditation on a daily, regular basis.

Death is the ultimate reality which is definitely going to happen at some point in our life as the body is continuously deteriorating and with this deterioration dawns the realisation that we won’t last for too long, and along with this realisation comes the fear of death. The way to surmount this fear is to live in awareness and from moment to moment, knowing full well that you are not the body which is perishable, but the soul that is permanent and infinite! For soul realisation to happen, the soul has to be awakened either by your own spiritual practice or through the medium of a Satguru who can plant the seed of awakening within you, and you nurture that seed through regular meditation and grow it into a massive oak tree which shelters all those who come in its shade!

This regular meditation is the bath that you need to give your soul, preferably twice a day – morning and evening – sit in the same place and at the same time every day, so that your energy gets established at that place and also your soul knows that it is time for its bath! In fact, it will remind you about it and you will have this urge to sit for meditation at the designated time, in fact you will leave whatever you are doing and go and sit for meditation.

This bath, cleanses the soul of all the impressions that it gathers throughout the day – the good, the bad, the ugly – and cleanses both your conscious and subconscious mind and leaves it pure. With no impressions left, your chitta remains pure and you radiate that purity throughout the day.