Purification: an Essential Aspect of Yoga
There is a narrative going around in the modern yoga world that says that purification is bad, and that we can do yoga without purification. This narrative says that we are fine the way we are, and we don’t need to change. This is a new idea, and does not resonate with actual teachings of yoga from historical texts and traditions.
What this narrative is really pointing to is the fact that many of us in the modern world use self hatred as a vehicle for change. We judge ourselves and find ourselves lacking, and use this dissatisfaction as momentum to work out or study so we can be stronger and smarter and more beautiful. But self hatred is not the only motivator. We can desire to be more loving, more truthful, more sincere, and more humble. We can be changed by love, hope, and aspiration. These changes are purification, and they happen naturally to anyone who commits to the path of yoga, if by yoga we mean a realization of the inherent unity of all.
Purification is an essential aspect of yoga. The Hathapradīpika (2.5) defines purification on a physical level, saying that in order to develop the ability to retain prāna, all the nadīs and cakras, which are malākulam, or full of impurities, should be śuddhim, or purified. Chapter 2, verse 19 says that when the nadīs are purified, the body becomes thin and radiantly beautiful. 2.22 recommends six actions which include swallowing a strip of cloth and pulling it back up to clear out the stomach and esophagus, enemas to clear the intestines, flossing a thread between nose and mouth, unblinking gazing, abdominal massage, and bellows breath. All of these actions have the effect of cleansing the physical body of impurities, or that which would inhibit the body’s natural processes of homeostasis.
Of course, since modern yoga has merged with the fitness industry, it’s easy for these teachings to be taken out of context and appropriated by the ego. We are deluged with messages about how we should look, and we learn young that how we look determines opportunities and access to resources. We are inclined to want to be thin and radiantly beautiful. The danger is that these teachings were not developed for the ego’s benefit. They were developed to support conditions for transcending the ego and experiencing the deeper Self that lies beyond ego. What we put into our bodies affects our consciousness and our ability to see clearly. So physical purification, while not the only consideration in yoga, is at least a valuable one.
The great tantric teacher Abhinavagupta also wrote about purification. In the first chapter of Tantrasāra, or “the essence of tantra”, he wrote, “The śāstras (sacred texts) describe ajñāna (ignorance) as the cause of bondage. Ajñāna is known as mala (impurity). Perfect knowledge completely uproots mala. When all malas are destroyed, one attains moksha (liberation).”
Abhinavagupta’s focus is not on impurities in the body, but impurities in the mind. Tantrasāra describes several ways to purify the vikalpas (thought constructs) that lead us to believe that we are bound and not free. These ways include hearing the truth from a guru, meditative concentration, working with prāna, and specific practices with mantra and nyāsa.
True reality is unlimited, undivided consciousness, a total oneness of all that exists in form and all that is formless. Our thought constructs include not just thoughts themselves but beliefs, mental models, perspectives, ideas...basically the lenses through which we view ourselves and the world. And they create the experience of limitation and division. When they are purified, we realize that we are free and one. This is the essence of tantra, according to Abhinavagupta.
Again, the ego can easily appropriate these teachings and make them about aggrandizement. We can think about what we’ll get if we purify our minds, how we’ll be free and powerful and able to accomplish all our goals and defeat our enemies. But the fundamental innate radiance of being that Abhnavagupta tells us is our true nature is not ego. Ego doesn’t win anything through yogic purification. In fact it loses the illusion of personal power and control. These illusions are sublimated into the true reality, which is that all power belongs to the One, and only through union (yoga) with that One can we have any power at all. The power that is then achieved is not power over anything, but the power of being everything.
Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita also teaches Arjuna that yoga is a path of purification. In the fifth chapter, he says that the yogi who is yogayukto (yoked to yoga) and viśuddhātma (whose self is purified), whose self has become the Self of all things, remains pure even when acting. By giving up the fruits of their actions and realizing that they are not the “doer” of their actions, yogis enter a process of atmaśuddhaya (self-purification). Here we have a direct articulation that the ego’s claim on the results of what we do is a primary obstacle to yoga.
In the Mundaka Upanishad, the guru Angiras tells his student Šaunaka that the indivisible Self, which is the Supreme treasure, the bright and pure Self, the birthless One without a second, reveals Itself after the mind has been viśuddha, purified. And even when they don’t use the specific word, purification is a central theme of all the primary Upanishads. They teach that what truly we are, beneath the experience of limitation and duality, is eternal radiant Oneness, united with all that has form and all that is formless. When we release all the obscurities that inhibit our vision, we realize that truth and become it.
Patañjali, in the Yoga Sutras, also teaches a path of purification. He advocates citta prasādanam, or purification of consciousness as a way of achieving equanimity (1.33). And he says that when we are able to unify our consciousness, our memory is purified and our true nature shines forth unobstructed (1.43). He offers śauca, or purification, as one of the five niyamas, or personal disciplines that are central to yoga. Śauca is also included in Narada’s Bhakti Sutras as an integral part of the path of bhakti, or devotional love.
As with many yogic teachings, the word śauca can be used and understood on many levels. It can refer to the physical purification methods taught in the Hathapradīpikā and other Hatha Yoga texts like the Gherandasamhitā. And it can refer to keeping one’s physical space clear. Śauca can also imply keeping one’s thoughts and intentions clear and sincere, and not getting involved with messy emotional dramas. It essentially points to the purity of our being and encourages us to seek that purity, live in it, align with it, and attend to all the habits that pull us out of it and into illusion.
Purification is a central aspect of the path of yoga, and has been considered as such by teachers from many different lineages. The centrality of purification is mentioned in texts from the hatha yoga, tantrik, vedanta, raja yoga, and bhakti yoga traditions. It appears in the Puranas and the Itihasa, as well as the śruti texts. This is because yoga is essentially a path of self-realization, and the first step on the path is to acknowledge that we are headed somewhere that we have not yet arrived. We are moving in a direction, toward a destination.
Yoga is a path, a process, a journey, as well as a state of being. The state of yoga is the state of complete realization of who we are. It is the state in which our consciousness unifies with the essential consciousness that permeates all, and in which we see no “other” outside of ourselves, only different manifestations of the oneness that we are. This is a basic state of love that cannot be broken or harmed. When I am all, I cannot but love all, and as long as the state persists the love cannot diminish.
As long as I’m on the path of yoga, headed toward the state of yoga, there will be obstacles that prevent me from knowing who I am and experiencing the unity of all. These obstacles block me from knowing my pure being. They are impurities that need to be removed in order to reveal the purity.
If my ego takes up the mantle of purification for its own ends, then I will try to create and control the process, and I will measure my progress based on selfish standards. Am I beautiful enough? Am I strong enough? Am I smart or fearless or flexible enough? I will judge myself and perhaps hate myself for not measuring up. But this self hatred is itself an impurity.
The purity of my deeper being does not win. It does not dominate or control. It just shines like the sun. Shadows may encroach, but it does not fight. It just continues shining, and its brilliance progressively dissolves that which obscures its shining. We don’t achieve purity, we surrender to it. We release all that stands in its way. We offer our impurities to it and allow them to be transformed. This is the path and process of yoga.