Celibacy.

Hello Sanj,

Good to hear of your efforts at Brahmacharya. Mental control through displacement of unwanted thoughts is the region one should focus sincerely once physical restraint has been achieved; for the body is only a tool of the mind. The body by itself has no tendency, urge or wants and is only the medium of thought transference into action.The term physical restraint by itself does not mean restraint of the body. It is a term that denotes restraint of physical action fueled by mental thoughts. Once this is achieved, one should seriously start working towards negating and erasing the past Vâsanâs which are the result of past Samskâras or impressions stored in the causal body. To achieve this, one should very importantly prevent formation of new impressions and tendencies along with the removal of past impressions and tendencies.

Contrary to common perception, the mind is again another medium and not the source of wants, desires and urges. It is a medium that is at the next subtler level as compared to the body. It is a medium that transfers the urges, desires and tendencies stored at a more subtler location through what we call thought. So the mind by itself is not the cause of the effect called desire. There is one final location which is a storehouse of past tendencies and impressions. This is the 'Kârana Sharira' or the causal body. It is the repository of karma generated by all past actions. It is that source which makes one man different from the other in gross terms. It is the final storehouse of all ignorance wound around the soul. So the Yogi intent on Brahmacharya and self-realization works at cleansing the causal body. But this task cannot be carried out all of a sudden. The Yogi has to first cleanse and purify the physical body, then the astral or mind body and finally the causal body. The whole concept of a life of Yoga starting with the Yama-Niyamas and culminating with Samâdhi leading to the final objective of self-realization is designed to cleanse these three bodies of impurities, whereupon the 'Jivâtma'(embodied soul) becomes the 'Shudhâtma' (pure soul) and attains to its default state of infinite knowledge, existence and bliss, being content in the self by the self. So Brahmacharya along with meditation and Prânayâma is really the means to attain the end called self-realization.

As an when the body, mind and the causal station start getting purified, Brahmacharya becomes more natural and effortless in both the waking and the dream state. Just as he develops the ability to stop a lustful thought from growing larger while being awake, the aspirant will slowly start getting the ability to curtail and stop sexually oriented dreams from snowballing into larger proportions even in the dream state. In the normal man, the power of Buddhi shakti (intellect) and Vichâra shakthi (discrimination) are absent or very dormant in the dream state and the sub-conscious mind is in the lead. Hence he finds himself unable to reason or stop growing thoughts while being in a dream. After a certain degree of advancement in case of the true Brahmachari, the ability to stop a sexually oriented dream from progressing into larger and dangerous proportions starts getting pronounced. His intellect and reasoning can be made to work even in a dream. But for this, one first has to work hard at accomplishing the same while being awake. It is then only a continuation of what is done in the wakeful state into the dream state. Let us say there is the incidence of such a dream in the middle of the night while being asleep. One can actually break and dissolve the sexually oriented dream using the power of the intellect and reasoning and become awake just as was done during wakefulness, thereby completely stopping the occurance of a wet dream and the resulting seminal loss.

The best approach for success is to carry out a life of Brahmacharya through a life of Yoga with unswerving devotion, love and surrender to God, while keeping in mind this entire world and its happenings to be nothing more than a dream far from reality. By keeping in mind the fact of all sense attractions being nothing more than sugar-coated falsities.

ॐ तत् सत्
(That Supreme being is the absolute truth)