CELIBACY🔗

In the Tantric tradition, before teaching Tantra which is the techniques related to physical relationship - they will ask you to practice celibacy for twelve years. You may wonder why a person who is going to get married should practice celibacy for twelve years.

The reason is, the whole system will become sensitive to relate, to connect, and not only that, during celibacy you will have a lot of things going on in your mind. This means a lot of integrity will start happening. Celibacy is such a powerful technique which needs your whole energy because you are trying to control something which is involuntary, which is not natural. You are trying to control the energies which are beyond your control. So when you try to control, so much of integrity happens. I always tell people, celibacy is not a lifestyle, but it's a powerful technique. It is not a lifestyle and it should not be a lifestyle. If it is a lifestyle, then there will be

failure, but it can be a powerful technique... for enlightenment!

Even in the Eastern tradition, it was given only as a technique for enlightenment. When you are fighting with yourself, whether suppressing or un-clutching or transforming or sublimating...anything, whatever word you may use, so much of integrity will start happening in you. It is used as a powerful tool for integration. The problem is you should use it only as a powerful tool for integration towards enlightenment, not just for your ego fulfillment or for name and fame, or to claim that you are great. It should be completely your private, personal life. I always tell my ashramites: the decision should be your private, spiritual decision.

(In response to a question: you said earlier that we should resist hormones... ?)

Be very clear: I never said that you should resist hormones or lust. I only said, you are under hormonal torture, and that you have to understand lust. A Master enumerates in a book, the losses to India over the years. He says that 40 ships of gold went to England from India, but that was not a great loss to the country; 20 different foreign troops invaded India, but even that did not impact India much. No other country has been invaded and duped like India, but India has never invaded any country in return. In any case, none of these was a great loss to India. After every invasion and loss, India recuperated and the society stood up.

Finally, our Gurukul system, Master-disciple based ancient traditional teaching was abolished, and Kamasutra, the science of sex was stopped being taught. This is when people stopped understanding the meaning of lust, or kama. The television and other forms of media show lust in various forms, and we think we know all about it. Only a true sannyasi or Master can give you the real meaning of lust! Shankara beautifully says, 'An ordinary man knows that if you turn on this switch, that light will burn or that fan will work. Only a Master knows the circuit behind the switch.' Vatsyayanar who wrote Kamasutra was a sannyasi like me. Know the fact! Kamasutra is a science. Man knows only the result or the end. The ultimate truth behind the result can be told only by a Master.

In Physics, there are thousands of scientists working on a subject, but there is an ultimate view on the subject. In physics, Albert Einstein's view is considered the ultimate view, is it not? Any other view is a middle man's view, and not the ultimate view. The rest of them are only learning. On Kamasutra, Vatsyayanar's views are the ultimate. If we read his book once, and then discuss, it would do good.

Paramahamsa Salem, India