616. The Power of Cleanliness

The Supramental Force needs cleanliness to descend on objects. It is the external form of cleanliness. Inner cleanliness is purity. Sincerity to the Divine is that purity.  Our tradition has two extremes. At the higher end, it says through proverbs ‘Cleanliness will feed one with food'; ‘Even if you wear rags, wash them daily'. At the other end people believe that if you clean too much, you will lose what you have. A devotee married into an affectionate family. It was very dirty. She started cleaning. Everyone who was fond of the new arrival of a daughter-in-law suddenly frowned and abused her. They successfully prevented her from cleaning. One cannot take cleaning to great heights without orderliness. To put your things in order and that too in perfect order especially when you have an abundance of objects will leave no time for anything else. Cleanliness attracts grace. Grace comes to one in every conceivable form, as accomplishment, appreciation, cheerfulness, rain, money, good will, etc. etc. Often Grace comes only in one form.

For various reasons, cleanliness, especially perfect cleanliness, attracts a greater measure of grace. It comes in floods in one field or in some measure from several fields. It depends on the readiness of the soul and its ripeness. If cleanliness attracts grace, its opposite also is true. Any amount of grace can shower on one in spite of dirt. That is true of one who lives in the cave or one who has attained realisation and awaits for the final departure. For us mortals, we can say cleanliness attracts prosperity, one expression of grace, in direct proportion. In the experience of innumerable devotees, cleanliness is more money, a smaller expression of grace. Rain is a richer expression of grace. A further expression of grace is not to think of rain or money or any methods.

One labours hard to bring down grace, especially in copious measures. And the answer is instantaneous. Of course it is instantaneous after a prolonged work of skill and efficiency spreading over all your activities. It is the unfailing experience of the devotees that rain responds at once when we have no arrears in homework. Also, it is the experience of the same devotees that thirty people sitting in calling for twelve hours evokes a response after a week or a month. Sometimes no response comes if the homework is in arrears. But one negative comment of frowning against the pouring rain stops it at once. Often people ask why a mountain of labour is needed to move grace and only one word is needed to destroy it. It is the Power of Decision and the nature of negative work. He who invokes grace sometimes finds the descending rain - grace - inconvenient as the roof leaks or the floor oozes water. It only shows that though one successfully evokes a richer expression of grace - rain - his foundation in grace is shaky. Faith is that Foundation.