Questioner: Where men and women exist naturally in this world what is the need for brahmacharya (freedom from all sexual impulses through thoughts, speech and acts)?
Dadashri: Yes men and women happen to be part of nature. The account and result of brahmacharya in this life is also a natural account. This world is the fruit of man’s deep inner intent. This intent is laid down as a seed in the past life and the fruits come forth in this life. If you had the deep inner intent for brahmacharya in your past life, then brahmacharya will unfold in this life. The world is your own projection.
Questioner: For what benefits should one practice brahmacharya?
Dadashri: If you get hurt here on this arm and you start bleeding, why do you do everything to stop the bleeding? What is the benefit?
Questioner: We do not bleed excessively.
Dadashri: What would happen if you do bleed excessively?
Questioner: The body will become weak.
Dadashri: So it is with abrahmacharya (incontinence of sexual impulses), the body becomes weak. All the diseases in the body are due to abrahmacharya. Yogurt is not the end product of milk. Yogurt is converted to cream, which is finally converted to butter. Similarly, all that you eat and drink, the air you breathe, results in a final product, which is the essence of the body. Brahmacharya is the ultimate essence of this complex of intake and output, this living body.
There are two things in this world that one should not waste. One is money and the other is semen. All the money in this world is going down the drain. It should not be used for oneself. Money should not be misused and one should practice brahmacharya as much as possible. The ultimate extract of our nourishment is semen and it is dissipated and lost in sex. There are certain nerves in the body that help preserve semen and this in turn protects the body. Therefore, brahmacharya should be preserved as much as possible.
Questioner: But, I still do not understand why one should practice brahmacharya?
Dadashri: I am not trying to force you into doing anything. You should be able to understand by yourself. It is a different matter if you cannot practice brahmacharya, but you should never oppose brahmacharya. Brahmacharya is the best tool for health and spiritual progress.
Let go of this talk of brahmacharya. Do not practice brahmacharya. I am not of the opinion that you have to practice brahmacharya. I do tell people to get married. I do not have any objection to people getting married.
Those who desire the pleasures of worldly life and have a desire for material things, they should get married and those who do not like worldly pleasures and are seeking eternal happiness, should not get married.
Questioner: Is it true that the married people attain real knowledge, atmagnan later than those who are not yet married?
Dadashri: If a married couple takes a vow of brahmacharya, they will understand the bliss of the Self completely. Otherwise, they cannot understand whether their happiness comes from sexual gratification or from the pure Soul. Those, who are under the vow of brahmacharya, experience eternal bliss of the Self within. Their mind and body both remain healthy.
Questioner: Then, is the state of the Self the same for the one who is married and the one practicing brahmacharya?
Dadashri: The person who is under the vow of brahmacharya will never fall, no matter how bad the difficulties. That is called safe side.
Brahmacharya is the king of the body. A person practicing brahmacharya has a wonderful mind. Brahmacharya is the extract of the entire living body.
Questioner: This extract of the body, the vitality, does not go to waste does it?
Dadashri: No. The vitality may dissipate. It does become useless in sex does it not? That extract is a very different matter. Lord Mahavir had the extract of brahmacharya for forty-two years. Vitality is the ultimate extract of all the extracts from the food we eat. If this extract is properly preserved, one can quickly attain the Self. One will be protected from the pains of the world and all bodily ailments. There will be no suffering of any kind.
Questioner: Does brahmacharya not come under the non-Self?
Dadashri: Yes, but it is the final balance and extract of the living body.
Questioner: Then how does the extract of the non-Self, the living body, help the Self?
Dadashri: The Self will only be attained through the attainment of the extract of the living body, the non-Self. This is always the case in the traditional spiritual Kramic path. Without this there is no progress and one will have difficulty in remembering and saying simple sentences of scriptures. Because the Gnan that I have given you is Akram (direct, step-less), this does not matter.
Questioner: Does this mean that there is a connection between brahmacharya and the experience of the Self?
Dadashri: Of course there is. That is the main point. With brahmacharya you can achieve whatever you want to. With brahmacharya your worldly aims will be accomplished. You will be able to follow your vows and commitments. There is ease of further progress in all directions. The extract of non-Self, brahmacharya is a big thing. If this is present it opens the Self.
No one has provided a real understanding on the subject sex to anybody. That is because people themselves are involved in sexuality. The saints and sages in the olden days were very sincere and that is why they could talk and make people understand about it.
That sex is poison is not known. If they did know that sex is poison, they would stay away from it. Therefore the Lord says that the fruit of knowledge of the Self is continuity. What is the fruit of worldly knowledge? To stop. One has not known the danger of sex and therefore he does not stop.
If there is anything to fear, it is the fear of sexuality. There is no other reason, in this world, where fear is necessary. Therefore, beware of sex, just like you would be with snakes, scorpions or a tiger.
After earning merit karmas over countless lives, one attains birth in a family with good culture and high moral standing. But all this is lost in pursuit of sex and money.
So many people ask me, ‘What is there in this sex that my whole body feels like death after experiencing the pleasure of sex, my mind dies and my speech dies?’ I tell them that all these people indulging in sexuality are already dead, but because you have not awakened to this fact, the same condition occurs again and again. Otherwise if ever brahmacharya is preserved, each human being has so much energy. The knowledge of the Self is the ultimate essence of time (samayasaar). This is real awareness that increases the experience of the Self. And brahmacharya is the essence of the living body.
The presence of brahmacharya in the mind, the body and the speech results in wonderful power of mind, wonderful power of body and wonderful power of the speech. What type of sexuality existed in the times of Lord Mahavir? The sex was limited to having one to two children. The Lord knew that this interaction would become bad in this day and age, so he had to add the fifth vow of brahmacharya.
It is a real wonder that humans are stuck in the terrible filth of exploitation of the five senses. It is horrible heap of filth. The world continues to move in this filth, because people do not understand this. If one gives a moment’s thought to this, then one would understand that this truly is a heap of filth. It is nothing but absolute filth. But people do not think at all. Why are human beings stuck in such dirt? It is because they cannot find a cleaner place(real happiness) anywhere else, therefore they lie in this filth.
Questioner: So, isn’t this a matter of ignorance of this filth?
Dadashri: Yes, it is ignorance and that is why he remains stuck in this filth. If one tries to, he can understand. He does not even try to understand this.
There are objects in this world that do not trap you into an inescapable trap of enjoyment. These things are all that one consumes for the needs of this body, like food items and water. This is not vishaya. These objects do not harm you, because they do not make you involved with them to the exclusion of everything else. Vishaya in general means that which holds your attention. Here we are talking about that which will grab you and take you into life after life. When is anything considered a vishaya? It is considered a vishaya if you become greedy or infatuated with it. Otherwise it is not a vishaya. Therefore, everything you see in this world is not vishaya but if you become greedy or obsessed with it then it is called vishaya. No vishaya in this world touches me in any way.
A spider spins a web and then it gets entangled in its own web. Similarly you, yourself have created this web of entanglement in worldly life. You had asked for it in your previous life. In the receptacle of intellect which you have brought forth in this life, you filled out a tender, a proposal for one wife, two to three rooms, one son, one daughter and a job. But along with the wife, you also received a mother-in-law, father-in-law, uncle-in-law, wife’s brother and sister, etc. What a trap! Had you known about this huge trap, you would have not asked for it. You only asked for a wife, then why all this? Nature says it cannot provide just a wife. It also has to give you uncle-in-law, aunt-in-law etc. along with her. You will not have fun without them, the bigger the clan, the greater is the fun (!).
Now tell me, what do you want in the worldly life?
Questioner: I do not want to get married, ever.
Dadashri: This body is full of difficulties, is it not? How do you feel about this body when you have a stomachache? What would happen if you start trading with someone else’s body? Wouldn’t there be more difficulties? I addition there are two to four children too. It may be okay if there is only a wife to deal with, as she may cooperate, but what would happen if there were four children came along, in addition? You will have endless difficulties.
Before leaving the womb, you experience so many terrible suffering within the womb and yet when you grow up, you go back to the womb in the sexual act. Such is the way of this world. No one has taught you the real thing. Even parents tell you to get married. And that is parent’s duty, is it not? But, no one gives the right advice about the pain and suffering involved in married life.
Marriage is a severe bondage. One’s situation is like that of a water buffalo trapped in a cage. It is best not to get trapped in such a situation. And those who are already trapped should try to get out. The rest should escape after tasting its fruits.
A gentleman once told me that he misses his wife when he is at work. You fool! Would you lick pus off her hand, if she developed an abscess? Then, why are you so lost by a woman? This whole body is full of pus. Have you ever thought about what this body is made of? The amount of love a hog has for a sow is greater than the amount of love a man has for his wife. Can you call this love? This is nothing but beastliness. True love is that which never increases or decreases. All this is nothing but infatuation.
The sexual act gratification is nothing but eating refuse. It is refuse of the whole world. How can this be food for the Soul? The Self has no hunger, and no need for any external thing. It is absolutely independent.
Whole world is engrossed in an illusionary enjoyment. It is not a real. Yet people believe it to be so. If sexual pleasure was to be analyzed it would lead to severe nausea.
This body turns into ash, and then a new body is formed from the atoms of this same ash. This is the result of ashes from endless lives of the past. It is nothing but refuse. And sex here is the refuse of all refuse. It is the same old ash and the same old atoms merging together. Even cooking utensils once washed, will look cleaner the next day. But what if you ate in the same utensils over and over without cleaning them? Is that not eating filth?
Say if you ate some delicious liquid pudding, how would it look if it were vomited out? Would it look pleasing enough for you to hold it in your hand? Even if the bowl was nice and clean and the pudding was delicious when you ate it. But if it were vomited, no matter what happens, you would not eat that vomit. And yet this other vomited stuff is taken in again. This is the illusion.
Amongst the objects of the five senses, that of the tongue is the only correct and acceptable one. All others fool you. This is the only acceptable indulgence, the one of the taste of food. What would a good quality alphonso mango taste like? Within the illusionary world this one of taste, is the one pure vishaya.
Vishaya, sexual process is an excretion. All that is discharged from the nose, ears, mouth etc. is all an excretion. Even the discharge of semen is an excretion, an end result, but one cannot remain without being involved totally in it, and it will not leave without one becoming involved in it at the time.
I am amazed at how an intelligent man finds gratification in sex. When you analyze sex, it is like scratching an eczematous lesion. I often wonder, is this all we have done in endless lifecycles? All the things that we do not like are in sex. It is full of stench. Eyes do not like to see. Nose does not like the smell it. Have you ever smelt it? You should have. Then you would lose all passions. The ears do not like it either. Only the skin likes it.
Sex has not resulted from an intellectual game and effort. It is simply a distortion of the mind.
I see so much filth and impurity in sex, that I never have any thoughts about it. I have seen so much in this that I can see through the contents and cross sections of the person as a whole.
Man has the wrong belief of pleasure existing in sex. Now, if you experience greater happiness and pleasure in something other than sex, then you would not seek pleasure in sex. There is no happiness in sex but there is no other option for the humans in worldly interactions. Otherwise who would knowingly open the lid of a gutter? If there were happiness in sex, Chakravatis (kings of continents) with so many queens, would not have set out in search of real happiness. With Gnan, Self-realization you attain eternal bliss. Yet, after this Gnan, sexual impulses do not leave you immediately. They leave gradually. Still one must think about how filthy and dangerous sexual involvement is.
It is the disease of man to see a woman as a woman. When there is no such disease he will not see her as a woman.
If we count from endless number of births, men have always married women and vice versa, but still the fascination in sex remains. When will this ever end? Would it not be better if you become single so that all these difficulties would end?
Brahmacharya should be practiced with understanding. If the fruit of brahmacharya is not moksha then, that brahmacharya is like castration. It will make your body good, strong, and good looking and you would live longer. Even a bull becomes strong and healthy.
Questioner: I do not feel like getting married at all.
Dadashri: Really! Will you be okay if you don’t get married?
Questioner: Yes, my only desire is to attain brahmacharya. Please give me some strength and understanding for that.
Dadashri: For that you have to have a deep inner intent. Everyday, you have to say, ‘Dear Dada Bhagwan! Give me strength to practice brahmacharya’. And you have to get rid of the slightest thought of sex as soon as it arises. If not, a seed of sex will be sown. If allowed to remain, after two days it will kill you. Hence uproot such a thought and get rid of it right away. Next, make sure that you do not look with sexual thoughts at any woman. If your eyes happen to pull you towards a woman, pull them away from her, remember Dada and ask for forgiveness. When it continuously remains within that any element of sexuality is not worth pursuing then it will all be a clean farm, no seed will sprout. Even now if one stays under my shelter, then his goal of brahmacharya will be fully attained.
The one who definitely wants to practice only brahmacharya, must first examine and severely test his control over his senses, and if he feels that he may slip, then it is better for him to get married. Even after that, it should be under control and he should alert her about his desire for exercising control.
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