Seminar on Brahmacarya, given by His Holiness Bhakti Charu Swami, in
Radhadesh, on December 31- January 2, 2000


SEMINAR ON BRAHMACARYA
LESSON 1:

The topic for seminar is sensitive, but it is important that we have a
proper of what brahmacarya actually is because spiritual life rests on it.
The word itself will clarify:
Brahman means spiritual reality, and acaran means to practice, to act upon.
To act in order to be situated on the spiritual platform is brahmacarya. The
gGeek definition is not really brahmacarya. Celibacy alone is not
brahmacarya, which is actually a far broader concept.

..We are spirit souls. To become situated in that identity is brahmacarya.
According to Srila Prabhupada's teachings, even the householders are
brahmacaries. So ISKCON is a movement to make people brahmacaris, man or
woman, married or not, everyone should become a brahmacari. That's why we
decided to conduct this seminar on this topic.

..We have 2 identities: physical and spiritual. The body is material and the
soul spiritual. The body remains alive only as long as the soul is in the
body. The soul keeps the body alive. When we say I, we mean the soul. But we
identify with our body, which is the source of our bondage. The soul is the
source of consciousness. When it is projected through the nervous system,
one thinks that one is the body and acts in a detrimental way to our
spiritual identity. He is a spiritual soul, but he identifies himself with
matter and becomes materialized. When a mosquito bites him, he thinks, "the
mosquito is biting me." When the body feels pleasure, he identifies with it.

In Bhagavad Gita, Krsna describes the body as a dress that one puts on and
takes off. If you are wearing a dress and someone pinches your dress, do you
feel pain? The body, however, has intricate nervous system which ends in the
senses. The senses feel and send messages to the brain which registers it.
The sensation is carried on to the brain to be registered. Actually, the
body is a lump of matter; it is the soul which identifies with the body and
its pains and pleasures, which he resents and appreciates respectively.

The lump of matter called body is subject to the desire for sense
gratification, eating, sleeping, mating and defending. These are common to
the animals. They are very strong propensities. Now in winter, all the
animals are wondering, where is food? Where is food? Then sleep, then
defending from calamities. Then maithun, mating, copulation.

These propensities are called animal propensities. Man is a civilized animal
who lives in cities and villages in houses and defends with nuclear weapons.
The man is also doing the same way, but in a civilized way. Animals are
controlled by nature's arrangements when it comes to mating whereas a man is
free to copulate whenever he wants.

This freedom to mate any time he wants has been given to him to overcome the
urge, not to indulge in it.

The urge is there by nature's arrangement, a need for procreation to
maintain the situation. It is a very painful affair, so nature has arranged
pleasure. But the real purpose is allure people so that procreation can
continue. That is the purpose of mating, or copulation.

Unfortunately, humans have given up the procreation aspect and engage in
this process simply for some pleasure. Therefore it is important to remember
the purpose of mating and not get deviated. We must become aware of the
purpose of our spiritual practice.


Because of bad association, people are being drawn to this activity.

In the material world, for everything you have to pay a price.
The price is the loss of one's vitality: Virya or shukra, or semen. What is
semen? It is the essence of life energy which comes originally from the
soul. Matter in the form of food becomes transformed in different elements
of body, activated by the soul. The 3 most important systems in the body are
the respitory system, circulatory system which pumps blood about 75 times a
minute, and digestion system, which burns the food and extracts the rasas,
or juices, from the food which then transforms into 7 different elements: 1.
Rasas, 2.blood which tranforms into flesh, from which comes fat, from which
comes bone, from which comes bone marrow, from which comes semen.
So the finest element is semen. It is the storehouse of vital
energy. All vitality comes from this element. Therefore it is called Virya,
which means strength. Interesting, isn'it? The strength of a man rests in
this vital energy which spreads throughout the body. Just like butter is the
essence of milk that is spread throughout milk and when churned it comes
out, similarly, when someone becomes agitated by sexual desire, it comes out
in the form of semen. What happens then? What about the milk when the butter
is taken out? It becomes thin. Similarly, a man becomes devoid of vitality
when he engages in unrestricted sex.

We can notice that all great men usually stay away from sexual indulgence. I
was reading an article about the Olympic trainers telling their athletes,
"no sex for one month before your competition."

Butter churned out of milk being similar to someone loosing one's vitality
through sexual indulgence is an important analogy.

Sex indulgence is strictly reserved for householders, and that only for
procreation. They must remember that the purpose of their getting together
is simply for the sake of procreation, not for anything else. If men and
women, husband and wife, restrict sex to mere procreation, then that is
brahmacarya. Therefore brahmacary doesn't only mean celibate but to be
situated on the spiritual platform.


What is this very very strong sex desire and most difficult hurdle to cross
over? When we follow the 4 regs, after a while the 3 other are easy to give
up, but sex desire just increases! Therefore we should be aware that it is
the hardest struggle. It is the chain by which a living entity is chained to
the material world. It is a prison house named maithuna-agara, a prison of
sex desire. As long as sex desire is there in the heart, we will not be able
to be free. It is caused by maya, and the more we try to get free, the more
she will tighten the shackle. It is said that before a living entity is
about to leave this material nature, maya-devi herself comes and says, "why
are you leaving? Stay here and enjoy with me." At that time, Sanatana
Goswami recommends that one say, "please bless me that I can serve your
brother." Maya is Krsna 's sister. So we should always pray to her that we
never deviate to the platform of sense gratification.

Ultimately, what is it? In our Vedic scriptures it is described that
although sex desire is there and is difficult to cross, it is ultimately
just an itch. If you scratch, you get pleasure. It is an itch-and-scratch
pleasure. It gives illusory pleasure and a real disastrous effect on one's
spiritual life. One must guard oneself from this pitfall.

Yogis try to suppress it. Suppression not a solution. One must overcome this
desire by getting the higher taste. When the husband and wife get a child,
their mutual attraction becomes centered on their child and the carnal
desire disappears. Similarly, when a living entity loves Krsna , then it is
easy for him to overcome sex desire by the higher taste of love of Krsna
which makes the whole business disgusting. To begin with it is disgusting,
but nature has made it pleasurable out of necessity.

The first illusion is to think that we are our bodies. When we identify with
the body, the male body becomes attracted to a female body, and vice-versa.
But we are not this body! We are part-and-parcel of Krsna, connected to Him
through love that brings us closer to Him. When love is projected to
something in the material nature, it is called lust, not love. When this
love is directed to Krsna , then only is it actually love, or devotion. The
expression of love is in doing something for the pleasure of the object of
love. That activity is called devotional service. The more we do for Krsna ,
the more our love for Him becomes intensified. It is reciprocal: a devotee
loves Krsna , and Krsna reciprocates multifold. That joy of reciprocation
is what we all are really looking for.

We all are here to achieve that goal. And when we achieve it, then all the
sex life will become secondary business, as Yamunacarya pointed out when he
said that his lips curl in distaste and he spits at the thought. Ultimately
the thought will not even come to us. Today, we don't think of, for example,
a sand castle that we always meditated on as a child. Similarly, as we grow
up, we will forget sex desire.

The most important factor is for the men, being the aggressors, to respect
women. Therefore Vedic injuction is for a man to respect a woman as a
mother. In a society where they don't know how to respect women, that
society is useless. Today's society is simply exploiting women. Whereas
Srila Prabhupada has created a spiritual society where men will learn to
give the highest respect to women. If we want a wonderful society throughout
the world, we have to establish this spiritual culture. Thank you very much.
All glories to Srila Prabhupada.


Answer: there is no copulation in the spiritual world, but there is an
exchange of love, but it is not expressed through copulation. So our love
for Krsna in the spiritual world is perverted way here in the form of sex
life. So there is union, but not sex. From this point we cannot understand.
For example, Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu is Radha and Krsna together.
Theoretically, we can understand that when Radha and Krsna embrace, they
become Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. That personality has come down to give us
the highest love, not sexual indulgence. Sunrise and sunset may look alike,
but they are completely different.

Question: The Bhagavatam says that as time goes on, the sex desire goes
away. But you said that the urge gets stronger.

Answer: Initially, one does not feel so strong for sex because the milk is
already free from butter. But as the Virya gets more and more, the urge
becomes stronger. But also when the love for Krsna increases, he feels such
joy that he doesn't feel for the sex urge.


Question: can sex desire come out in the form of other desires such as
desire to eat too much.

Answer: Yes, therefore artificial repression is not what we prescribe;
rather, we prescribe a natural process of developing our love for Krsna.













LESSON 2

Today is the 2nd day of the seminar on Brahmacarya.
Again, brahmacarya is not just celibacy, or remaining single and unmarried.
Actually, it means to be situated on the spiritual platform, upon which
celibacy becomes a side-effect.
Brahman means the spiritual world, and acarati means to act accordingly,
living in such a way that one attains the spiritual platform. To review
yesterday's class, there are 2 things, matter and life. Matter is inert, but
due to the presence of the spirit soul, matter becomes alive. Matter is the
body, and the soul makes the body alive. The soul's influence is that it
enters the womb of the mother, in which it develops a body which grows and
finally comes out as a baby. Like this, the soul develops a body made of
matter. Then he functions through the body. There, the growth of the body
depends upon food. What is food? Food is the juice that a tree extracts from
the earth. Basic food is derived from trees and plants. Meat is just the
flesh of animals that have eaten grass. So actually the trees are
transforming the juice of the earth into its fruits and leaves and nuts etc…
then the human being eats that. Our stomach extracts the juice of the food
we eat. Then the juice transforms into blood, into flesh, into bone, into
bone marrow, into Virya, or semen. So this virya is the ultimate material
substance that carries the spiritual energy. Therefore this element is very
important for one's spiritual growth. So semen keeps one's spiritual
energy, and also it carries a soul into a mother's womb. So semen is the
storehouse of spiritual energy. Therefore one must retain that spiritual
energy. Not only the Vedic scriptures say that, but all religions say that.
The catholic monks and nuns had to be celibates. The jews also, the suphis
also. The fact is that it is a scientific subject. Who can deny the
importance of this vital energy in the body?
Butter is separated from milk. Then it is not milk anymore. Similarly, virya
spreads throughout our body. But through sexual agitation, it is churned and
ejected of the body. So for some fleeting pleasure, it should not be wasted.
It is essential for our spiritual progress. One must retain this valuable
spiritual energy.

It is a matter of consciousness. Take the spirit soul and consciousness:
consciousness comes out of the soul. Where there is light, there is fire. In
the same way, consciousness comes out of the soul. According to the
direction of the projection of our consciousness, our spiritual energy will
flow in that direction. In Bhagavad Gita, Krsna says, dhyayato visaya
pumsah ETC………. that is how the consciousness becomes effected. First it
flows through the mind, then through the senses toward the objects of the
senses with a desire to exploit them: that is lust. So when consciousness
goes toward material sense objects, virya also goes towards that. In the
same way, if consciousness is directed to Krsna , this vital energy will
flow toward Krsna. Therefore all importance is put on fixing our mind on
Krsna, fixing our mind on Him. If we project our consciousness on matter, we
will run after sense gratification, and we will loose our vital energy. Loss
of this energy causes death. Again, consciousness can go toward matter or
toward Krsna. If it goes to matter, we loose everything. If it goes to
Krsna, this vital energy becomes even further spiritualized, just like a
mothers' blood is transformed into milk. It becomes transformed into nectar.
What does nectar do? It inundates our heart with joy. therefore the real joy
and bliss comes from developing our joy from Krsna. This vital energy, which
is apparently matter, becomes nectar. How does it happen? It happens due to
our love for Krsna. By transformation, it causes something to our heart that
gives us an experience of transcendental joy and bliss.
Therefore again, we are discussing something far beyond celibacy. I will
repeat, again, that brahmacarya is not exclusive for brahmacaris, but it is
meant also for householders. When the householders engages in sex for
procreation, one is also a brahmacari. Even the householders can become pure
devotees. There are so many householder pure devotees in our sampradaya.
Srila Prabhupada was a householder, so was Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, Gaura
Kisora das Babaji Maharaja, and most of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu's associates
were householders. So everyone in Krsna consciousness is a brahmacari.
Ultimately, our material body is secondary, as part-and-parcels of Krsna.
When Brahma realized that it was his duty to create, he created the 4
Kumaras, who were perfect brahmacaris. Then he created 10 sons, 9 of which
became progenitors. The last one, Narada Muni, wanted to stay brahmacari. He
became a very detached person, and eventually he became a pure devotee of
Krsna. He was eventually approached by the daughter of time, and he did not
accept her. He decided to remain a celibate. As a result of that, he
attained eternal life. So we can see that when one becomes a brahmacari, one
does not become subject to death. Also, when Bhisma got to know that his
father wanted to marry the daughter of the fisherman who would only offer
his daughter to him only if his daughter's son would become the successor to
the throne. So Santanu refused, saying that he already had a successor. When
Bhisma got to know that, he told the fisherman that he would forgo his right
over the throne. He said, "I take a vow that I will never get married." For
a ksatriya to remain a celibate for one's whole life is so difficult that
the demigods showered flowers, saying "Bhisma, Bhisma, what a terrible vow!
What a terrible vow!" When Bhisma went back, his father blessed him that he
would never die unless he wanted to. Do we see a link here? He decided to
remain a celibate, and he was blessed with immortality. So when one becomes
a brahmacari, he conquers death. We can therefore see that when we don't
allow the life energy to come out of the body, we get a very very long
duration of life. One does not become old either. The 4 kumaras, for
example, look like 5 year old boys although they are zillions of years old.
Bhisma was Arjuna's grandfather. He was so much older at that time, but he
was fighting the battle of Kuruksetra so valiantly that thousands of
soldiers could not conquer him.
Hanuman is another ideal brahmacari. He had the form of a monkey. He
is a perfect brahmacari because he is a devotee of Lord Rama. What sorts of
feats he performed! He carried a mountain from middle India and jumped
across the ocean to Lanka. These are not fairy tales. It took place! We can
consider that because he was a brahmacari, he was also an extremely powerful
personalities.
Also, we can remember Vedavati. She was performing austerities to
get the Supreme Personality of Godhead as her husband. She was performing
severe austerities on top of a mountain. While Ravana was passing by in his
airplane, he approached her. First she told him what she wanted. He forcibly
tried to molest her. She was so powerful that threw Ravana far away. She was
so chaste that because he had simply touched her, she considered herself
contaminated, and so she generated a fire to burn up her body with the vow
that she would cause Ravana's death. She came back as Sita.
In India there were many others like Gargi, who challenged
Yajnavalkya in the assembly of Janaka. She was a brahmacarini. Maitreyi
also. In the recent past there is the example of Queen Mirabai. When she was
given away in marriage, she could not associate with him because she had
already accepted Krsna as her husband in her youth. Her husband finally
decided to kill her and gave her poison to drink, which she did without
dying. Later she went to Vrindavan and became a devotee of Sri Caitanya
Mahaprabhu. These are examples of brahmacarinis in our heritage.
So the goal of our life is to become situated on the spiritual
platform, which will lead us to endless Srila Prabhupada joy. therefore let
us all become fixed up. Let us realized that this is our goal. If we don't
fix our goal with intense seriousness, then we will become frivolous. Today
in ISKCON, today somewhere else. That is not good. We came here to achieve
the mission to become situated on the spiritual platform and thereby
experience spiritual joy. Hare Krsna.

Question: Srila Prabhupada brought Vedic culture to the West, where life is
quite different. How do we adjust that?

Answer: Srila Prabhupada did not bring oriental culture to the West. He
brought the spiritual culture and made the world aware of it. If we think
that we are Westerners and that that culture is from India, then we are
making a mistake. We are souls, and in ISKCON, everyone who wants to make
spiritual progress has a place. So brahmacarya is a question of developing
Krsna Prema, not suppression. When you develop love for Krsna, then you
will not be affected by sex attraction. He will deal with women in a very
reverential way, full of respect. Another point is that in ISKCON many
members are married. When both husband and wife are in Krsna consciousness,
then both help each other.

Question: Is Virya also there in women?
Answer: Yes. There are some anatomical differences, but in summary the
answer is Yes.







LESSON 3


Today we are concluding our seminar on brahmacarya.
We will conclude with Lord Rsabadeva's teachings to His sons described in
the 5th Chapter of the 5th Canto. We will read the first verse of that
chapter together.
"Lord Rsabadeva told His sons: My dear boys, of all the living entities who
have accepted material bodies in this world, one who has been awarded this
human form should not work hard day and night simply for sense
gratification, which is available even for dogs and hogs who eat stool. One
should engage in penance and austerity to attain the divine position of
devotional service. Bu such activity, one's heart is purified, and when one
attains this position, he attains eternal, blissful life, which is
transcendental to material happiness and which continues forever."

So Rsabadeva is giving His parting advice to His sons. He was a
king, about to leave home to take to Vanaprastha. He was leaving everything
behind, just about to walk away without anything. He would just leave home
and start walking toward the forest. That is the Vedic culture: detachment
and renunciation. He did not hesitate to walk away, but before leaving He
gave his parting advice to his 100 sons.
The first thing He tells His sons is: "do not become unnecessarily
engaged in sense gratification, especially that now you have a human form
which is very precious and meant for spiritual emancipation." He tells them
that sense gratification is also available to stool eating animals. What is
available for the stool eating animals should not be run after by you. A
stool eater is a hog or a pig. Pigs are famous for eating stool. But one who
is called a pig is actually a woman hunter, one who's whole life is centered
around sex life. So why should a human being waste his special facility in
running after sex life? Rather, tapo divyam, one should design his life to
perform austerities, or voluntary acceptance of difficulties for the sake of
spiritual advancement. For example, Rsabadeva voluntarily accepted the
austerity of leaving home. He decided that his home atmosphere was no
suitable for spiritual advancement. So even though He did not need to, He
voluntarily went to the forest.
We must therefore be brahmacaris, be focused on the spiritual
platform. Not just celibacy, which is just a by-product. Actually, devotees
want to become lovers of Krsna, not celibates. They want to become attached
to Krsna. In order to do that, one must be very careful not to be overly
involved in sex life.
Rsabadeva then tells something else to His sons. In text 4 He tells
His children:
"When a person considers sense gratification the aim of life, he certainly
becomes mad after materialistic living and engages in all kinds of sinful
activity. He does not know that due to his past misdeeds he has already
received a body which, although temporary, is the cause of his misery.
Actually, the living entity should not have taken on a material body, but he
has been awarded the material body for sense gratification. Therefore I
think it not befitting an intelligent man to involve himself again in the
activities of sense gratification by which he perpetually gets material
bodies one after another."

Here He is pointing out the cause of our material bondage. Material nature
creates an illusion which is, first, to consider this body to be the self. I
am not this body, but I am thinking that this body is me. This is illusion.
The body is matter, but I identify with it. That is everybody's illusion.
What is the result? Text 8 tells us:
"The attraction between male and female is the basic principle of
material existence. On the basis of this misconception, which ties together
the hearts of the male and female, one becomes attracted to his body, home,
property, children, relatives and wealth. In this way one increases life's
illusions and thinks in terms of "I" and "mine"

See how the illusion thickens? That is the root of our bondage in the
material nature. So you see how a living entity becomes bound to matter due
to the basic attraction for the opposite sex? The whole trouble begins with
that. Srila Prabhupada was so emphatic that we are not our bodies, because
there lies our entire material bondage. As soon as we identify with the
body, we automatically become attached to the opposite sex, and all the
rest. In today's civilization, though, people are not even interested in
marriage even, just free sex. It is being so advertized.
Therefore the spiritual culture that Srila Prabhupada gave is very
important to uphold and distribute to others. Until we do that, we are not
performing our duties. We have to distribute it to others. In the Bhagavatam
we find the same advice being given again and again: "Don't become attached
to your body; rather, develop your attachment to Krsna.'

I think there is a need for an in-depth understanding of this point.
Brahmacarya means to become situated on the spiritual platform. Sometimes
there used to be people who used to say that to be a brahmacari means to
hate women. It doesn't work. The biggest women haters were the first ones to
fall down. It is not by negation that one makes progress. One must learn to
respect women in order to become a true brahmacari. Then also, it is not
only meant for the brahmacaris. Srila Prabhupada pointed out that even the
householders are brahmacaris. Those who unite for the sake of procreation
are also brahmacaris because that is the purpose of sex life: only for the
sake of procreation. In nature, do the animals unite for sense
gratification? No. Now, a certain pleasure has been attached to this act,
otherwise humans would not do it. So in order to trick you into that act,
some sense gratification has been added to it. But foolish people forget the
real purpose and therefore destroy themselves spiritually. Therefore an
intelligent person should understand that sex life is the worst illusion.
Stupid human beings led by even more stupid leaders think that this is the
goal of life. And the result is disaster. But Srila Prabhupada brought
sanity to humanity, an intelligent class of people who transcend this
illusion and come to the spiritual platform. They are the only ones who can
benefit human society. Those who are in illusion cannot benefit others. A
blind man will bring another blind man down a ditch. Therefore in order to
properly guide human society there is a need of a class of people with the
proper vision. Therefore we must take to Srila Prabhupada's teachings, and
the basis of that is spiritual life, which has brahmcarya as the essence.

Generally in ISKCON one does not want to speak about this in public
because it is a sensitive subject. But recently, after the Australian
olympics, I was reading an article of how the coaches train up their
athletes. All of them are very strict about them refraining from sex life.
So even the materialists have figured out that you have to learn to control
your sex desire. Then after class yesterday, one of the devotees told me
that Muhammed Ali, when he used to have a fight, for 3 months before the
fight he would not indulge in sex life. But the stupid leaders of human
society say, "no. Engage in sex life. It is the goal of life." So pigs are
trying to make a pig society. But our mission is to counteract this. Srila
Prabhupada established ISKCON for this. We say no to their entire emphasis
on sex life, meat eating, intoxication and gambling. They are promoting
these things everywhere. Today, the biggest businesses are these 4 things.
Maximum money is spent on these 4 activities. Is it not? If anyone wants to
become a successful businessman, these are the 4 things one get can involved
in. The American government decided to spend 10 billion dollars to prevent
drug smuggling, but those passing the budget are themselves involved in drug
trafficking, so then the money will simply go to their own pockets.
Prostitution is another big business. It means illicit sex. Gambling is also
huge: Las Vegas, Reno. There are entire cities based on gambling. In a
middle of a desert they built an entire city based on gambling where people
from all over the world come to lose billions of dollars.
Kali is spreading his influence through these 4 activites. Sri
Caitanya Mahaprabhu came here to defeat Kali. That is why in ISKCON, members
must themselves follow these 4 regulative principles. They should also stop
these activities in the world. Today Kali is winning. Who are we siding
with, Kali or Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu? We are siding with Sri Caitanya
Mahaprabhu and are in His army. Therefore we must defeat Kali. The sign of
Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu's victory will be the abolition of these 4
activities. When no more of these activities will go on in the world, then
we will understand that Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu has won. Some will continue
to do these things, but they will be driven out of human society into the
forest.
So we must become qualified soldiers in the army of Sri Caitanya
Mahaprabhu. Hare Krsna.