When I first came to Babaji, he was very careful that I should learn all the rules and customs that were followed in traditional Indian society. This kindness allowed me to be more easily accepted in the group of devotees who lived with Babaji and for the most part followed traditional purity rules. I had tried hard to learn everything so as not to be offensive to the people that I lived with and for the most part lived strictly by the purity rules which I had been taught including the first Golden Rule that Babaji had taught me “ Don’t touch anything unless asked to “
One day when I was walking with Babaji on the Math and he had just washed his hands in Ganga ji he spoke about a purity rule in a way that very much surprised me and I replied, “But Babaji, that is impure.” His answer surprised me even more. He said, “Nothing is impure, everything is the All Pervading Consciousness. How could anything be impure?” I said, “But Babaji, everyone has been teaching me all the purity rules, you have also encouraged me to follow them.” Babaji replied, “Yes and you should follow them. They are very important for purifying the anta:karana but you should never believe them as being the absolute truths. They are empirical truths not absolute truths. Some people are not able to rise above them and for those people they are very important agents to become pure but you should be able to practise them and understand at the same time that they are not true in the absolute sense.
Nani Mai