'Cleanliness is next to Godliness'

Cleaning our room is something which we all know we should be doing but keep skimping out on. Recently, I cleaned out my room and my books and I had a unique insight which I thought was worth sharing (Yes, my blog is pretty random).

So, how does a room or an office space or a toilet or anything get dirty? It happens with the passage of time, when you do not know the specified place to put something or when you skimp out on keeping it where you know you should. However, that which is not kept in order continues to remain where it has been put. Each time you leave your room, you are reminded of the fact that you decided to hang up your jeans right there instead of folding them and putting them back in your wardrobe or something along those lines. Over time, the pile of clothes reminding you of your laziness or your disorder keeps growing until it becomes unbearable to look at, so you either clean it all up with humility or start littering another part. 

This I think, is exactly the mechanism of building up of the ego. As we go through life, we often have experiences which we aren't quite sure how to tackle. If we deal with that experience head on and respond to it adequately, then it is digested in a way and kept in order. If we do not do so, it becomes stored as a form of trauma in a sense and something we try to distract ourselves from dealing with. Healthy egos like healthy lives, are all about maintenance. 

Healthy egos need to be built by consistently doing what you need to do, pushing your comfort zone etc. Otherwise, you are aware of the fact that you are skimping out on work, but your brain just creates elaborate rationalizations for continuing to remain in denial of that fact. Habits and systems are nothing but maintenance for our egos. Societal institutions and structures are nothing but systems for the maintenance of thought. 

A point worth noting here is how cleanliness can always be subjective. What is clean for you might be disgusting for someone else. If we interpret the cleanliness as a form of intensity of light which illuminates the ego, then there can be an infinite number of possible brightness values. This is why egos are naturally comparing and measuring against each other. 

After having dedicated oneself sincerely to maintaining their ego and the façade for a long time, it should be natural for the human being to ask whether there is a way to transcend it. When you finally have the humility to accept how much disorder you have in your life as a result of putting the wrong things in the wrong places in your ego, and go through the hardwork of digesting those experiences and emotions, there is a sort of liberating feeling one feels. 

This curiosity about the possibility of transcendence is the beginning of a spiritual journey. It does not come from turning away from life, though it is in those cases where life is hard where it becomes exactly evident to us how much disorder there is. Order according to Krishnamurti is "putting everything exactly where it belongs". In a sort of Hegelian sublation into the absolute, ordering things around us also eventually allows us to turn onto ourself and perceive our ego as something to be put into order. That is what a religious lifestyle aims to do (and thus struggling and self denial are inherently contrary to it, because they represent a lack of humility to deal with one's ego and turning away from life). The word root of religious is religare, that is 'to bind' our energies again in pursuit of putting things in order. 

This is how I came to understand the quote "cleanliness is next to godliness" by Mahatma Gandhi deeper while I cleaned out my room (Though this might not have been the intended exposition).