A few words on “purity”
One of the things that makes my work different from others in what you might call the “holistic” sector is how opposed I am to the concept of “purity.”
The word comes from the Latin purgare, meaning to cleanse, and the related noun purus, which means “clean” or “cleansed”. Thus we see that not only “pure”, “purity” and “purify” come from the term, but also “purge”. The most obvious application of the term would relate to the clearing of disease, or something harmful to the person. We clean ourselves to rid ourselves of harmful bacteria, which could cause infection in vulnerable points on the body.
Purity is sometimes used to suggest authenticity or ingenuousness; for instance, one may have “pure” motives in their belief or work, and not trying to manipulate you toward a certain agenda.
Purity applies to the arena of the sacred and profane; we purify sacred spaces, because they contain something holy or numinous. One might burn incense or recite prayers to remove any “unclean” energy from a space. If someone is believed to be possessed by an unclean spirit, a more rigorous form of purification called “exorcism” may take place.
An alternate definition of “purgare” is “to simplify”. This implies the removing of clutter, the clearing of space, and the avoiding of complexity.
Certainly the idea of cleaning and clearing out can be a beneficial thing, and regular hygiene practices are important to our health. Authenticity is also important. But our cultural idea of purity gets caught up in dualistic (i.e., simplified) thinking, and here is where it creates more problems than it solves. Allow me to explain.
First, we have a religious culture in what is termed “the West” that is dualistic. Yes, I know, monotheism is not supposed to be dualistic, but let’s not kid ourselves. Any religion based on morality and judgment is going to frame things in terms of good and evil. And naturally, what is “pure” is good and “holy”. This doesn’t have to be a “negative”, especially when we’re talking about authenticity.
Following on this religious idea, purity is associated with light and whiteness. People call themselves light workers, seeking to “banish” the darkness. Our symbolic associations with whiteness are always “good”; watch any Western movie, or heck, even the original Star Wars. You know the good guys by their white clothes, or white hat; the villain always dresses in black or dark clothes.
It doesn’t take an expert in archetype theory to see where these ideas lead. Anything not white, light and pure in a moral dualistic system is dark, filthy, dirty, and by association, repellent and evil. We transfer this idea to the “impurity” of the sensual world of the earth (which is made of dirt and thus “dirty”), of sex—and yes, we transfer it to ideas of race as well. Why else would white people be treated as superior all around the world? Not because white people are any better than darker skinned individuals, but because we unconsciously associate that whiteness with a kind of purity, a moral perfection or superiority, cleansed of what is “evil”. This is of course nonsense, but this is why we need to be aware of our automatic associations.
And then we get into ugly ideas like “ethnic cleansing” and “racial purity”.
Another problem area is food. In the holistic community, there are discussions of our food “tainted with chemicals and pesticides”, and needing to eat pure (meaning “organic”) food in order to be truly healthy. The anti-vaccine rationale also plays into this, the idea that you are putting a disease into your body, or that someone is forcing you to do that, usually for some alleged nefarious purpose. Many people are convinced that they are healthier because they eat “pure” foods. With all due respect to my friends who prefer this lifestyle (and by all means continue if it makes you happy), there is no such thing as “pure” food, from that perspective. Everything has been treated with chemicals; if it isn’t, then the food you get tends to be bug-eaten (and very likely there are STILL chemicals not native to the plant). And as to vaccines—given the direct and obvious connection between getting vaccinated and wiping out horrible diseases like polio and measles, I’ll take my vaccines, thanks.
Vaccines, in fact, are probably a good metaphor for the problem with purity; you are made stronger because of the disease in your system. You don’t want to purge every disease and bacteria from your life or your system; some of them are actually beneficial. Immunity is built by either exposure to a disease, or vaccination (a safe way of exposure, as you are injected with a dead form of the virus).
People can be very idealistic, envisioning a world where there is peace, where people work together, where they share, and they are healthy, and have enough of everything. That’s a nice vision. It’s also not the world we live in. It’s a repeat of the Garden of Eden myth, and its affect on our culture; we think nature is flawed, that our world is flawed, and that it needs fixing. But does it really? Yes, someone will object that we need to fight for things like social justice, or against oppression. But that IS part of participating in life; we are always struggling with some kind of force, or with the results of human mass psychology. The issue may change, the players may change, but the script remains the same. If you really want it to change, you have to be aware of the script, and make a move toward changing it. But that script will never be perfect. What does “perfect” mean, anyway? And how would we know?
We struggle through life because we’re not accepting life as it is, and not accepting ourselves as we are. More importantly, you don’t know what a “perfect world” would look like; the odds are that you wouldn’t like such a world. If you’re going to live life and be happy, you have to be able to deal with the unpredictable, the uncomfortable, the chaotic, the immoral. It’s doesn’t matter whether we like that or not; life and the workings of consciousness just “are”, and they change slowly. To paraphrase Nietzsche: be careful if you exorcise your demons, as you may be getting rid of the best part of you. In the Aigirnandini (Mahisasuramardini Stotra), Durga delights “both in the auspicious Shiva and the inauspicious Shumba and Nishumba, and the ghouls that feed on the dead”. All of life is important, in spite of our judgments, and we need to learn to really live in spite of that.