Chastity
is highly
significant in
genuine yoga, in Vedanta, in dharma, and in Christianity.
For the higher paths in these faiths -- the paths of the priests and
the yogis -- chastity is critical. The impact of continence on the male
is of a completely different
order than the impact of, say "moderate eating" or "keeping your
temper."
Lots of fellows try not to overeat, go on diets, and go to the gym.
Lots of worldlings try to keep
their temper and try to be nice to everybody. It does not give them
samadhi or meditation power.
The effects of continence, however,
revolutionize a
man's mind, body,
and meditation life. It specifically bestows on his mind power of
concentration and penetration. It makes both his body and mind occultly
strong to cope with divine perception itself. Not of least
significance, staunching of the male period (hemorrhage of highest
blood)
attenuates and calms the outer world-disturbance which is
self-generated and which
distracts a man and prevents him from spiritual focus. The exterior
world-disturbance is directly based on the sexual discharge itself. (The world is a
projection
of your body, continent men learn this.)
As a man tears up his
inner ground, he sees the external world continually torn up, including
ever-growing personal dramas and life-damage. So continence is the
stable platform for both spiritual progress and ordinary worldly
progress (with wife, children, etc. The sacrifice of his blood and
personal loss is legitimized by procreation and fatherhood. But
sex-addicts and incontinent fathers will not be good husbands or
fathers, and he will continue manifesting personal hell for himself and
his family. This is both yogic and Christian knowledge.)
Finally, chastity pleases and attracts
God. It finally makes him a "something" so that he can interact with,
resist, and withstand that other Something, God. Other forms of
self-control -- like what you eat or what you say -- do not
achieve what chastity achieves. They do not give him what
chastity gives him. They do not produce the personal inner
result
that chastity produces in a man. (Notice how in the following verses of
the Upanishads chastity is singled out from
austerities-in-general.) Chastity is in a
different league from other forms of self-control; nothing affects more
directly, more personally, or more profoundly. Some apologists may say
"brahmacharya means" "love of Brahman" or "mergence in
Brahman."
But these two are impossible without chastity, thus the importance of
brahmacharya.
Chastity is the basis of religion, the basis of yoga
(mental control for God-mergence), and the basis of all quests for
enlightenment in every world religion from Sikhism to
Buddhism to
Christianity to Vedanta. It was the chastity of the priests, nuns, and
Christians that made Europe prosper. God always protects and prospers
even a moderately moral nation, how much more one with nuns, priests,
and chaste yogis (bhaktas). A thousand world-saving religions can be
generated from a few chaste, God-seeking men and any satguru. (And God
has given many to the world.) But without chastity of two
types,
among the faithful, even magnificient religions like Christianity will
weaken, fall part, and die.
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Chastity
In the Upanishads
In ancient India a young man in the "brahmachari"
period of youth had to have been striving for chastity before he could
be sent to a guru for spiritual instruction. The reason the period of
youth was called the "brahmachari" period is because getting sexual
self-control is the overwhelming challenge of youth for the male. It is
the effort most necessary and the critical accomplishment for a young
male who would strive for the highest. Attainment of self-control is
the obvious
challenge and imperative of male youth.
In the opening verse of the Prasna
Upanishad, six noble sons 'of noble families' approach a guru for
instruction in spiritual knowledge. It says:
"All
these, devoted to Brahman and firm in Brahman and seeking the Supreme
Brahman,
approached, fuel in hand, the venerable Pippalada."
(The name of the guru.)
Prasna Upanishad, Verse 1:1, trans by Swami Nikhilananda
Obviously, if they already knew Brahman (in the
mystic yogi's terms), they would have no need of approaching
a teacher. When the
verse says the young men were already
"devoted to Brahman" -- even
"firm in
Brahman" -- it simply meant they were making firm effort
at chastity.
Even the phrase "fuel in
hand" is a reference to chastity and not merely to the convention of
bringing a gift to a guru. Here is the very second verse:
"The
rishi said to them: Stay with me a year more, practicing austerities,
chastity, and faith.
Then you may ask questions according to your desire."
Prasna Upanishad, Verse 1:2
The guru ups the chastity ante here. Even though they had already been
"firm in Brahman" (making a firm effort at brahmarcharya), he
emphasizes it anew. To be sure it is attained, he won't even
teach
them until they have explicitly pursued it another year in his
field. Moreover,
along with a year's focused effort at chastity,
they were to do other austerities, plus cultivate
faith (shraddha) -- that fertile seedbed of divine realization. In the
verses above the
Sanskrit word,
that the author translated as "chastity," was nothing
but the word brahmacharya."
There are quite a few other verses in the Vedas and Upanishads just
like those above, and just as clear. Notice in this verse that
chastity, though easily
seen as a kind of austerity itself, is called out distinctly
from general austerities. Such is its importance.
Realize, incidentally, that these three things: austerities, chastity,
and faith -- were the basic basic pursuits of the Christian saints and
priests who established the European bhakti-yoga, Christianity.
(Christianity is yoga.) When Christians realize this and go back to
austerities, chastity, and the faith-fueled search for God-knowledge
within, Christianity -- the great bhakti-yoga of the Europeans -- will
come blazing back.
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