KS&L 325 Can We Be Too Clean?

There is a new product called a Nano-Steamer. This newest ‘nano’ device literally goes beyond clean. It cleans your facial pores to the ‘nano’ level. This device is for those souls who have decided that you cannot be too clean and want to take it to the extreme level.

It is important to understand the meaning of the word ‘nano.’ Nanotechnology means that something is built from the molecular/atomic level up. It is important to consider that a molecule is so tiny that it cannot be seen. It is smaller than a virus or a bit of bacteria. This is the coming technology. So, back to our device: the point of this device is to clean down to the molecular level – which gives new meaning to the obsessive/compulsive need to be clean.

Can we be too clean? This may seem like an odd question when we consider that cleanliness is next to Godliness because it is a key element in removing negativity. However, it also begs the question about focusing on the minutia of life and missing the big flick altogether. Even Feng Shui discusses the need for cleanliness within balanced limits. Western culture values having things clean. This is a good thing. But again, does this issue beg the question: have we become too obsessed with being clean?

Advertising has caused to be fearful of every germ, every nano particle around us. We use thousands of products to keeps us as utterly immaculate as possible. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? It is both --- and neither. Some people literally bath two to three times a day. That may be reasonable if you are a Yoga instructor and it is your job to become hot and sweaty several times a day, but for a regular person not in a hot steamy environment, bathing over 1-2 times a day may be seen as obsessive or excessive. Some new parents are terrified of all germs and keep such an immaculate house that you could do surgery on every surface. Usually that attitude changes after the second child. Reality is a practical teacher.

Back to our question: can we be too clean? What are the consequences of being super clean? Consider the following examples:

• Feng Shui discusses the concept associated with infertility. In Chinese metaphysics, a couple must have a certain amount of 'ling' under the bed. 'Ling' translates to an 'ignored bit of ordinary dust.' Couples who have a bit of that dust under their bed usually have no trouble getting pregnant. However, to more sophisticated Feng Shui practitioners this isn't just dust under the bed, it is the settling of life force, of understanding that there is nothing that is perfect and a bit of dust here and there is OK. Life force in this concept has to have a place to be. People who have no 'ling' under their bed, because it is perfect, immaculate to the point of obsessive have a terrible time getting pregnant. So, the more immaculate the location, the lower the birth rate. The higher the amounts of dust under the bed, the higher the birth rate. Third world countries are a classic example of this. We have become so focused on perfection of the immaterial, that we have forgotten to focus on literally the down to earth elements of the greater good, the balance in all things.

• Illnesses are another great example. If we are utterly immaculate on every conceivable level, we never give our immune systems an opportunity to operate. It is rather like having a Ferrari in the garage, but never driving it. However, when you need it to go, it will not work well because it has never been driven, the pipes, valves and mechanisms have not had a chance to go into action. In that scenario, our bodies can be utterly bombarded by something powerfully foreign because these bodies never had a chance to work in a normal, non-super clean world.

• “Out dammed spot!” is a focus on trying to clean an emotional problem by physically cleaning our surroundings. Like Macbeth’s wife who could not wash the blood off of her hands, we may be trying to wash away guilt, hurt, pain and anger instead of facing it directly. If our focus is perfection, we may be forgetting to have fun, enjoy our friends and family members and live a happier life. Sometimes excessive cleaning may be an issue of reconstructing the hole in the donut: meaning we are completely unable to see the larger picture.

• Children have to ‘get dirty,’ to have a normal childhood. Part of childhood is playing outside: getting sweaty, grimy, getting grass stains on our clothes and dirt on our faces. Dirt is part of having fun. We can clean up later. However, if we are never allowed to ‘be a bit dirty’ in the normal day-to-day of life, we never get to feel that supreme pleasure of enjoying childhood. The irony is that those times of getting dirty were times when our young immune systems were learning how to deal with dirt, germs, bacteria and viruses. If we grow up with our bodies never learning how to deal with those things, how will our bodies know how to keep us well?

Let us be clean, by all means, but let us also be wise and not become alarmed with a bit of dust here and there. Balance in all things – wait – let us be ‘nano-balanced’ in all things: balanced right down to our very molecular/subatomic level.