The first rule of life and sadhana is to see what nature is indicating. Either you live with nature, understanding the themes and directives reality gives, or nature will come and live with you. That will be painful. There are no other alternatives.
There is no point in making an ideal that will not be followed, or that most people will find difficult to follow. Four or five hundred years ago, or earlier, the world may have moved in a different flow. Today, even ordinary objects are advertised with some form of mental titillation. These appeals carry direct or indirect sexual references. In this atmosphere, asking people in their twenties to renounce completely and miraculously remove every lustful tendency from body and mind is not practical. It is not real.
What brahmacharya means
Why, then, is brahmacharya important? Hatha yogic and tantric texts speak of it. The original meaning is to move in the Brahman.
The word became linked to sexuality because sexual activity and intimacy can involve a loss of vitality. When bodily fluids are lost, the apana vayu becomes especially active. Apana does not move only during intimacy. It is involved in using the washroom and other bodily actions that exert a stronger downward force. It is one of the principal vayus that move downward. Each such movement carries a slight, miniature condition of death.
Yet nature has placed this current throughout the world for a purpose: propagation of the species. Without desire, without kama, propagation would not happen. In the tantras, Lalita Maha Tripura Sundari is also Kameshwari, and Kamakhya is Kameshwari. She is the mother of desires. She creates desire and controls it. No one, not even the gods, is free from desire. By her will, desire is generated, contained and propagated. Even the desire for liberation, even the desire to become a brahmachari, is governed by her.
Kama and the human aims
First, get out of the idea of guilt: the idea that you must achieve an impossible ideal and that failing means you have committed a great sin. That idea must be removed from the mind.
The ancient rishis understood human life deeply and gave four categories: dharma, artha, kama and moksha. Kama has its own place alongside dharma and moksha because these aims contribute to a fulfilling human life. The rishis were married. They had ashrams, gurukuls and disciples; they had children, and their children had children. That is how lineages continued and the transmission of power was sustained.
Desire, steadiness and the deities
The reason brahmacharya is linked to apana vayu and some restraint in sexual activity is that sexual activity increases apana and disturbs the individual’s order. At times, this disturbance can put off certain divine energies. They come to an upasaka when there is steadiness and calm.
Whether Bhairava, Kameshwari, Shiva or Vishnu, no deity is going to touch you with the vajra pole unless there is peace in the heart and calmness in the mind. They come from tranquil planes of existence; they do not like hasty agitation. This world is material, and every agitation carries prana away more quickly. That is all right: the moment you are born, your death is fixed.
The opposite of agitation is absolute stillness and steadiness of mind. This is the Brahman. Movement in the Brahman is brahmacharya. Anything that shakes you so that you cannot maintain clarity, peace, steadiness and calm takes you away from brahmacharya. Sexual activity, a fight with someone, or news that agitates you belong to the same category of disturbance.
The three chakras that bind human life
In the kundalini diagrams of hatha yoga and tantra, human life is bound by three primary chakras: Muladhara, Swadhisthana and Manipura.
Muladhara holds the sense of possession: my house, my money, my bed, my school, my car. It gives a material base. Positively, it anchors a person to the physical plane. When Muladhara is disturbed, a person may be like a headless chicken running here and there: without a base or stability.
Swadhisthana governs desire: the desire to succeed, to have a new car or job, to be with someone, to gain money, fame or success. Even the desire to attain great spiritual heights is desire. Swadhisthana controls the currents of kama. It is like a current; Kameshwari is the goddess because she can control these things. Desire flows throughout the universe and affects people according to karmic tendencies from past lives.
There is no point wishing that desire would disappear. The Puranas tell us that when Vishnu took the form of Mohini, Shiva could not control his desire. This is a powerful current. Closing your eyes and pretending it will go away is denial of reality. Reality will visit you and cause problems. Desire is here; get out of the guilt trip.
The third chakra is Manipura: power, control and authority. “I am the boss; I want this person to do this.” The sense of ego manifests most easily here. Our lives, the navagrahas and the karmic reactions we face are within these three chakras.
The Vishnu granthi and the fire of Skanda
Beyond these is Anahata, where the Vishnu granthi is found. When Shakti pierces it, the individual is transformed from pashu bhava into nara, someone able to go higher. This is where the devata begins to speak for the first time. As kundalini passes through the three lower chakras, it transforms and divinises them.
The discipline is regulated desire within ethical and dharmic boundaries. Dharma gives desire its context and helps a person move toward adhyatma. One proceeds from dharma toward moksha; one cannot simply jump to moksha on the first day. Desire is regulated, and as Manipura comes under control, food habits become important: what one eats, where it comes from, who prepares it and what effect it has.
Manipura holds much agni, called jatharagni. It is linked to the fire in consciousness that helps digest ideas and understand difficult things. There is also a third fire in the heart, which appears as the Vishnu granthi opens. This is like the agni of Skanda, the fire of a devata.
The opening of the Vishnu granthi is represented by Krishna’s birth. He is born in a prison (the prison is the Vishnu granthi) and breaks out in the middle of the night, in dangerous conditions. Human life in ignorance is like this. By the blessings of nature, the prison is transformed, and Krishna becomes an absolutely divine being.
Marriage, sadhana and the household path
Brahmacharya means regulated control of desire. For most people in this age, especially young people, marriage is a good avenue. It gives desire a proper place. There is no point in entering sannyasa blindly and discovering that you cannot control what follows. That can lead to an unfortunate disaster.
For many, the easier path is to live in society, marry, have children and do sadhana. Do not enter sannyasa if it is not your path; it can bring grief and difficulty. Certain karmic currents are set in motion, and living through them helps neutralise currents brought from past lives. Every relationship, specifically a physical relationship, comes from past-life karmas. This is among the strongest karmas, as strong as birth and death.
The pancha tattva and maithuna
In tantra, the pancha tattva offered in worship includes maithuna as the fifth. There are criteria. Through sadhana, the upasaka attains bhairava tattva, and the partner attains bhairavi tattva. One cannot simply claim, “I am a bhairava and a bhairavi.” Sufficient sadhana is required to imbibe that power.
In this practice, bodily fluids are retained. It is not ordinary indulgence. Consciousness must remain joined to the consciousness of sadhana. During the panchamam, the Devi is invoked within the body and virat Bhairava within the male purusha. In the stree, the Devi may be Tripura Sundari, Shodashi, Kali or Tara, for those who know how to do this. It requires extreme caution and much sadhana and japa. Consciousness cannot deviate from the deity’s divinity. If it does, that is a fall from that condition.
Bindu dharana and transmutation
The whole purpose is what tantric texts call bindu dharana. Bindu is the male sexual fluid; dharana means retention. This is the key. The matter is not simply whether a person is in a relationship or married. The rishis were married and were the highest of brahmacharis: their consciousness was so firmly in Brahman that even during maithuna it remained undisturbed. That is the highest goal.
There are different paths. One says to become a sannyasi and leave everything. The tantric and certain hatha yogic texts say that if a karmic current is present, a person may marry and live in society while attaining that state through transmutation. You are not rejecting the current; you are transforming it into something divine.
This can bring the benefits associated with brahmacharya: increased aura and tejas, the presence of the deities, and consciousness that remains undisturbed. When sadhana is properly done, it can lift consciousness to a high state, where a person may have darshan of a Devi. Darshan of Kali or Tripura Sundari Shodashi is possible for someone who is that controlled.
Tithis and the family upasaka
For a new upasaka, brahmacharya matters on specific tithis and at specific times: amavasya, sankranti and Krishna-ashtami, for example. If a tithi is linked to your ishta devata, brahmacharya matters on that tithi as well. The diaries of Shyamacharan Lahiri, the great kriya yogi master, describe rules grihastas should follow. Such rules are useful for upasakas in this age. During an anushthanam in Navaratri, maintaining brahmacharya can help gather power and deepen sadhana.
We are entering a time when many of the greatest upasakas will come from family life. Sannyasa will remain, but the family-oriented upasaka is also rising: someone who remains in society rather than rejecting it. Kameshwari and Kameshwara govern both moksha and bhoga. There is nothing wrong with the world they created. What matters is changing how one sees reality, sin, papa and punya. Even what falls outside the usual standard for sadhana can be used to rise. This is the principle behind pancha tattva puja in the tantra shastras.
Brahmacharya is important, but it is unlikely to be an instruction for everyone to deny life through blind asceticism at a young age while ignoring the realities of the world. Follow guidelines and a degree of restriction. Live a regulated life: marry, participate in society and continue sadhana. On certain tithis and days, maintain a degree of abstinence. This helps gather power, and over time the devata transforms your karmas.
Most importantly, do not fall into the guilt trap. It is useless, and it is far more damaging than the breaking of brahmacharya that can happen in a normal physical interaction.
