Cleanliness And Hygiene
Cleanliness And Hygiene are critical if you are doing advanced meditations and especially Spiritual meditation.
If you are doing even basic meditation, you should consider washing your hands before meditating.
One of my great teachers "Iris Lord" was quite fastidious when it came to hygiene.
She would tell me that if your hands are not clean, you attract negative energies to them since the hands touch so many things and often they do this unconsciously.
Spiritual Meditation
If you are doing even basic Spiritual Meditation you should consider only meditating when your entire body is clean.
This means that if you go to the toilet, you should at least shower before you meditate.
If you are doing Advanced Spiritual Meditation and your body is not clean, then this will actually STOP you from ascending.
Indeed, there is a "Soul" ascension technique which requires you to bathe every 1 hour (for as long as it takes which may be days) so that any and all of the crud your body expels is washed away - and all of that after 40 days of Fasting.
This "bathe every hour" method is part of the 40 + day ascension meditation technique.
Hand Sanitizers
Hand Sanitizers do NOT constitute washing your hands. Washing should be done using water and there is a spiritual reason for this.
Hand Sanitizers are supposed to kill bacteria but they do NOT wash away the negative energies which may be attached to your hands.
Many "Hand Sanitizers" - including isopropyl alcohol - contain harmful chemicals. 
