Keeping It Clean

By Mehtab, Founder of Yoga Yoga
May 2011

Think about this the next time you are relaxing on your back in yoga class. When was this last time you laid on the floor in any other public establishment?

Or for that matter, where else have you taken off your shoes before entering a business?

In our yoga centers we have a thing for being clean. Because actually it is one of the first teachings of yoga.

In the Yoga Sutras, compiled about 2,000 years ago by the sage Patanjali, the first niyama, or guide for yogic conduct, was "saucha" (pronounced "sow-cha") and it is concisely defined as cleanliness or purity.

"When cleanliness (saucha) is developed, it reveals what needs to be constantly maintained, and what is eternally clean. What decays is the external. What does not is deep within us." ~ Yoga Sutra II.40 ; Translation by T.K.V. Desikachar

In the truest sense, saucha or cleanliness, is not just about keeping the environment or physical body clean but it also encompasses the purity of our thoughts and actions. Yoga is a continuous journey of purification until all the dross is removed and only light remains.

And while much of the internal purification is accomplished through our diet, asanas, pranayama and meditation, our external environment must also reflect this purity or cleanliness.

As you practice yoga and your inner environment is purified, you may find that you become more sensitive to the cleanliness in your home environment. You find yourself washing out the vegetable bin in your refrigerator or shoveling out the trash from the back seat of your car. Or maybe not.

At Yoga Yoga we dust the top of our bathroom doors, scrub and clean mats daily, wash the blankets in the yoga rooms, and vacuum, sweep and mop obsessively.

Our commitment is when you come to Yoga Yoga, you will practice in an atmosphere of saucha, and in your deepest relaxation, a dust bunny will never bite you.