Yoga Sutra 26 Brahmacharya And Non Possessiveness

Brahmacharya pratishthayam veerya labha.

WHEN THE YOGI IS FIRMLY ESTABLISHED IN SEXUAL CONTINENCE, VIGOR IS GAINED.

To translate Sanskrit is almost impossible. After centuries and centuries of refinement, of spiritual inquiry, meditation, Sanskrit has attained a flavor of its own which no other language has. For example, it is impossible to translate the word brahmacharya. Literally it means, “behaving like a god,” being like a god.

Ordinarily it is translated as “sexual continence.” A vast difference – it is not just celibacy – has to be understood: you can be celibate and you may not attain to brahmacharya, but if you attain to brahmacharya you will be celibate.

Celibacy is repressive – you suppress your sex energy – and that suppression never leads to transformation. But there are ways in which your godliness is revealed to you: suddenly, sex disappears. Not that it is suppressed. In that godliness the energy takes a totally different form. You become celibate, with no effort on your part; if there is effort then it is going to be a suppression. Celibacy is a consequence of brahmacharya.

Then how to attain brahmacharya – “When the yogi is firmly established in brahmacharya…”? If you are firmly established in ahimsa, nonviolence, if you are firmly established in truth, if you are firmly established in non theft, it is simple to be established like a god. You are a god. When you are not hurting others, you are not creating chains. You are cutting your fetters; you are becoming free.

When you are not trying to pose and you are authentic, when you are not trying to have masks around you – you are true to your very core – already sex energy will be changing.

Have you watched that when you are violent there is more sex energy? In fact, husbands and wives know well that if they fight, that night they can make love better. Why does it happen? Violence creates sex energy. The more violent a person is, the more sexual he will be. Nonviolence transforms sex energy. If you are not trying to hurt anybody, if you are not interested in hurting anybody, if you have a deep love, affection, compassion towards others, you will find your sex desire is subsiding.

Sex can exist in a certain company: anger, violence, hatred, jealousy, competition, ambition. These all have to be there; sex can exist as part of the company. If you drop other things, by and by you find sex has lost that urge; it is becoming more and more affection than sex, more and more love than sex, more and more compassion – the same energy moving higher, on a higher plane.

One becomes established in brahmacharya not by celibacy – because, if you go and watch people who have suppressed their sex, you will find that they have become more angry, they have become more violent. That’s why all over human history armies have been forced to remain celibate, because once armies are forced to remain celibate, they become more violent: the energy that can be released through sex is not released.

In fact psychologists have found a deep association between violence and suppressed sex energy. All violent arms – you push a knife or a dagger or a sword into somebody: it is just like sex energy penetrating the woman. The other’s body becomes the woman and your arms become just phallic symbols. It may be a bullet from a machine gun and you may be far away, but it is the same.

Whenever your sex energy is suppressed, you will find ways and means how to penetrate others’ bodies. Armies have not been allowed girlfriends. Only the American army is allowed – they will be defeated, and everywhere. They cannot fight in the world. American soldiers cannot fight. If you are sexually satisfied, the desire to fight disappears. They are connected.

That’s why it happens that whenever a culture is very developed it is always defeated by a culture which is not very developed. India was defeated by Huns, Turks, Mohammedans – they came from a very undeveloped world and they defeated a very developed culture. Whenever a culture is very developed, it is very satisfied and content. Everything is going so good, who wants to fight? When everything is so peaceful, who bothers to kill and be killed? And those who came were just barbarians, absolutely uncultured, and sexually very frustrated. If you want an army to fight well, make the army sexually frustrated. Then they will fight, because then the fight has become a symbolic sexuality.

This has happened just now in Vietnam. It is not that communists have won and America has been defeated; it is simply that a higher culture is always defeated.

A lower culture, a poor country, in every way unsatisfied – sexually in a very deep repressive state – is bound to win. Whenever a poor country gets into a fight with a rich country, the rich country will be defeated finally. You can see it easily: if a rich family starts fighting with a poor family, the rich family will be defeated – because when you are rich, satisfied, the very urge to fight disappears; and in fighting you are going to lose, so you avoid fighting. And the poor have nothing to lose – why should he avoid fighting? In fact he enjoys it. He has everything to gain, nothing to lose.

And the same happens in individuals’ lives. If you become nonviolent, if you become established in truth, if you become established in nontheft, suddenly you find sex has lost the lust. It is no longer a mad passion. You can enjoy it if you like it, but the passion is no longer mad. It has become softer, and finally it disappears.

And when it disappears, the energy that was encaged in sex is released. That energy becomes your reservoir. That’s why Patanjali says, “When the yogi is firmly established in sexual continence, vigor is gained.” Tremendous energy is gained. Not that you become a great athlete or you become a boxer, no. That energy has a totally different dimension. That energy is not to fight. That energy is not of this world. That energy is not really male; that energy is feminine. All yogis who have attained to it, become more feminine. Look at Buddha: his face, the body – the roundness of it, the softness of it – looks feminine.

Hindus have done well – they have never painted Buddha, Mahavir, Krishna, Ram, with moustaches, beards, no. Not that they were in any way lacking in hormones and they didn’t have any moustache and beard – they must have had beautiful beards and moustaches – but Hindus have dropped the idea because with moustaches and beards they look more male, and the whole idea has to be expressed in a feminine way: the roundness of Buddha’s body, the softness. And the marble helped tremendously; the marble gives it a feminine quality.

Nietzsche criticizing Buddha and Jesus has called them “womanish.” His criticism is absolutely absurd, but he has hit a right point at least in calling them womanish – they are.

When the sex energy disappears, where does it go? It does not move out; it becomes an inner pool. One simply feels full of power and energy. Not that he uses it and goes fighting with it; now there is no urge to fight. One is so strong that in fact, to fight is not possible. Only weaklings fight. Those who are afraid of their strength – they fight to prove that they are strong. Really strong people don’t fight. They look at the whole thing as a game, childish.

WHEN THE YOGI IS FIRMLY ESTABLISHED IN NON POSSESSIVENESS, THERE ARISES KNOWLEDGE OF THE “HOW” AND “WHEREFORE” OF EXISTENCE.

When the yogi is established in non possessiveness, when he possesses nothing except himself; he may be a king, he may live in a palace, but he does not possess it. If it is lost, not a ripple will arise in his mind.

There is a story of a great yogi; his name was Janak. India has worshipped him for centuries, and India has not worshipped anybody else like him because he is unique in one way. Buddha left his palace, kingdom; Mahavir left his palace and kingdom; Janak never left. Buddha and Mahavir are in the thousands, the whole history is full of them – Janak seems to be unique. He did not follow the pattern.

He remained in the palace; he remained a king.

It happened that a young seeker was told by his Master, “Now, you go to Janak. Your last initiation will be done by him. Whatsoever I could teach, I have taught you, but I am a beggar. I don’t know anything about the world; I have renounced it. You must go to a man who knows about the world. This is going to be your last initiation. Before you renounce you must ask somebody who knows the world. I don’t know it, so go to Janak the king.”

The disciple was a little hesitant because he was ready to renounce and he didn’t believe that this Janak can be an enlightened man. If he is enlightened, then why is he in the palace? Ordinary logic: he should renounce everything. He should not possess anything because that is one of the basic things – to become non possessive, to remain in non possessiveness, in pure austerity of non possessiveness. One becomes so simple, so innocent, why is he living as a king? But when the Master said, he had to go. Hesitantly, reluctantly, he reached.

The evening he reached, Janak invited him to the court. There was much jubilation. Beautiful girls were dancing, wine and women, and everybody was almost drunk. This young man from an ashram could not believe his eyes, and he could not believe his old Master – why that fool has sent him here. For what?

He was disturbed so much that he wanted to leave immediately, but Janak said, “That will be insulting. You have come; be here at least one night. Tomorrow morning you can leave. And why are you so disturbed? Rest a little while. In the morning I will ask you, for what purpose you have come.”

The young man said, “Now there is no need to ask anything. I have seen with my own eyes what is happening here.”

Janak laughed. The young man was taken care of – fed well, given a good massage and a bath, given a beautiful room, very costly bed. He was tired, coming on foot from the jungle monastery to the capital, and he wanted to rest.

The moment he lay down on the bed, he saw a sword hanging just above him by a very thin thread. He could not believe what was the point of it all, and he has been received so well and now why this joke. He could not sleep the whole night – continuously the fear. He could not enjoy the bed, he could not enjoy the palace – the sword was hanging on top of him.

In the morning the king inquired, “Did you sleep well?”

He said, “How could I sleep? What nonsense are you talking to me? Everything was okay, but that sword, just hanging by a thin thread – any moment it can fall. Just a breeze, and I will be killed.”

So the king said, “You couldn’t enjoy the bed? It is the most beautiful we have in this palace, and the room that I have given to you is the most luxurious.”

He said, “I don’t even remember that room and that bed. I have never been in such suffering – because of that sword.”

The king said, “Then it is better you don’t go. I am in this palace, but the sword is hanging on me – the sword of death. And the thread is thinner than this, and any moment I can die.”

When one remembers death, how can one possess anything? The place is there, the palace is there, the kingdom is there – but death is more there than anything else. How can one possess? When death is there, and one remembers it, one becomes non possessive. Then one knows, “I can possess only myself. Death will take everything else.”

“When the yogi is firmly established in non possessiveness, there arises knowledge of the ‘how’ and ‘wherefore’ of existence.” When one becomes non possessive, the energy is no longer moving outward. It is moving because of the desire to possess. When you are aware that nothing can be possessed – you come in the world and you go out of it; the world was there before you, it will be there after you…. Nothing can be possessed; the very idea to possess is stupid.

The moment you are aware of it, suddenly, the whole of your energy that had been moving in a thousand and one directions to possess the world moves inwards, and, Patanjali says, “… there arises knowledge of the ‘how’ and ‘wherefore’ of existence.” And then you know from where you have come, who you are. Then you come to face the original source of life, existence. Then you are face to face with the source, the very source. That source is God: the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega.