As I was walking along the street in a large North American city, a big truck drove by and on it were printed in large letters the words ‘Sanitation Department.’ The words caught me in an unusual way. The sanitation department - how were these words connected with sanity? There had to be a connection otherwise their root would not be the same. Sanity and sanitation…and then it struck me – well of course, keeping things clean, tidy, and well ordered is key to healthy mental, emotional, and physical states.
The residents of any street in a large city may think they would prefer a visit by a celebrity or royalty, but if the garbage collectors have not visited for a month, they would happily exchange any celebrity visit for a visit from the garbage collectors. Then, continuing this train of thought it dawned on me how, when garbage is allowed to collect and grow in any ecology, unwanted visitors begin to move in, taking advantage of the unsanitary conditions to make the accumulating garbage depositary their new home. Could it be that a similar relationship exists when we allow old mental and emotional garbage such as past resentments, wounds, and grudges to accumulate in our mind, emotions, and energy field? Could it be that unwanted visitors such as anxiety, depression, and anger take advantage of any unsanitary conditions created in our mind and emotions and these unwanted energetic guests begin to take up residence? Could it be that just as unbrushed teeth gradually accumulate dental plaque, an unattended, disordered and unsanitary mentality will inevitably produce mental plaque? Or that when we harbor a grudge, as the saying has it, it is the energy of the grudge that grows and gradually fills the harbor of our mind, emotions, and energy field so that little else can get in?
Probably Not Used - Thoughts? In previous times, people with mental and emotional disorders would go to a facility whose name we seldom here anymore – the sanatorium. Was this not originally connected with the idea of recreating clean and clear mental and emotional states in the people staying there?
Studying the dynamics of the worlds of energy I have often encountered the idea that lower energetics gather and congregate in dirty, unkempt ecologies. Whenever a special celebration or rite is to take place, it often happens only after there has been extensive preparation and cleaning of the ecology in which it is to happen. Just as low energies gather in places that are disheveled, unkempt, and dirty, higher energies congregate in places that are well cared for and tended to. This does not mean that the ecology needs to be expensive. If a place is cleaned by staff who are cleaning for money it actually produces a different energy than if a place is cleaned and cleared by volunteers who are doing so with a spirit of care and devotion. The quality of cleanliness is not always a product of the application of financial energy – an inexpensive apartment can be more attractive to higher energies by the level of care that is applied to it than even that of a mansion.
The level of energies to be found in a home is always influenced by the level of energies being processed by the people living in that home. One could even say that whereas a house is a physical environment, a home reflects the nature and level of the energies being generated by the occupants of that home. Cleaning, clearing, and tidying is a natural byproduct of turning a house into a home that is inviting to higher level energies. Clearly I am not speaking here of the electrical energies to be found in household utilities and the like, but the energies produced by human generation such as care, respect, devotion, and love.
In pursuing this idea further, I realized that the word dignity by anagram is tidying. This relationship between the two words opens up the idea that when a person consciously works to tidy up after themselves, with consideration both for themselves, the ecology, and those that come after they live their life with a dignity that an untidy, careless person cannot aspire to, unless they change their attitude and way of being.
A friend once asked me, “Do you clean your house because it is dirty or because you want to be with that which is clean?” This question made me realize that if cleaning is the last resort and is done because we can't stand having so much dirt around us anymore, we are cleaning and tidying from the essence of compliance. When we are compliant, as the word tells us, we often approach the matter with complaint because it is something we do not really want to do. When we clean to be with that which likes to be clean, we clean, clear, and tidy with an essence of devotion and care. This essence invites, other energetic qualities such as patience and being present in the moment to come and join us. These help repel other energetic properties, such as anxiety, complaint, and depression.
A careful person attracts energetic qualities of care to come and join them. A person who does not bother and acts out of compliance or the energy of last resort because, as an example, others will see how they live, will attract very different energetic properties from the energy worlds of the planet, such as complaint and frustration. We can help move ourselves toward a life of dignity by tidying as we go mentally, energetically, physically, and these days even digitally. As an older person told me in my youth “Cleanliness is next to godliness” and as my own life continues, I find this saying to be increasingly accurate and that it applies throughout the entire human domain. Care to try it?
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