Only sex with your wedded wife -- with procreation accepted and  welcomed -- is legitimate sex for the awakened and the spiritual.
All the rest destroys self and destroys the original self-projected Eden. Sex is sacred and should happen within the lawful, divine, holistic container of marriage. This is the message of all the avatars and siddhas from Buddha to Jesus Christ. And it is the message of our Brotherhood. Yet there is so much more.

I want to tell you how the world actually manifests and where it comes from by the Creator's power.

And tell you how you expel yourself from Eden further daily, and

I'm going to talk about your "Inner Ground" and the good things that happen when you allow it to be undisturbed.

Finally, I am going to talk about the "Food Of God," and the Divine Eye which sees everything.

Men and women today are relatively in the dark about the moral and spiritual dimensions of sex, and even churches are failing to give them clear and compelling teachings. Today I walked by a group of Anglican priests filtering into the nearby church in their robes. The bhakti-yoga rituals in the Catholic and Anglican churches are highly valuable for developing bhakti and sanctity. But I saw all the old priests -- not a young one among them -- and my mind said: "Why are you not  proclaiming essential religious teachings to the young men of this city? Why are you not abjuring the young men to cease from damaging themselves spiritually by male unchastity? Ground of all religious realization? Which of you men in robes has spoken a word to them in your whole lives about this?" Truly, the churches are utterly failing to teach fundamental knowledge to young men whether from a religious point-of-view or simply "how to live." Without  knowledge of brahmacharya and conscious understanding of the  bhakti-yoga principle resident in Christianity -- these churches and their beautiful sanctuaries -- built by our ancestors for the remembrance of  the Deity -- will continue to die and bliss will be a far cry.

The World Hangs On Your Body
 
In "Bliss Of the Celibate" I present the idea that sexual indulgence was really the "forbidden fruit" in the Genesis garden story. This is not an original idea of mine, but is the teaching of many yogic saints, ancient and modern. It was also a view secreted within Christianity for millennia and now grown obscure for modern Christians.

The "Garden" can be thought of as that more pure world of good that the Creator intends for us -- that world that keeps receding from us today. When one ponders "sex as forbidden fruit," "unrestrained sex," and "The Fall," the mind naturally thinks of macrospheric, "materia-logical" effects like overpopulation. But I have come to the conclusion that this is not the heart of how we get expelled from The Garden. It is not the real mechanism of The Fall.

In the book, "Bliss Of The Celibate," I make the point that we did not "get expelled" from the Garden Of Eden all in one day in the past. Rather, we continue to see ourselves pushed further away from the garden gradually, day by day, as we indulge in sexual sin. The "expulsion" keeps going on. For most it deepens each day that they read another news story about overpopulation and ecological destruction, and see their town grow less familiar, and less pleasant. But I am going to emphasize here that the real "fall" doesn't occur through any materia-logical, exo-mechanical cause like "human overpopulation." That is only an exoteric corollary of the real process. The expulsion from Eden really originates at a metaphysical level of one's own body, as a consequence of "vibratory pollution" that fills the body when we commit sexual sin. That sin occurring in your body dynamically manifests negative changes in your outer world, in the present..


What If The World Really Is Your Own Personal Dream?

First let's place on the table a teaching of many spiritual sages: That the entire outer world is a false appearance that is occurring wholly in the now; it is your own personal "false world dream," populated with many beings just like your nightly dreams.

The great yogi Ramana Maharshi states that each of us resurrects; or projects, the entire world again in the moments in which we wake up and ego-consciousness stirs -- all the way out to the farthest stars. For a typical mind, this is hard to believe. But to hide a great secret you might make it either improbable or too simple.

In this view even our ideas about "history" and "cause" are nothing but malleable components of our personal transitory world drama. How many times has it happened that a "fixed fact" from the past has turned out to be false? New information comes to light so that past "facts" are altered. There is a lot of beautiful land that surrounds my home, with many fruit trees. Up until I week ago, I thought all the avocados trees here had only small avocados. But this week I found a tree bearing a much larger variety. They were very big indeed. And all along this tree was very near my door. The big avocados had been hanging for a long time just above my head on a path that I walk daily. The facts just changed through a surprising and delightful emergence in my life script. Such little miracles happen all the time. "The Ugly Duckling" comes to mind as a story about how one's "plot" can change. Situations that look bad can suddenly turn out to be good, even better than dreamed.

"Facts" are seen to be a great flux. Even the "historicity" of the world's existence is a flux and can become altered by new discoveries. "History" is just one more malleable part of your dream-plot. Just as screenwriters for "Star Wars" invented a history of the Republic and the Jedi Knights, you also erect all of the "historical facts" that you need to support your daily false world-dream. You actually re-create them every time you wake up in the morning. Then you periodically change even those "facts."

This theory of "the world as dream" has been supported by my long study of astrology, by my experiences with fasting and taking in different foods and substances, and also by my experiences with sleep and the astral plane.

You Dissolve The World Nightly

Conscious departures from the body are something you will be able to do after you practice a lot of meditation. I saw that in conscious astral travel, the material world holds its form only to the extent that we have imprinted it in memory. In the astral state you can often see your room and other places, but these places and objects begin to fade and change as you let go of their memories. I realized that each person dissolves his world each time he goes to sleep, then re-manifests it in a trice as he begins to wake up. The "resurrection" of the outer material plane occurs almost instantaneously as the life force, which has been turned away from your body in sleep, reverses back and "shoots" through the "stencil" of your body again.

The reason you are aware of your body's physical form on-and-off through the night is simply  that your life force fluctuates back-and-forth between "here" and "there." The reason you can find people back here who say: "Well, you were asleep, but I was here and the world was still here" -- is that you believe that should be the case; you have "run this experience" so many times, and now you manifest that "other" person who says that for you! (We carry deep samskaras, well built-up, for "others" living out in a "world.")

The world only appears to be solid and substantial. Its solidness is a function of the power of the outgoing life force. I have cognized that upon death, you don't actually leave behind any world at all, or any person. You only "seem to" if you believe that you did and carry strong memories (imprints) of the experience. Whatever you "return" to -- both after sleep or after death -- is just your set of memory impressions (samskaras) lodged in the body and being resurrected. The entire thing (world) is just an extension of your own body. In reality when your body goes, it goes. When you come back into a body, you re-erect all the externalizations to go with it.

Once you understand this, you will understand that the outer world is actually a completely malleable thing, and subject to laws. And the laws get set up right within your own body. The outer world, with its changing conditions, is predicated entirely on conditions within your astral and physical body.

Now it follows that the more pure your body, the more pure and beautiful your outer world. This is the basic reason that by using a long fast, you can move tremendous things out in the outer world; you can manifest great external changes in your personal world, or even the macro world. The purification of the fast purifies one's outer world; one almost does a "reset" of the body, or at least moves nearer to the original pure condition. Likewise, let us consider that various kinds of impurities in the body can darken one's outer world-movie in various predictable ways.

Your Inner Darkness Produces The Outer Darkness

So now that we have posited the notion that the outer world might be your own personal dream, we will now develop the next idea: That the "dream world" is as if "projected" through the "lens" of your body. Thus things that appear externally are nothing but proofs of what you carry internally. The outer dream-world alters itself according to things within you.

We can all remember times as a child when we ate something, perhaps overindulged on Christmas candies, then had a nightmare. The nightmare was really due to the "impurity" in your own body. Let us consider that the same dynamic may be occurring in the waking state. Certainly takers of certain drugs get vivid experiences of changes in the outer world when the drug is in their system. Again, they live out that dream because of something in them. I remember after a long fast, I went and ate a hamburger. Within an hour I came into very strange news of a violent and savage murder. (It was the oddest thing: I was browsing in the "gardening" section of a bookstore. Someone had misplaced a queer little book there. I opened it right to a page recounting this horrible murder.) Into the clear "substrate" of my purified body I had dropped the substance of red meat, seeing what was, in all likelihood, a matching reaction in my false outer world dream. Because the material had been dropped into a clear field, "reset" as it were by my long fast, I got a keen glimpse of what red meat "produced" in my outer dream manifestation -- violence and murder of sentient beings. In the same way that homeopathic pioneers "proved out" the effects of substances by ingesting them, one can purify body and mind and then "prove out" the external effects of various "vibratory elements" when placed into the clear physical body or mind. (Consider the fact that India, largely vegetarian, has experienced very little of wars. Denizens of big meat-eating nations regularly see their sons go off to get butchered.)

I draw the metaphor that your human body is like a "crystal" that shines a "picture" on the screen of nature. (The Hindus call that screen "prakriti," and the "screen" is also just inside of you.) The picture is the world and its conditions. Any time you introduce something into the crystal -- an energy, an impurity -- it alters the color or form of the picture that shines on the wall. It's as simple as the idea of a bit of lint on a lens, appearing in a projected picture; or making hand characters on the wall in front of a projected light. You get the idea. Yogananda says that the divine shakti flows down our body with force, through our senses, and gives the apparent reality and solidness to the outer world. When the shakti reverses course, the outer dream dissolves. While outward-focused, whatever vibrations are in us -- both at the level of karmic samskaras and active consciousness --these vibrations manifest in various ways out there in the external.

There is a very interesting statement in the ancient Yoga-Vasistha that speaks of the "four humours" of the body. It states that when one humour predominates, "one finds himself in a blind well, running from enemies." When another humour predominates in the body, one "finds himself amid feasting with happy womenfolk," and so on. He is hinting that outer phenomena are based on subtle things within the body, we could think of them as vibrational things in the body.

By much experiment I have realized that indulging the sexual thrill, which takes place at a particular lower chakra, was like attaching an "electrode" to a certain part of the crystal. This in turn causes a certain class of  "pictures" to manifest on the wall of one's life. The sex thrill is actually a kind of "vibrational impurity" that changes the outer world-picture in definite ways. You will be able to test this and see. You could think of sexual excitation as a kind of "dark homeopathic" you are doing in your body, and it definitely alters the sort of exterior phenomena that you generate. You could even think of adharmic sex as a kind of "black ritual" that you perform which attracts definite events and conditions to you. Let's now put it in a bald-faced way: Let's say there is such a thing as "sin," and let's say that "sin" is predicated on laws that are hard-wired into the very fabric of creation. And let's say that it is possible to generate in your body the "vibration" of a particular sin, as if a black cloud generated in various areas of your body. That black cloud, that sin, will alter the kind of outer world-pictures you manifest.

After getting really well established in good sexual restraint, I had a few lapses. Following the lapses, very negative conditions would immediately develop in certain areas of my life. The negative developments were of a familiar class that I used to experience many times in the past. I could see the phenomena as clearly as when I ate that hamburger after a fast. The correlation between the sex indulgence and the new negative conditions  became unmistakable.

I had been musing about this the past year. Then one day it it really hit me in the face:

I was thinking about my young life and the period where I discovered masturbation and became a sex addict. I realized that starting that year the outer world began to change in dramatic and negative ways. Within that very month the outer world -- from my family, to my neighborhood, all the way up through kings, oceans, and skies -- began to fall apart.

Getting Kicked Out Of The Garden --
I Remember The Month and Year

I was only thirteen when I somehow was led -- by my own karmic samskaras and the wrong media influences -- to experiment with masturbation. From then I was hooked and I hemorrhaged my precious life substance, more precious than my blood, enacting what is really a sort of "black homeopathic" in my body. I was really like a young calf who was bleeding uncontrollably. With no wise father to teach me and guide me I was locked in a mortal struggle. And starting from that time I manifested my own personal "expulsion from the Garden." And this, my good readers, is the real expulsion from Eden. It might be stunning if you see this the first time in your own life. There I was at thirteen and the whole world began to change:

-- Several natural fields near my house, ones I loved because they were wild and with trees, got paved with asphalt and turned into parking lots or high rises. One I was especially fond of had fruit trees in it. Definitely losing "the garden" there! Then I began to see this going on all over my town.

-- My mother and father began to not get along, and then mother divorced dad. A major blow, the end of Camelot, and truly an expulsion from the Garden for the child that I was.

-- The nuns at my school began showing us movies about starving Africans and children

-- There began to be much alarm about ecological disasters and pollution. Books like "Silent Spring," "The Population Bomb" and others began to appear.

-- The horrid "car culture" began to develop around me. I began to feel that streets were showing up everywhere in my town. They got wider and wider. They were filling up with strangers, blasting insensibly through my neighborhood in their rolling isolation units.

-- I began to sense how an increasing population was making my town feel different. Peoples who were foreign and unfriendly began moving into our neighborhood. It felt like everything was speeding up. Never again those early evenings, with a calmness in the air, and the sense of gentle people around in our town, and the smell of dinner cooking as I walked down a friendly street...

-- Society began to seem very confused. It seemed to be falling apart. I lost my father when he moved out of the house and without his moral support and modeling I had a low self-esteem and morale through high school. The bad feelings fed my sex addiction. Nothing in the world seemed to make sense. There were no answers. In an empty home with a distracted, ambitious single mother, life seemed empty and pointless.

Here the typical mind will laugh and say: "Well, all of this was happening in the world. It couldn't have had anything to do with you personally."  But the sages teach that "all is subjective." Everything that you see out there is just "you." They also teach that whatever you experience -- from the cracks in your sidewalk to the tail of a far away comet -- is all just your own personal karma. And, yogic sages teach that certain actions create "instant karma."

And it is obvious that not all people at all times experience the same sort of world. Certainly there were other people in the 1960's and 70's who were experiencing a world-story much different from mine. Maybe they didn't watch T.V. Maybe their family was not divorcing. Maybe they were in some little sheltered culture somewhere. All is subjective and each really lives in his own separate world. Nobody's world is exactly the same. The entire world dream -- including all the people that you populate it with -- are just you and your dream.

I realize now that this was my actual "fall" from the Garden. I was bringing it entirely upon myself, not in the past but here and now. By disturbing my "inner ground," I brought disturbance to the "outer ground." (Later on as I matured and remained sunk in sex addiction, I continued my "Fall" with continued bad news-of-the-world, a terrible divorce and loss of my family life, and so on.) I "fell from the Garden" for a very long time.

Even indulging in certain thoughts, or certain types of speech sets up vibrations in you; these vibrations manifest definite reactions, people and circumstances in your life. Whenever I speak a lot of harsh words, for example, I begin to encounter cars rolling down the street blaring rap music, pounding my ears with sub-woofers. How much more the powerful psycho-physical act of sex, and when done out of dharmic context. What it is: A kind of "dark homeopathic" that sets up a dark vibration in your body, and manifests definite outer conditions. (More later on the "Divine Eye" who always watches what you do with sex and reacts to it.)

As I have been mulling this over in my restrained years, I considered that this strange "homeopathic" I performed in my younger years might naturally generate appropriate outer themes. What "themes" could be more appropriate -- connected to wanton sexing -- than "overpopulation," "starvation," and ecological destruction out in the world dream? It's a match. By performing the procreative act over and over again in my body in a dissonant, adharmic context, I was manifesting phenomena of over-procreation (and its related conditions) externally in my world-dream. I was building up a powerful vibration of spiritual pollution in my body, and seeing related effects outside in my world-movie. The new over-population story was, like everything else out there, just me. Eden began to disappear.

Tip for the environmentalist: Those beautiful people who are concerned about the terrible ecological destruction going on in our world should add this to their repertoire: Try renouncing immoral sex. Do it for a while and watch for changes in "the news." Give it some time. I'll wager that you will never see a positive change without your own sexual restraint and dharmic morality. To find out what "dharmic morality" is, just study the old Buddhist canons. Christianity is in perfect step with Buddhism and Yoga in many ways. Meanwhile, for all Christians who don't see the destruction of the Creator's world as a sinful thing, I think that attitude is a serious error.

My sexual sin also produced trends in the people of the world. They became like me. Yogananda suggests that when a man indulges in unlawful sex, he is being overcome in that moment by his less rational, female desire nature. Thus I manifested a desire-mad mother who upset the apple cart of our family. In fact, I manifested an entire society full of desire-mad females and the decline of the family everywhere. I also manifested lustful sex-addicted men everywhere. As I cultivated my secret ignorance, ignorance began to manifest all around me in my world. As I raised the vibration of lust, lust and desire began to manifest in the men and women of the world. As I became a desire being wantonly giving in to desires, desire-beings manifested in my world.

This was the sort of theory I began to develop. I have been able to test it and find it true. This is actually how  we get "kicked out of the garden" more and more with each passing day. Later you can think back and test all this for yourself. If you are one of the many who has been misled to indulge in immoral, non-procreative sex, I invite you to ask a question to yourself. Take yourself to the time when you began to do that and note what changes began to occur in your personal world then, as well as the greater world. What sort of things began to appear in the news? Think back to that time and those first years, as much as you can. You will especially be able to see the change if you were fortunate to avoid sex addiction till later. You will have a better conscious comparison to make between before and after.

You will also be able to test this theory by taking corrective measures, then watching the results. When you take the corrective measures and watch the results, you will see that it is all true.

Bring the Garden Back

I proved my "inner ground" theory further to myself by pursuing sexual restraint. By doing so, I began to see the return of the Garden to my own life. By becoming restrained, storms subsided in my life; personal traumas faded away. My life became more stable. Then I began to see the larger world gradually regain elements of stability; in certain key areas it is beginning to turn around. It takes time. I have some pet ecological and civic dreams; things I want to see happening in the world more. I love how, as I cultivate my celibacy -- firm up my inner ground -- I can go down to the coffee shop and see clear signs of change just reading the paper. It will begin in your own back yard, then Eden will fan out again from there.

The garden now returns for me. My personal life has become more stable and less traumatic as I have practiced sexual restraint. My "Garden Return" even happens in literal terms, like finding fruit trees and beautiful land all around me where I live. I can walk outside my door and pull a variety of healthy fruit from the trees. I did not plan this or make an effort. God himself ushers the moral man or woman back into a brighter life and a brighter world. It takes time! Think of all the years that you have been building up the vibration of sin in your body! You have been building a "dark house" for a long time. And this is a fact: The change back to the Garden will involve some upset and collapse in the exterior world. Some of these changes will be traumatic. As energy is withdrawn from the evil matrix that a man has built up, the process of collapse can entail some spectacular events in the outer macro-world. But it will be all for the best. The evil house you create has to fall. It is like a dramatic avalanche that signals the warming of spring. More on that another time.

Your Great "Inner Ground"

The best metaphor is to say that a man has an "inner ground." His sexual energy stored up becomes that "ground." Perhaps it is true for the female, too. But I can't speak for them. A man learns to know when he has disturbed his "inner ground" through sexual loss or even excitation. He begins to feel the difference in himself -- the difference between states when his "inner ground" is fallow and undisturbed, and when it has been disturbed. The male becoming inwardly aware comes to perceive this inner difference keenly. (In "Bliss Of The Celibate" I show how the male orgasm is the male's period, and how it disturbs and demoralizes him, same as a female's period.)

As my "inner ground" began to become firmer and firmer through sexual restraint, the occasional lapse would make things obvious to see. The contrast, both in inner feelings and outer events, was so very clear. In reality the male sexual orgasm is an "earthquake" in his inner ground. When he indulges in it, he sees "earthquakes" in his exterior world. His exterior world becomes damaged.

If you are into astrology, you can even use astrology to easily pinpoint exactly where sex excitation messes up your life. I am an astrologer by profession. I noticed that after a lapse in sexual morality, big troubles would occur in the "houses" (areas of life) where my Pluto and Mars sit.

Sexual Indulgence Especially Disturbs Houses Of Life Occupied by Your Pluto and Mars

Everyone has a planet Pluto and Mars, and for everyone it sits in a particular "house" of your chart. (I use something called a "relocated natal chart" for more accuracy in astrology.) In any case, I found that whenever I indulged and disturbed my inner ground, there would be major disturbances in the specific "houses/realms of life" occupied by Pluto and Mars. (Traditionally these two planets are strongly tied to sex energy.) So if the Pluto is in a man's Third House, sexual indulgence will correlate to things like: hard drive crashes, negative experiences commuting, threatening letters, difficulty walking or seeing, and other third house calamities. If a man indulges when he has Pluto in his Fifth, he'll see terrible situations develop for his children. If the Pluto sits in the Second, sexual indulgence will occasion severe money stresses. If in eighth, he may find himself threatened with a lawsuit within days of the indulgence. These developments will show up within a day or two, or even hours. What actually happens is that sex-indulgence makes your Pluto and Mars become as if "poisonous" to the houses where they sit! So I was able to see it all working in very real and specific ways. I found that by keeping my ground firm, these frightening phenomena subside. Basically, if you will just pull away from sin, the worst things in your astrological chart dry up and go away.

My, my. Who'd a thunk it? There's grace for ya...

Now You Know How to Save The World

I have found that by becoming celibate, plus learning to commune with the inner Divinity, you will see the "world get saved" on its own. The false outer world-dream naturally upgrades. If you feel like working to help the world with external activities, go ahead. The celibate's thoughts and actions are most effective. Whether you do this or not, the Garden returns.  If you ever hear about a world where land is disappearing, where once pristine areas are becoming overpopulated and despoiled, or charming towns being overrun by cars and materialism -- this is always nothing but a manifestation of your own inner pollution; the disturbance to your own inner ground.

If you ever hear about a beautiful land -- one that is there waiting for you -- one better than the one you know, this is nothing but a fruit of your own inner ground as it builds up. As you build up the "sacred ground" within you, the ground -- literal land itself -- appears externally. This is the reward of sexual morality. The old Europeans who lived a life of "there's a new land over the sea full of good things" -- these were just moral people enjoying fruit from the buildup of their inner ground. Christianity guided them, as a mass culture, to be moral in their handling of sex energy. (Those who think that their forefathers were masturbators, or that our ancestors practiced the same sexual license of modernes, are badly deluded.) With purification your story also will change for the better. After a few calamities, as the energy is withdrawn from the old matrix, beautiful land and culture begins to return.

God becomes immediately very pleased by a man or woman's effort to practice moral restraint and follow the original law. That law is fixed at the foundation of the very fabric of creation. Every Deva salutes you; every Lord of Nature stands aside for you. The parable about the Prodigal Son should be held in mind. God is very pleased to see you turn back. Begin now your journey back to the Pure Land.

Ojas Within Equals Beauty Without

I spent many years reading religious scriptures. My special focus is the scriptures of Yoga and Hinduism which deal with discovering God directly within. This idea that the world is our own emanation is stated in many eastern scriptures. It is especially developed in The Yoga-Vasistha, the world's longest book containing the teaching of Sage Vasistha to the divine incarnation, Rama. But the further idea, that sexual immorality directly disturbs that emanation, took time to find plainly stated. It was my experience and careful observation that enabled me to discover it. On the other hand, this principle is plainly stated in the yogic scriptures. I have recently discovered the straight talking and highly focused mystical literature of the Sikhs. Listen to Guru Nanak lay it on the line:

"...He who does not control the fluid is unwise.
...Those who waste the fluid are tyrannized by Kal [the negative power].
...He who wastes the fluid gets into extreme troubles.
...Those who waste the fluid suffer greatly.
...He who does not control the fluid is degraded
...Those who waste the fluid lose all.
...He who does not control the fluid is sent to hell [not later, but in the here and now].
...By self control depression disappears.
...By self control one gets knowledge of all things.
...By self control one crosses the ocean of the world.
...By self control one gets everything."
 
From "Pran Sangli" of Guru Nanak, Founder of Sikhism
Note: I have taken these verses from a piece by Guru Nanak having approximately
40 such verses on "wasting the fluid," and have listed them in my own order here.

 
From the Yoga-Vasistha, the words of the sage Vasistha teaching the divine incarnation Rama:

"To those who have gained internal composure, the whole world becomes
cool and calm, while, to persons molten in the furnace of internal desires,
the whole world is one huge conflagration."
 
Sage Vasistha, The Yoga-Vasistha

Comment: The whole world does not merely "seem" to be a "huge conflagration"; i.e. through a mere attitudinal perspective of the sinner. Rather, the outer world actually becomes this way for him by dynamic metaphysical law. Of all inner desires, there are none more disturbing than the sexual desires and sexual activation. It is a tamasic vibration in the body (dark, ignorant), originating in the lower, more dualistic chakras, and manifests a tamasic outer world-dream.

Then from the ancient Vedas of India comes this highly significant statement:

"With the tapas (austerity) of brahmacharya the king protects his state."
  Atharva Veda

The king's sexual continence does not protect the kingdom merely because the deity is "pleased," and therefore protects his realm for him. The king sees his kingdom prosper because his celibacy keeps his outer world-dream undisturbed!

Every man and woman lives in his own kingdom, out to the farthest stars. Every man heals and protects his world with moral continence. This includes the entire outer world-movie, environmental news -- the whole thing. You are the projector of your own world, and it upgrades itself through sexual morality. Here's a beautiful one from the Rig-Veda:

The male creative substance, one must notice, is very beautiful. It is of the nature of  beautiful white pearl. This is very significant. In fact, the male creative substance is the essence of beauty in the male body. It is this substance in the body that lends beauty and natural order to the outer world. When a man foolishly drains it from his is body, the beauty necessarily drains from that man's outer world-dream, and natural order disappears. His world becomes unbalanced, twisted and perverted like him. When it is kept in the body, beauty and glory return to his outer world. Slowly but surely, the "garden" returns for him on all levels, day by day.

How The World "Follows" The Great Man

The Bhagavad-Gita, India's most popular yogic scripture, carries a mysterious verse that implies this truth -- that of the outer world "upgrading" according to one's inner virtue. This verse is generally overlooked or misunderstood. The verse had bothered me for many years. It appears to make a statement that is untrue on its face. But when considered in the present context, the verse finally makes sense. It is saying something more profound that the commentators have imagined. It often happens that the greatest occult secrets in life are sitting out in plain view, staring us in the face. Here is the verse:

"Whatsoever a great man doeth, that other men also do;
the standard he setteth up, by that the people go."
 
Sri Krishna, The Bhagavad-Gita, Verse 3:21, Translation of Annie Besant

Some translations use "sage" instead of "great man," but most translators use "great man." Taken at face value, this verse is highly perplexing. Men are considered "great" in all kinds of ways, and for all kinds of reasons. "Greatness" is often associated with mere fame or notoriety. Many considered "great" today are clearly not great on any moral or intellectual plane. Nowadays those who pass for "great" are mere actors or politicians, corrupting the earth. They can't be the ones Krishna means.

But even if we take those considered morally or intellectually great, it is generally not the case that the world follows their example except maybe during their lifetime. Commentators analyzing this verse sometimes point to personalities like Mahatma Ghandi or Christ as examples of "great men." It is easy to argue that the masses do not follow their example today. Only a few follow their example, and then usually in fits and starts. Mahatma Ghandi set an example of renunciation and  simplicity. Do the masses follow today? Christ set an example of purity, seclusion, and mercy, and the demonstration of yogic siddhis. Do today's masses follow that example? Yet this verse states that the masses, or the "people," do in fact follow the way of the "great man." So we must be talking about a special kind of great man, and a special kind of process by which they "follow."

Commentators, blandly, take it to mean example setting. But the meaning of this verse has been hidden from them. It speaks of the occult law by which the entire world upgrades for the celibate during his life. This is the way "all the people follow" the great man. Only the celibate is truly great, and only he witnesses this principle in action. This "great man" or sage can therefore witness it from a private place, in an anonymous and uncelebrated life. These are the great men.

No man is in fact great who does not follow the moral law. But for this man, other men become pure as he becomes pure. He develops power to actually "influence" the entire world occultly, since he finds the whole world originating with his own body. So even sitting in a secluded place and unknown to all, the whole world "follows" him.. As that true "great man" becomes pure, his whole world becomes pure.

And the celibate has even greater powers for lifting his world, powers beyond his stored sexual ojas.

Abiding In Inner Bliss Manifests Blissful Outer Conditions

On one level we can talk about basic human duty: The preserving of the sexual energy, except for procreation, is the cornerstone of civilized humanity. It is also the cornerstone of higher philosophy, or dharma. The central moral dharma is to treat the creative energy as sacred. To treat a thing as sacred, one doesn't use it casually; doesn't use it primarily for personal pleasure; doesn't use it outside of its  natural holistic context; doesn't ignore, much less thwart, it's inherent purpose. The inherent purpose of sex is the creation and full upbringing of a child by its own mother and father. Each child chooses its parents from the astral plane through natural karmic ties.

When not intentionally creating a child in a family context with its mother, then one should store up sex potential in the body, letting it belong to God alone.

In decadent America this sounds severely conservative. Well, it is certainly conservative. And it conserves truth and the traditions of our anscestors. It conserves good sense. It conserves physical vitality, moral stamina, harmonious relations, and the holistic natural family life. It conserves a safe and nurturing place for children, and this view conserves fruitful society. The logical exoteric dynamics of this standard conserves much good in the world.

I have also trumpeted here the fact that this conservative view has an occult benefit. It brings the actual upgrade of one's outer world. Because the sexual energy is itself pure beauty and pure virtue, this practice by itself causes beauty and virtue to build up in the outer world with time. By not abusing the creative power one one gives up fundamental sin; the sin that most alienates us from the Creator.

But there is more beyond this. The storing up sex potential in the body lays the ground for profound God-contact; to experience and then abide in God's pure Being, Consciousness and Bliss. This then brings even higher transcendental vibrations into your own body, and thus the world.

The Higher Your Inner Bliss, the More Beautiful Your Outer World

Celibacy has an important occult role in attaining higher spiritual states via meditation. Our continence serves as the base and fuel from which we may ascend to the state of samadhi, experience the pure Consciousness, Being and  Bliss of God's nature, and finally become one with Brahman, the absolute divinity. The creative subtle power stored within allows us to engage and merge with the entirely pure creative power. Our body is then changed at an occult level, and consequently out outer world-dream.

The great yogi Maharishi Mahesh yogi wrote: "Being glorifies karma." "Being" refers to the Pure Being of God, or "Sat." Here "karma" refers to the entire outer world experience. The "glorification" of karma means that the entire karmic experience is upgraded when one immerses himself in that pure Being. The profound sacrifice of celibacy allows us to immerse ourselves in the pure Being of God and his bliss nature, which is perfect, non-dual and free of flaws and sorrows. As we immerse ourselves more and more in That, through the power of celibacy, our body becomes divinized. Then divine effulgence, such as we have never seen, begins to  bursts forth onto the canvas of our outer world. The world again becomes an angelic realm for us. Exterior glories are reflections of glories within.

The other day toward dusk I was out and about on our land. I was enjoying a big cigar and walking our pug. At that time I saw a sunset I could not believe. The sun had just disappeared beneath the horizon. High in the upper sky was a nebula of clouds. It was a fascinating vortex of pearl. Bursting from this orgasmic diaspora were small V-like formations of cloud that marched eastward in an evenly repeated pattern. They stood like arcane hatchmarks, or soldiers in perfect array against the blue. It seemed that some cosmic schoolmaster was telegraphing an arcane alphabet, repeated for his pupil all the way to the east. Each standing stroke got smaller as the train of shapes disappeared into a fulminating mist in the upper eastern sky. It was too beautiful to describe -- both orgasmic and well-ordered. If an artist had conceived such a sky for the cover of a science fiction book, the editor would have sent it back, saying it was too beautiful, and yet so uncannily well ordered, that it was not to be believed. Even a Hollywood computer artist would not have conceived that a sky could ever be this beautiful.. I felt I was getting a glimpse of a higher world. That same day I received very good news about my daughters, plus good news in the paper about the direction of the people. I realized my world upgrading, bit by bit.

This higher divine principle of transcendental bliss manifesting outward is offered again in one of the most profound of all yogic scriptures, the ancient Jivan-Mukti Viveka. It was composed by Vidyaranya, the minister to an ancient king, and a great yogi and adept:

"Through him, whose mind is dissolved in that
vast ocean of absolute Consciousness and Bliss,
the Supreme Brahman, his family derives its sanctity,
his mother, the fulfillment of her cherished hopes
and desires and the earth becomes replete with
pious merit of a high order."

The verse in a condensed form:

"Through him...the earth becomes replete with pious merit of a high order,"

This is true for him even if he sits in seclusion, completely unknown to the world. The mystery of Gita verse 3:21 is solved. This is very good news !

Another verse from the Sikhs sums up the spiritual law:

 
Even the Sage Lao Tzu Says It !

China's ancient Tao Te Ching speaks of the "Tao," loosely translated as "Way." In verse 37 the sage Lao Tzu speaks of the outcome of  "holding to the way," or "abiding" in the Way. He whispers through the ages this same truth: that the outer world is our own emanation, and that it is upgraded through our own pure behavior and God-contact. Every man is Adam; ever man is his own Manu, or Lawgiver. Study the two verses below. I see here that "Tao" refers to the Sat-Chit-Ananda of the Lord. (Being, Consciousness, and Bliss.) This tao, when known, accrues to satisfaction and desirelessness. He speaks of the "nameless uncarved block" which I take as the pure consciousness of the Divine Nature within. Here is the verse via two different translators:

Verse 37

Verse 37

The Way never acts yet nothing is left undone.
Should lords and princes be able to hold fast to it,
The myriad creatures will be transformed of their own accord.
After they are transformed, should desire raise its head,
I shall press it down with the weight of the nameless uncarved block.
The nameless uncarved block
Is but freedom from desire,
And if I cease to desire and remain still,
The empire will be at peace of its own accord.
    
Tao Te Ching, Trans. by D.C. Lao, Penguin Classics

Much of the Tao Te Ching consists of advice to kings for wise rulership. The translator of the first selection has modernized and diffused the usual "lords and princes" into "powerful men and women." But these verses repeat the revelation that one sees his external "kingdom" (and the myriad creatures) upgrade simply by "abiding in the Tao" personally. One could interpret further that the true "king" is the one who pursues the Tao. These are the "natural elite" of the world, and end up royalty anyway, over incarnational time. To "press down with the weight of the nameless uncarved block" means to incline more deeply into the satisfaction-bliss of the Lord within, which makes one desireless. This imbues the external world and its peoples with desirelessness and true satisfaction. When the people are seen becoming ignorant again, diving deep into the satchitananda is the eternal solution. Celibacy makes a man able to make this dive; to abide in Tao.

This same mystery -- that the world takes care of itself through illumination of our own mind and body -- is confirmed in the Bhagavad Gita. Krishna says:

"And when he stands satisfied in the Self and by the Self,
for him there is nothing to be done."
Bhagavad-Gita

So you see, you have the power to save your own world, and that of all others. Not by egoic activity. Not by running about "fixing" external things. The sage, when externally focused, naturally inclines toward action that will be helpful to others. For example, I spend some time now and then working on these websites, because when I become externalized and look out and see a "world" that needs "fixing," my logical mind says that the most helpful thing for the people would be knowledge and understanding of eternal law, and the path to God within. If one is going to spend time externalized, it is only natural at those times to try to figure out the best way to serve. All great yogis, sages and saints end up doing beneficial charitable work as a matter of course. But they don't delude themselves that these external activities are actually what saves the world. Christ mocked those who felt that they could fix the world by external effort. He said: "The poor [worldly duality, sorrow] you will always have with you." To world fixers he pointed out:  "You can't even add one inch to your own height," much less save the world. If I see ignorant people and negative conditions "out in a world" that need fixing, this is caused at root by my own inner pollution. Chasing about to "help the world" externally is like laboring to empty out the sea using a little tablespoon. When clouds rise up and rain falls, the sea fills up again. And every time your monkey mind moves about gathering up impressions of dualism and sin, your world fills up with more sorrows. The true work to save the world is my own inner purification. It gives more dramatic results.

This is why Buddha said: "There is nothing you can truly do to help the world except to get your own enlightenment." So this power to entirely save the world lies within you, through your own inner purification, celibacy, and meditation. Nothing else will accomplish it, yet it will be accomplished.

Now do you see how very good the Lord is?

 
DON'T BE AN IDIOT AND CHURN YOUR GROUND

When a man has an orgasm, it is a profound, occult, inner earthquake. But I have found that even sexual titillation disturbs the inner ground. Many men when developing restraint want to "have it both ways." They want sex thrills plus the benefits of restraint. So some pursue the trick of merely retaining their semen though indulging sexual lust anyway. I myself was in this category for some time. And it is a far wiser thing than losing the treasure.  However, I found that this sort of chicanery involves a "churning" of your inner ground. You could compare it to an earthquake where the earth moves slowly -- not suddenly or violently -- but it does tremendous damage just the same to structures of the land. I found that even this sort of indulgence; the stimulation; the vibration of the lower chakras -- creates outer negative manifestations. You are still creating inner "pollution." (One of the favorite terms of Swami Shivananda for the sex thrill.) Many so-called  "tantric" and "Taoist" notions cause men to keep these shenanigans going. Once you go far in celibacy, the only positive path is to keep the inner ground firm, undisturbed -- sanctified. That means no excitation.

The ripe celibate comes to loathe all sexual excitation. He does not want females behaving around him in such a way as to "turn him on." He considers it rude, uncouth, and inconsiderate when women dress like whores. Not to mention "low class." The visually-oriented male realizes it as a form of sexual molestation. When men return to this attitude it results in an entirely different sort of culture and civilization than what we are seeing today (in which the females now dress like whores). When there are many males like this, it brings a return to the more elegant and beautiful human culture of the past, where human sex energy acts like sap in the tree of human culture, producing all kinds of beautiful fruit: excellent architecture and town layout, beautiful clothing, delicate and complex social niceties, refined language and conversation, and so on. Males sunk in ignorance want the females around them to look "sexy" (lust-inducing) so they can feel "turned on." The ignorant female obliges, creating a grotesque social environment from the point of view of the restrainer. The restrainer and true celibate would rather that the ladies have a little class and cover themselves up decently. Like a farmer who has an excellent stallion in his eastern pasture, he acts as an intelligent manager of its sexual powers. Just as that husbandman would not appreciate idiots walking by with mares, arousing his stallion out of season, the enlightened male feels molested when women around him display their body indecently like club strippers. He does not want the "stallion" of his sexual energy aroused "out of season," or out of right context. (Right context is the private realm of marriage and the home, and the assumed prospect of procreation.) Until enlightened females and civilization return, the good man on the street must look away and avoid places where the more ignorant sort of female goes.

When you finally recognize sexual excitation as spiritual and metaphysical pollution, you will begin working on ways to avoid it even in sleep -- which is the most difficult of all frontiers for mastery. Even regular excitation during sleep darkens the outer world-movie.

For the really ripened celibate, there is a new phenomenon, too. As you go deeper your lapses begin to correlate with outer negative manifestations that are more and more spectacular. There is seen the contrast between the life you've been building as you've built your inner ground, and the old pathetic life. You are building up a house within and without, and the further along you are in building, the greater the tragedy when you ignorantly knock it down from its new heights.

The Food Of God

This brings me to the fact that the energy retained through restraint, if one does spiritual practices, ignites in a process of God-communion. To become celibate or restrained, spiritual practices such as meditation help the most. But it also works in the opposite direction: Celibacy or even restraint assist profoundly in spiritual realization. This is why the yogic and monastic paths require it! You can have a good technique, and even devotion. But to contact the transcendental you must be full of the creative power. Then that power becomes how you interact with the Creator. What I found is that the inner ground -- the ojas that you are storing up in your body -- becomes like the food of God.

In old movies the villagers use torches that have some kind of substance -- probably tar or resin -- at the top that burns. The built up sexual energy is that which "burns" as a man becomes God-illumined. It's what lets him become a light. It is what makes him a burning fire of spiritual influence. At my site brahmacharya.info I tell Christ's Biblical parable of the "three brides." One "bride" uses up the "oil" in her "lamp" and was thus abandoned at the wedding night. This story makes little sense on the face, but in context of esoteric meditation is ringingly clear. The "oil" is the sexual fluid and energy that gets spread in a subtle way all through the body. The saints call it "ojas" and Native American shamans called it "orenda." This is what lets you interact with the Divinity. The "friction" you then feel yourself make with the the Divinity; that "resistance," is what creates a new being and sets you spiritually ablaze.

Your retained sexual energy is what makes you an adequate "match" for God, your True Mate. I have felt more and more that in deeper meditation the mystic has a kind of "intercourse" with God that is very exhausting and difficult at times. As the Lord penetrates you further, it is even somewhat painful at times. I am a normal heterosexual . But a man who meditates deeply senses that to the Divinity, he plays as if a "female" role. He is the receiver. (And there is a mystery inside of this that speaks to human male-female relations. But later.) After sexual lapses, I always felt that I could not bear deep meditation; that I was no longer a "match" for God. I felt that I no longer could provide "friction" for that interaction. I felt as if I was a "wife" who had become sexually like a wet paper bag, or a gaping hole, who could no longer provide any "resistance" to her husband. I no longer had enough to bring to the bargain. To engage the Creative Power one must be right full with the Creative Power. I could feel it so clearly.

Only later I read about certain celibate yogic saints saying that the stored-up sexual energy, the ojas, is like the food of God. They say that the "Shakti" delights in it. This is from a post I recently found on DejaNews.com:

In particular I have found that the inner Om, the Holy Pranava, is heard easily when pursuing sexual restraint. (It doesn't have to be perfect celibacy -- just make the effort, son.) I don't have any scriptural citations, but I have doubts whether one can perceive the inner Aum easily without at least being very sexually restrained. Certainly one can't hold on to it. Without a build up of ojas, I truly doubt whether one can handle it. It is too much. With a sanctified buildup of ojas -- the subtle sexual energy within -- a saint or yogi becomes able to "interact" with the Divinity. Then a fruitful "friction" can take place. A divine fire is felt, more and more, burning within. Finally that fire consumes ego and illumines others.

Seeing The Great New House You've Been Building Come Crashing Down Again

After making good progress in celibacy for a while, I was astonished at the turn of outer events whenever I lapsed. They would appear within the day. In addition to a marked feeling of inner turbulence, my whole outer world would begin to fall apart. Many negative things would begin to occur -- serious things -- especially in the houses occupied by my Pluto and Mars. Because I had been keeping my ground firm for so long; because I had come so far, I could perceive the contrast both inwardly and outwardly. I could feel that God was casting me back toward my low station of years before. I was brought back to an inner state that I had forgotten -- the way it felt to be a young man sunk in masturbation. My world then was falling apart, too. But I was not conscious of what was happening to me. Now, so far along, I felt that same "inner falling apart" take place with clarity against the background of my long restraint, and could see the "outer falling apart" recommence. It was as clear as a whisp of black smoke against a bright autumn sky.

Once you "engage" the Divine Lord with your ojas, once it is "lit," it is as if a current sets up. You are now moving in a dynamic process. When God really takes you He is like a mother lioness is with her prey. Once she has you, she never lets you go. I realized that once God takes possession of that inner "ojas" -- that built-up sexual power -- the effects are devastating when you suddenly make it unavailable (by stealing it away for the wasteful and passing thrill of orgasm). Once he has you, once that relationship has been created, it rocks your world to put a bubble in the pipeline. It as if before you were a flame, but now you have dampened the flame and black smoke forms. The greater flame you were, the worse the smoke. It is interesting that in the Bhagavad-Gita Krishna compares sexual lust to "smoke" -- he says that "as smoke covers a flame, so lust covers everything." This "inner smoke" occurs as we indulge in sexual sin and darkens our outer world. I have now seen it so clearly. At these times of lapse, a man who has been lifted high by the good karma, by God's favor, gets dashed to the ground. You have taken away the communion; the food of God. You were being given a lot. You had a lot of protection. The divinity within was stabilizing your life and you didn't realize it. Eden was trying to form around you but now you have sent it an earthquake again. Now dramatic consequences occur naturally by law. That is the way that it is. Be warned. Test it and see! The man who is deeply sunk in sexual indulgence and sin, who has not built up his inner ground yet, won't be able to perceive as much contrast between sinning and not sinning. His life and world were already a swirling mess anyway. But for the man who is getting established, whose life was being healed, the contrast will be clear.

I would never go back to my old life; my old falling-apart, crisis-ridden life.

In the higher spiritual life of meditation, celibacy is key. I often talk to people who use my same meditation technique, but who seem to get little out of it. I believe that my celibacy alone has been what has enabled me to penetrate into mysteries of meditation. This is what they lack. It is the sexual restraint that has allowed me to perceive and then lock onto the transcendental perceptions. And I would not give them up for anything. I will not go back to the life of lust and false pleasure which rocks the garden and brings only sorrow.

The Divine Eye

Most who believe in a Creator accept the idea that the Creator is all-seeing, that he sees and hears all things at all times; that he knows our thoughts etc. I believe this is true, but I believe that there are certain moments when the creator Really Sees and pays attention more than at other times. And the greatest case of this is the moment of the human orgasm.

I believe that at the time of orgasm one ascends, as it were, very close to the meads of God. The blissful moment of orgasm is what makes people get addicted to it. I believe that at that moment one gets a connection to the God in which the Divine Eye takes more notice of you. Here I will use a couple of analogies that are not quite right, but give you the idea.

We hear that the government monitors many communications at the National Security Administration. The notion is that certain communications, containing certain words, etc., arise from the multitude to receive more attention by agents there. In the same way, when man and woman perform the sex act, they rise to notice by the divine being. In the recent Tolkien movies (Lord of The Rings, etc.) there is a situation where putting on a ring makes one seen by the evil Sauron. At that time one gets his full notice. In this same way the Good Lord, I think, sees every man and woman very clearly when they engage in the creative act. It is like a father who has a son. As days go on the father does not ask to be informed of every little thing that happens with the son. But at certain times -- son's first overnight; or choice of son's school -- the father scrutinizes the boy and the situation. Or you can imagine a King with a son. He doesn't want the Queen and maids to tell him every time the boy eats something. But he might say. "Bring him to me the first time he wants to get on a horse." Or, "I want to talk to him the first time he has a fight with another boy." And so on.

In this same way, although the Divinity sees us at all times, I believe there are certain times when he sees us with more interest, and I believe the greatest of these times is the sex act. At that time, everything about the sex act -- the backdrop, the circumstances, the intention, the attitude, the lawfulness, the moral conditions -- all  are registered by Divine Intelligence at the very highest level. Then the Divine Intelligence has a specific reaction to it. This shows up as effects and consequences in our personal lives, and in our outer world-dream, which is nothing but an extension of your personal life.

You can also postulate this concept in dry terms of mechanical law: During the sex act, you make an instantaneous "connection" to all of creation -- all the way out to the farthest stars. In that connection, everything about the circumstances of the act is juxtaposed against the universal pattern of law and life. The Universe loves life, and that Life originates from within a holistic matrix of Law. The conditions surrounding the sex act are all part of the sex act. The all-seeing universal consciousness registers everything about the conditions and context of the act. The conditions surrounding your sex act are as if juxtaposed against that universal matrix of law and life. Thus the conditions (surrounding the sex act) engage with the universal matrix of law in either a constructive, harmonious way or a dissonant way. Whatever is "out of kilter" in your sex --  out of holistic creative context -- will set a vibratory dissonance with that universal matrix. Thus the universal matrix of law becomes as if an "enemy" to you. It will "react back" upon you lawfully, in the form of outer life conditions .

But I prefer to state it this way: The Divine Intelligence takes special umbrage to the misuse of the creative power, and exacts automatic retribution on those who do it. Part of that retribution is the inability to see or understand what is happening -- how their own sin has darkened their world dream. That blight includes the sinking into ignorance, becoming cut off from dharma, from effective technique, being led further and further into the hell of unquenchable desire.

All this from a celibate mind.

I want to thank my "research brothers" out there who have supplied me with many excellent references from time to time (like Shakespeare's great quote above). I see that there are very good and saintly men developing in this county. There have been some very good female correspondents, too. This is good news. It presages the regeneration of the world.

Become a sage. Become great.

Keep it in.

Blessings and many saints for our nation,
Anandaguru Omkaracharya

CELIBACY.INFO