Living a life in which there is complete freedom from your old habits makes you emotionally stronger and also full of all powers which are required to experience success in all the different types of life situations. So, giving time to checking the self in this way once a day, at the end of the day, helps us re-condition our self for the next day and act accordingly. Old habits dominate our thought process and also do not let us stay in peace and inner contentment. So, whenever you start the day and enter the field of action, tell yourself that I will experience inner contentment in all spheres of life. I will do this by remaining in tune with my original nature of complete purity, peace as well as joy. Where there is purity of the mind, there will be peace and joy.
Purity can be defined as the complete cleanliness of the mind in which there is no lust, anger, greed, attachment and ego – the five many enemies of the soul. These five vices spoil the texture of the soul and reduce its quality in terms of virtues. Cleanliness is not restricted only to the absence of a particular vice but is the complete quality of the soul with a holistic meaning. But, holistic cleanliness means a mind which has completely freed itself from all the vices e.g. excessive misuse of anger to get work done is a vice but assertiveness to do the same is not a vice. Also, excessive misuse of greed to achieve big things in life is a vice but being reasonably ambitious to do the same is not a vice. Another example – loving your family members with joy is not a vice but being attached to them, which causes sorrow at times, is a vice. Also, being full of self-esteem and being happy about your specialties and talents is not a vice but becoming egoistic about them as well as boasting about them is a vice. So, cleanliness means having the knowledge of all the vices and all their different shades and remaining free from them.

(To be continued tomorrow …)