Bapuji On Brahmacharya
July 08, 1977 am
[Bapuji chants to Lord Shiva]
BAPUJI:
My beloved children the subject on which I have deeply pondered, I will tell you some of the basic principles of that subject.
The name of that subject is Brahmacharya.
What we think ordinarily about Brahmacharya is different.
And it is different from the point of view of the spiritual sciences.
Modern physical sciences say that Brahmacharya is not possible.
From the point of view from which they are talking, we cannot say that they are wrong.
Because the ordinary stage of Brahmacharya is according to what the physical sciences say.
The value of the spiritual sciences is as much as the physical sciences.
My age could be considered very young.
But the old rishis and the yogis have thought about it for thousands of years.
The people who possess the knowledge of the physical sciences, their knowledge, and themselves, they are forgotten after a short time.
The fame and the memories of the old spiritual scientists is still alive.
The spiritual sciences is known as the greatest science.
Yoga, the science of yoga, science of Brahma, or spiritual science.
This includes all the sciences, and all knowledge.
In the spiritual places, in ancient India, all kinds of spiritual experiments have been carried out.
And after that, for many years, they have tested those experiments, and continued those experiments also.
And in those experiments, also, they have been successful.
So the principles, those principles of the spiritual sciences, are not ordinary principles, but very special and experiential, and experimentally proved principles.
Internal scientists, those who say Brahmacharya is impossible, I don’t believe that every one of them who has said so has carried out experiments on it.
Because you are the followers of Guruji and Dadaji, whatever opinion you have of them, is true for you.
The same way, the scientists have their own cult.
One says so, and everybody else accepts it.
Because this one says, and others accept, that shows that, it proves to us, that everybody has not experimented on this subject.
In the ancient India, whatever has been said about Brahmacharya has been expounded, or told by those who were the true lighthouses of the entire world.
Whatever they have said about Brahmacharya, they have said from their own experiences.
They haven’t said from other’s experiences.
You may bear children, but believe both paths to be true and walk on this path.
But experiment with it.
Its earlier stages are such that you would rather be attracted to believe the principles of modern science, or physical science.
Because whatever conclusions they have come to, their conclusion has come by observing the ordinary society, and average people.
So that it is appropriate for the ordinary people, an average person.
Because the condition in which society lives, they are not able to escape from this condition.
It is possible that you may have been also the victim of it.
But if you will try to go on this path, believing only one side, of the physical science, it may be a hindrance to your growth.
You may walk by believing that the opinion of the modern science is true, but definitely continue to experiment that there is other possibility also.
The modern psychologist, Mr. Freud, has really done quite a good research work in this subject.
He says that the sexual desire is present in every human being.
It is not a lie.
It is not wrong because ordinary condition is that way.
The same thing has been told by the old Indian yogis also.
So what Mr.Freud says is not new.
It is very ancient.
But the picture that he has painted about it appears to be more acceptable to the average person.
Mr. Freud goes that far to say that even when we kiss a little child, even there there is some sexual urge involved.
He has seen it with such subtlety and fine actions that he has found sex in many such actions.
What he says can be considered to be true, partially.
But he is not speaking the truth, all the way.
Even in these sexual urges, also, there could be three different stages: ordinary, medium and high.
When one is kissing the child, it should be considered ordinary.
So when we just express our love ordinarily, where the sex is not present, it is medium.
And the last stage, where the sexual desire pushes us into the action for the sexual act, it becomes of the highest.
Otherwise, when a father looks at his own children, or when a guru looks at his disciples, to say that they also have sex, it is very shameful to think that.
Then in this world, what we call the interaction would be impossible.
The oneness that is hidden in the sexual urges is also hidden in love.
They both have the capacity to bring oneness in some degree, in some form.
There is an appearance of the sameness in both, so to imply that there is only sex in all actions is not proper because there could be the aspects of love, too.
I am very well known as a saint in India.
I have a large following.
When some disciples or children of mine, when they are very unhappy, they come to me.
Some children cry, just seeing me, even from a distance.
The close children, they just touch my body and they cry.
Really, at that time, the tears roll from my eyes also.
It is not proper to interpret this as a sexual interaction.
If we eliminate this condition (that Bapuji just described), there will be nothing left like love in this world.
I had witnessed one occasion where one individual’s only son had died.
He had four daughters and only one son.
All his four sisters were crying so much that nobody could see that pain.
And father and mother were also crying badly.
When the older daughters were hugging the father in this painful situation, father was just tapping their head and giving them solace.
Should we call this an aspect of sexual implication?
I am also psychologist.
This doesn’t appear to be appropriate to me, to interpret everything as sexual.
We, as yogis, believe that it is better not to touch daughter, mother and sister.
And yet there are options to it.
In India, there is a large following of Shankaracharyaji.
He is considered as world teacher.
There are four big branches, large branches, in India, and they’re established in four different corners of India.
So this, the leader, any one of these four leaders who sits on the throne of this particular stage, no female is allowed to touch his feet, or any part of his body.
Even if by mistake any woman would touch his feet, he would fast that day, completely.
The reason is not that he, the Jagad guru, became impure by the touch of the female.
Really, this woman who touched these feet with great purity, with purity in her heart, and to a pure man, how can it make him impure?
That touch is not considered to be impure or disallowed.
But they have just made one principle in the law, that they should not touch.
Such masters, they do not talk with each other alone, when they are alone.
He is the world teacher, so he is the parents of the entire world.
So if they meet someone alone, it is nothing wrong.
And yet, these limitations are established on their behavior.
We will not go into much detail about this.
We will think more what concerns us here.
The individuals who have love for exercises, in any form, from the childhood, they can understand Brahmacharya very well.
The individuals who try to recognize this energy, and whatever experiments they conduct to be in touch with that energy, leads them in the direction of Brahmacharya.
Who doesn’t like health?
Who doesn’t like joy?
Why do you like this light?
So that we may receive the light.
There are some flowers you arrange for decoration and some flowers you keep close for fragrance.
You also are a lamp, or a light, or a flower of your family.
If your body is alert and if your mind is joyous, what a beautiful surrounding it creates in your family.
Imagine the occasion of the happy family, that the husband is coming from outside and the wife is waiting to receive him.
In that there is not just a show, but the true feeling from the heart.
What we call customs is more of a hypocrisy.
Quite often, things that are done customarily become hypocrisy.
It is true that sometimes such customs are useful and necessary, also, at times.
But I feel that if you keep doing the superficial actions you would have the habit of creating a drama or playing the drama or the play.
If you say “thank you” hundred times a day, that “thank you” is most ordinary.
When you say that word, then it must create an appropriate impact on the listener’s heart, and that is the character of truth of the speech.
If it is necessary to thank, and then if you thank, then it is appropriate or necessary.
If we collect bundles of “thank yous” in the bag, and just keep throwing around everywhere, it has no meaning.
How beautiful it feels, and even the one who is observing this experiences the joy of it, the wife is waiting for the husband.
What would be the effect, from the psychology point of view?
The husband would be pleased, just looking at his wife.
If it is the true joy, awakened in the hearts of both, that joy will spread among the children, also.
When the joy is pervading the entire family, how happy that family is.
When can this happen?
It can only happen when the individual has the self-control, self-mastery.
When I love Amrit, should I just be hugging every time?
Or when he loves me, would he be hugging me all the time?
It is excessive expression.
It should not be that way, more than necessary.
Then there is need to be little frugal about it.
Economy.
By doing so, our life becomes more prosperous.
The sensual desire is one of the parts of the mind, mind’s desires, and it is okay, if we don’t call it evil or lower.
But if we give that the color, continuously, of the sexual implications, it is not proper.
If your health is good, and if you believe in protecting the energy, or desire more energy, you would not be without some inclination toward Brahmacharya.
Look at the young child, and look at the young man.
They both are the storehouse of energy.
Young man and the child.
And consider his own old age, right there, right beside him.
Then compare the two.
Just compare as to what is in this young man, and what has left the old man.
The one does not have the beauty.
He does not have the energy.
Where did this beauty go?
Where did this energy go?
When person excessively indulges into the sex, he loses energy.
He loses the light of his eyes.
He can’t hear properly through his ears.
He loses his teeth.
His body becomes weak.
Why do all these things happen?
Because he did not properly care for it.
There are some old men who would create jealousy, even among young people.
In India, there was so much mastery and so much self-control that yogis lived minimum of at least hundred years.
Such a self-mastery brings great results
One should plan some special arrangements in such a way that the sexual desires do not awaken artificially or trouble us.
There must be definitely great joy in the relationship of a husband and a wife or the lover and the beloved.
But I also have one special experience and I have a wide experience, and, because I am a psychologist in my approach, I will tell you.
Seeing a number of my disciples, male and female, I just see a great satisfaction.
Doesn’t that love have some value?
I feel that to be very sweet.
I don’t think there must be such sweetness in the love affair between the husband and wife or a lover and a beloved.
The daughter goes to the father.
Brother goes to sister or sister goes to brother.
What a beautiful love, that you must have experienced that love in some portion.
How happy is father, seeing the daughter, and daughter, seeing the father.
When the sexual desire goes on a lover level, it becomes ill or wrong or harmful.
But when it goes on the higher level, it becomes really beautiful.
Then we come to the conclusion of one important principle that if the brother can see, look at the sister as a sister and not have sexual implications, and if the sister can look at the brother and not have sexual implications, then the basic principle could be derived that each brother, for a brother, each sister could become a sister, and for a sister, each brother could become a brother.
So this way, we can spread the love or channel the love through the love in terms of brother, or sister, or a father, or a mother.
When the daughter places her head on the heart of a father, or when the sister places her heart on the heart of a brother, it feels like the river of love, merges into theocean of love.
What a beautiful love it is.
If there are such two beautiful loves, then even if there is not the love of married life, you can still survive beautifully and live beautifully.
Only when you allow these two loves, of a father or mother or sister or brother to expand, then only you can, the other attachments would gradually reduce from the sexual.
In that manner, the sexual attachment will gradually reduce.
So when one young man talks with one young woman, he should feel that he is talking with his sister.
That feeling is very beautiful.
The same way, when a young girl talks with a young boy, if she talks with him like a brother, that will also create a beautiful channel for the love expression.
The feeling that the whole world is one family can be properly understood and experienced by this principle of brother/sister love, or father/son love.
When we continuously grow in the pure love, to that extent the lower expression of love will gradually diminish.
So, many people who think Brahmacharya is very difficult, truly speaking, it is not so.
If we make our mind filled with purity, if we keep our mind filled with purity, it is not very difficult.
The sexual desires are gradually confirmed and established in one when a female is dressing herself with the fantasy to show it to a male, then they are expanding the sexual desires.
So when a male or female, either one, dresses themselves to appear to be beautiful to the opposite sex, that is also confirming the growth of the sensuality, or nourishing the sensuality.
The white dress that you are wearing sustains, or helps sustain the Brahmacharya.
There is more attraction by various colors.
It is more beautiful to wear different colors.
By that, you look slightly different than every day or usually.
But that is a great barrier in your spiritual growth or in your path.
The clothes could be worn, you can even wear them of various colors, but when you use that, the mental picture of being attractive should not be there.
If that feeling is not there, then there is no harm in wearing different colorful dresses.
In order to look very attractive, brothers have clean shaved, some keep so much mustache, some keep small, like that, some shave the center and keep the tails.
This is the craziness of young age. After being old, mustache may grow anywhere, and as much as it wants to.
The you don’t pay much attention to those things.
This is one of the big mental diseases.
It is a disease.
It is not health.
So keep pure thoughts and you will have a good health, and also peace of mind or a joyous heart.
In the society, this is urgently needed.
And specially, in this prosperous America, it is needed even more.
I hardly ever go out in travels, and yet three, four short travels that I have made here in America, in that I have observed that in the sixty per cent of the cars, there is usually one person driving.
In India, even the cars of the very rich men have at least four or five people in each car.
They give ride even to a person who is walking.
“My car is going empty, come on, have a ride.”
One brother was telling me that this America has become prosperous by causing a lot of difficulties.
They are spoiling many things.
They have advanced, but they are spoiling many things.
They throw lots of grains in the ocean.
So he has obtained a lot from this land, and he cannot use it economy wise, and so he is destroying it by throwing it in the ocean.
But this condition will become hard eventually difficult.
Everything should be used properly.
So when an individual becomes prosperous, he commits the similar mistakes.
Youth is also one kind of prosperity of energy.
He creates so many difficulties and mischiefs.
He creates so many mischiefs.
In those eyes, there is definitely the energy.
What is the result?
Don’t you see the result, after often misusing those eyes?
The satsanga is the followers, those who like to keep the good company, they do not go on that path.
The vast ocean in which anyone can get drowned, but if a man has a small shell, he will not drown.
(Shell means, one that keeps you afloat.
What is at the bottom of tamboura?
Have you seen that big, dried fruit with the hard skin?
Gourd.) If you have a little gourd, you won’t sink in the ocean.
Mango.
The same way, when we think good thoughts, the good thoughts, the good thoughts are the gourd for us.
So continue to expand your love, as brother sister, father son, and that is the true key to purify the lust.
Eat moderately and exercise yourself, so that you may digest what you eat.
And observe continuously and keenly, that, does your lifestyle create the alertness in your body and a joy in your mind.
If that condition is created, then your progress will become simple and easy.
The meaning of Brahmacharya is Brahma means God, and charya means movement.
The movement toward God is Brahmacharya.
Not just closing the sex door.
From very childhood, to about the age thirteen, fourteen, we do not experience the sexual urges.
So how could we have the fear of something that we already had from the childhood.
What is the use of Brahmacharya?
Why does it take us toward God?
The Indian scriptures say that without Brahmacharya it is impossible to attain to the lord.
They say that the yogi can attain to that state of consciousness and, that just like a child who does not have desire for sex, at all, to that extent, the yogi can progress.
So, in that, there is no desire for it, and there is no disturbance through sex, sexual urge.
So the great masters who reach to this state of consciousness, they are considered to be the great masters.
They are called urdhvaretus.
Bhagwan Lakulish, my Gurudev, is such a great master, who has become urdhvareta, who has reached to the highest.
So, toward the end of becoming urdhvaretus, the entire semen begins to be transformed, which is the beginning of the attaining to the divine body.
Just as in the child’s body, the production of that energy mixes directly with the blood, so also yogi becomes childlike again, in his physical level also, and his semen becomes so superfine that it immediately mixes with the blood.
So the downward passage of the sexual energies is completely closed.
And not only that, but the center of sex that is located is also completely removed.
There is such power in his eyes because he experiences such harmony and peace within himself that his eyes can also remove the lust of others.
There have been such occasions in India where great masters have attained to the complete victory over lust.
In the line of Bhagavan Buddha, there was one saint named Upagupta [sp].
One most famous prostitute was most greatly enchanted by him.
She invited him to come to her place at midnight.
The saint had known what was happening.
He was also very beautiful.
But he went there, being completely fearless.
Such adventure, only some great master can do.
Ordinary saint cannot withstand such test.
Just as the eyes melt by the rays of the sun, so also saint melts by the opposite company, also, or the situations like that.
But this saint had a great self confidence.
His discriminating mind and consciousness was alert.
He went to the prostitute’s home.
This prostitute was sitting in her room, completely beautifully dressed, and decorated, and had also decorated her room exquisitely.
When the saint entered the room, she was greatly pleased.
When the prostitute expressed her feelings, then the saint smiled and said, “Divine mother, I will definitely come to you once, not today.”
She said, “Definitely?”
Saint said, “Yes, definitely, I’ll come.”
So, happily, she allowed the saint to go.
Saint left.
Many years passed.
The Upagupta had not left the mind of this prostitute.
She was thinking of him every day.
She really loved him, very much.
Upagupta had also told her that, “I love you very much.”
But the prostitute had different implications in her mind when she was talking about love, and when saint was talking about love, he meant altogether differently.
After many years, she was infected by the boils on her body.
Her most beautiful face became extremely ugly.
The people of the town felt that if such a body will stay in the town, the infection will spread to everyone, so she should be taken outside of the town.
Now she had no prosperity.
She had become a roaming beggar.
Sometimes she found food, and sometimes she didn’t.
Everybody was troubled by her disease, so nobody went close to her.
One day, the full moon was shining in the sky.
Those were the days in the summer.
There was a beautiful breeze blowing.
And the river was just flowing beside.
And under the tree, this prostitute was just lying there, suffering heavily.
And the saint was coming, with light feet, toward her.
He went very close to her and sat close to her.
With great love, he took her head in his lap and said, “Ihave come.”
She saw that this saint had the same beauty as she had seen before.
As soon as she saw him, she was greatly pleased, but she was also in pain.
She said, “No, no, no.
Please take my head off your lap.
Don’t touch my body.
My disease will infect on you and it will cause pain to you.”
Saint didn’t listen to any of it.
He kept tapping her head.
She spoke from her heart.
“How great you are.
How low am I.
I have had such low desires, in such pure being.”
The saint fed her and stayed with her and served her until she died.
The prostitute didn’t take much of his services.
She lived only for few hours, and died.
But her death was glad.
What kind of inspiration does these two lives give us?
The life of a saint, and the life of a prostitute?
This saint is also the traveler of the same path as that saint.
We all have to become like that, too.
It makes no difference if we have to spend several lifetimes to attain to that.
Eat moderately, pray to the Lord, think good thoughts, and make your actions pure.
Now I conclude my discourse.
I took fifteen minutes of your…