Brahmacharya practice

Thank you very much Aghora. It will be surely useful. Every day the practice gives me immense joy and peace.

The links was really useful Aghora. Thanks for posting.

All the best Soultraveller for your practice. Enjoy all the benefits of practicing Brahmacharya.

[SimplyHindu]

Brahmacharya nowadays is equated with celibacy.

Brahma means infinity and Charya means moving in infinity. Bramhacharya means that you have controlled your prana and flow of energy to channelize it upwards to become aware of your infinite nature.

[Shivani Devi]

Namaste.

True Brahmacharya must be in mind as well as body. If you are lusting after the opposite sex, you may as well go through with it. Stop the desire, you stop the act.

Brahmacharya is necessary to conserve and preserve the seminal fluid or veerya, which transmutes in the Bindu chakra into Soma, which is milked by advanced yogis through a process called Khechari Mudra.

Wasting seminal fluid is akin to wasting the life-force of the body and the energies become dispersed through a wide-band and not a narrow one, like raising kundalini shakti is narrow flow.

From personal experience, after a kundalini awakening, masturbating or having sex is possibly one of the worst things you can do - it makes the nerve endings red raw and increased sensitivity to everything is the result - pretty annoying when you can feel the bones in your ears move in response to the slightest sound, or a fly crawling on your skin is actually painful.

I have just recently adopted a totally celibate lifestyle, after realising that I was trying to transcend the body anyway...and I noticed that every time I satisfied myself, my immune system became so weak, so down, I'd catch whatever was going around and come down with it bad!

Celibacy makes the eyes brighter, the breath sweeter, the skin more supple and free from blemishes and helps with concentration on simple tasks.

It also affects women as well as men, to exactly the same degree - and I don't believe otherwise because I can produce as much as a man does - regularly.

This is like concentrated protein and there are many trace minerals and beneficial hormones in it.

I would recommend anybody who takes meditation and worship seriously, to take brahmacharya seriously. I wish I would have done so months/years ago and I probably wouldn't be in the mess I am in now and basically forced to do it for my own physical, mental and spiritual health.

Aum Namah Shivaya

[jelida]

Originally Posted by aghora

tulsidas was a householder married to ratnavali. he was so very attached to her that once when she went to visit her parents he could not bear the separation. pining to meet her, he mistook a corpse for a log of wood which he used to cross a river in spate; he also mistook a snake for a creeper which he used to hoist himself upto her chamber. then ratnavali chided him “haad mams ki deh yah, ta mein itni preeti, hoti jo raghu-ram mein to mati jati bhav bheeti” (your attachment to this body made of flesh and bones if directed towards devotion for sri ram would help you overcome this samsara!) this transformed tulsidas who then scripted the ram charit manas with the grace of sri ram. this episode shows that even a man full of lust can easily overcome the same by bhakti i.e. devotion to god.
on the other hand, vishwamitra who practiced austerities for thousands of years was easily enticed by menaka because he was torturing his body to attain the status of vashisth i.e. brahma rishi.
i think self restraint (thru practices described by you), cultivation of knowledge by reading bhagvad gita and grace of god (attained thru unstinted bhakti i.e. nish-kama bhakti) are all important ingredients but nish-kama bhakti is the most important because the lord says in the gita that my devotee easily overcomes all tribulations of samsara (to locate exact chapter and verse).
certain relevant quotes from bhagvad gita are as under –
chapter 3 verse 42 “the senses are superior to sense objects, the mind is superior to the senses, superior to the mind is the intellect. superior even to the intellect is the self.”
chapter 5 verse 22 “o son of kunti, the wise do not rejoice in sensual pleasures. this is because they know that these have a beginning and end very soon. they know that sense pleasures are the birth place of pain.”
chapter 16 verse 21 “there are 3 gates that lead to hell: lust, anger and greed. these should be abandoned as they corrupt the soul.”
also relevant are chapter 2 verse 62-63 (which describes how attachment to sense objects breeds desire, frustration, delusion etc), chapter 3 verse 37 (which describes how lust and anger are one’s enemies) and chapter 4 verse 43 (which describes how to overcome lust thru knowledge of the self)

According to Sri Vaishnavism it is not possible to control the mind. In the Yekshaprashna kanda of Mahabaratha, Yudishtir is asked 'what travels fastest' and the answer is Manas or mind. Elsewhere in the Gita/Mahabaratha Krishna talks about a chancal (wavery) mind and he states that the mind and the senses are uncontrollable. However the senses are under the control of the mind. So by engaging the mind in bakthi (to Krishna) one engages the senses in a useful manner. Controlling the senses is not possible but engagement of the senses, indirectly, controls them.

[dianamadalina]

This sounds like celibacy right?
I feel my best when single and pray gratitude to God that I can practice spirituality and get maximum benefit by staying single. I believe the energy I put into spiritual practice is 40% of what I can offer out of my daily life.
I see myself for entire life as single.
I am atracted to men but it comes natural to be somehow very aware of the fact that I wish to focus more on how I can grow spiritually.

[Vinayaka]

In many Hindu schools there is a clear distinction between the householder (grihastha) and renunciate (sannyasin) paths. At the onset to adulthood, a choice is made between the two, and perhaps one person (soul) in a hundred is ready for the sannyasin path. Strict celibacy is/was intended as a teaching for the sannyasin path. Self-control, or limiting sexual activity to with one's spouse is the traditional path for householders. This means moderation, not celibacy.

Often confusion results if strict celibacy teaching is given to those who are not ready, just as any teaching, mystical or intellectual is given to those who aren't ready. Can a kid in kindergarten master calculus?

So for clarity, it is good to keep the two paths in mind.

Just my opinion.

[kralaro]

Often confusion results if strict celibacy teaching is given to those who are not ready, just as any teaching, mystical or intellectual is given to those who aren't ready.

I want to remove barriers from people's visions for my own interest as i've also felt them to be barriers in me having relationship with those people. Making up an example: like someone believing gays are bad people. Am currently not sure what to do regarding this. In the process i think i may learn something new, like may understand other person's point of view, but am currently afraid of hurting the other person.

[Vinayaka]

Originally Posted by kralaro

I want to remove barriers from people's visions for my own interest as i've also felt them to be barriers in me having relationship with those people. Making up an example: like someone believing gays are bad people. Am currently not sure what to do regarding this. In the process i think i may learn something new, like may understand other person's point of view, but am currently afraid of hurting the other person.

That's quite self-reflective and kind of you. I tend to not discuss or argue with someone if I sense an emotional reaction coming. Taking emotion out of it on a personal level is always a challenge.

[ajay00]

Originally Posted by Vinayaka

That's quite self-reflective and kind of you. I tend to not discuss or argue with someone if I sense an emotional reaction coming. Taking emotion out of it on a personal level is always a challenge.

This brings to mind a superb saying of Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami I had read recently ...

When you react to a situation, do not re-enact it. Wait until the emotional nature has completely composed itself, then study your reaction.


Until the emotional fuse dies out, it is better to refrain from speech or action so that calmness of mind or mental equanimity is secured, which prevents conflict and disharmony. Very wise statement, if you ask me.