This is in response to an email query that we had, and we thought that it would be edifying for all to read.
Dearest G.,
Thank you for your questions, my darling little one. I appreciate them, for they make me think, and in the thinking and then seeking to express, I also gain a clearer understanding.
Your question is:
In how far is the aspiration (intent) behind an urge to do tapasya relevant to the fruit? How much weight does the aspiration take?
E.G. Say a person who before was sexually active refrains from ever having sex again, due to bad experiences, versus a person who made a concious vow to withold these lifeforces for his wholesome benefit?
Or a woman who doesn't eat because she wants to lose weight (many many of them here...) versus someone who regulates the diet or even takes fasting vows as a means of purification and sacrifice, for his benefit and that of the world?
My answer:
I see two different aspects to this question. On the one hand, what if a person adapts to a means to arrive at an end, ex. no sex due to bad experiences, rigid food control to get slim. Outwardly, it could be seen to be the same outer actions as a person who undertakes the external action for an consciously chosen ethical end. Therefore, if I understand correctly, you are asking how much does our intention affect the result. Perhaps you are also aking, what if the means used to arrive at ethical ends, are not intially purely ethical? Is this understanding corrrect? Does the paraphrase stand?
My thoughts on this: I see from my studies on Gandhi that anyway that we can begin to exercise self restraint, is ultimately beneficial to us. For example, in Gandhi's life, before he went to England to Study at 20 years of age, he was eating meat on the sly with some friends, feeling that it was because the british ate beef that they had the internal power to control India. He took a vow with his mother and a religious family advisor, not to touch Wine, Women or Meat while he was in England in order to secure his mother's permission as well as blessings for the trip. He ate poorly for a year, no doubt, wishing he could eat meat, but on principle, faithful to his promise. Then, he found a Vegetarian Restuarant in London, got in touch with the Vegetarian Society, and became morally convinced of the value of a vegetarian diet. He said: “A convert's enthusiasm for his new religion is greater than that of a person who is born in it. Vegetarianism was then a new cult in England, and likewise for me, because, as we have seen, I had gone there a convinced meat-eater, and was intellectually converted to vegetarianism later.”
Also, in the example of celibacy. The door to Gandhi's lower chakra was opened by his teenage marriage, in which he became sexually active at 15 years. This exodus of his life force through this opening in his physical body, sucked his mind into identification with it - as it does to everyone who engages in physical sensual experiences, causing them to self-identify with the experience. For years, he was lustful. Swami Chidanandaji of Divine Life Society gives this perspective, which illustrates the role of intention to outcome:
Man is a mixture of three ingredients; first, an animal with all the physical propensities and sense urges that one shares in common with animals; second, the rational, logical human level; and third, the dormant divinity, the sleeping God within. The whole of the spiritual life is a gradual elimination, eradication, of the animal within, and the refinement or purification and education of the entire human nature so that it stops its movement in all other directions and starts taking an ascending vertical direction. Once the human nature is given an upward turn, one simultaneously starts awakening the sleeping divinity with the help of all one's spiritual practices.
If one knows that the spiritual process, the spiritual life, is the elimination of the animal, the refining and directing upwards of the human, and the awakening and unfoldment of the Divine, then all spiritual practices, including the role that brahmacharya plays, fall into their right place.
Brahmacharya or celibacy is a rational process of preserving and conserving precious energy so that it can be utilized in other very essential and indispensable functions. And if it is preserved like this, it can be converted, just as tangible gross water is converted into subtle steam. Then it can do wonders. A river may not have much power in it by itself. You may easily be able to row or swim across it. But, if it is dammed up and its waters conserved, then it has the power, when properly channeled to turn huge turbines and produce electricity. The hot sun, even in summer, does not normally cause a fire, but if you concentrate its rays through a lens, those rays will immediately burn whatever they are focused on. That is what celibacy actually is. What is the source of this energy? Everything that exists is filled with unutterable energy, energy which takes so many forms. Everything that you see here, every force derives from that ultimate source of cosmic energy.
And our ancients have said that it is this cosmic energy that holds the heavenly bodies in their course. They are all kept moving by this mysterious, inexplicable, indescribably, unimaginable energy. And they regarded that energy as something divine, something that has neither a beginning nor an end. It is eternal and pervades everywhere. There is nowhere that it is not. And it is this energy which not only keeps this universe going but countless such universes, that is present in living beings as the sex force.
So Hindus regarded this energy as sacred, something that is worthy of being worshipped, not frittered away. They said that this energy is none other than the manifestation of the Divine Mother, the cosmic energy. Therefore, it should be regarded with reverence.
This cosmic force manifests in our own system as prana (vital energy, life force). And prana is the precious reserve of the seeker. Any sense activity or sense experience constitutes a loss of prana. And the activity that consumes the greatest amount of prana is the sex act. It shatters the entire nervous system. Because it creates great excitement, great agitation and such an intensity of feeling as an aftermath, it leaves the person exhausted and depleted. Sex is a process that that concentrates their entire consciousness, entire mind, entire attention upon the physical, their physical identity. It is a process that perforce directs your entire attention upon the physical, and even more, the full focusing of your desire and intention upon that part of your physical nature that you share in common with the entire animal kingdom. From one single sex act is the acme of physicality or animality. Absolute Consciousness is a far cry if you don't recognize the necessity of liberating yourself from your total identification with the body. The highest of all goals in human life – spiritual attainment – requires the maximum available pranic energy on all levels: mental, intellectual and emotional. Brahmacharya is not life denying. It is neither repressing sexuality nor avoiding sexuality. It is just bypassing sexuality, making use of this sexual potential for something ten times, a hundred times greater.
Gandhi had read alot of books on conctaceptives, as well as Hindu philosophy on self-restraint. Undoubtedly, these were influencing factors in his thinking. The ethical aspect in self restraint appealed to him. Initially, however, he was looking for a way to stop having babies, when he began to consider self restraint.
In 1906 Gandhi took his vow of celibacy and a life dedicated to the pursuit of truth through brahmacharya began. He was 37 years old. As with all the ideals that shed light upon his path to them, the observation of celibacy was to reveal to Gandhi a whole new way of thinking that leads to evolving into Harmony and Truth. Although his initial reasons were not so sublime, yet he was to evolve into a greater and greater awareness of the profound significance of brahmacharya. He saw his total helplessness in the great task, given his record of self-indugence and attachment to lust and said: “One who aspires to observe brahmacharya relies only on God, and hence he is always humble. He never trusts himself.” As he progressed in his brahmacharya he was to put forth before the public his own findings in Hindu metaphysical researches that had proved eons ago the undeniable connection between physical and mental strength and acumen and the retention of a man's seed:
"Rishis and sages have put such great value upon the vital fluid and have insisted upon its strong transmutation into the highest form of energy for the benefit of society. They boldly declare that one who has acquired a perfect control over his or her sexual energy strengthens the whole being, physical, mental and spiritual and attains powers unattainable by any other means. Whilst brahmacharya is not impossible of attainment by the average man and woman, it must not be supposed that it requires less effort than that required by an average student who has set his or her heart upon becoming a master of any one of the sciences. Attainment of brahmacharya, in the sense here meant, means mastery of the science of life.”
So, while these two apects, Vegetarianism and Brahmacharya, initially had more selfish aspirations - eg., he wanted to go to England, so he took the vow, and he wanted to stop having babies, so he began to consider celibacy, as he took those initial steps, he began to think more and more, and from that reflection, was able to grow and develop into comprehesive brahmacharya which indluded control of the palate and celibacy as ethical means to master his mind-body connection, purify his mind and heart, and to enable him to be of greater service to mankind.
Any sort of restraint will cause the mind to reflect. Reflection shows meaning. Meaning leads to the ideal, the ideal, caused Gandhi to take vows to make himself true to the ideal. To structure himself in these directions, he used the ethical practice or tool of the 'vow'. Vows are essential to ethical life. Vows are often understood in terms of fasts or relinquishments for short periods of time. India's secular life is full of vows that are enacted in accordance with timings and occurrences in nature.
What is a vow? Gandhi gives this definition: “If we resolve to do a thing, and are ready even to sacrifice our lives in the process, we are said to have taken a vow. It is essential for every person to train himself to keep such vows; one can strengthen one's power of will by doing so and fit oneself for greater tasks. One may take easy and simple vows to start with and follow them with more difficult ones.”
Vows enable one to cling with resolution to the ethical fibers already in existence in the universe. The grand purpose behind all vows is to maintain remembrance of Truth, exercise self-control and cultivate devotion to the ideals of Truth and Love within one. Smaller vows help in whetting the knife for larger steps later leading to renunciation. Vows also serve to teach the mind who is in charge within the bodily temple. Gandhi found vows to be essential for character building:
"The same law, which regulates these heavenly bodies, applies equally to men. A person unbound by vows can never be absolutely relied upon. It is overweening pride to say, “This thing comes natural to me. Why should I bind my self permanently by vows? I can well take care of myself at the critical moment. To shirk taking of vows betrays indecision and want of resolution. One never can achieve anything lasting in this world by being irresolute. For instance, what faith can you place in a general or a soldier who lacks resolution and determination, who says, 'I shall keep guard as long as I can?'”
The real determining factor in all of this was his thinking. We have to watch our thoughts like a hawk. Holy Mother Amma often says that we should not let a single thought go on without our awareness of it. That awareness helps us to seperate our self identification from 'being the thought' to 'being the one who watches the thought' Hence, from my studies and thinking, which has led to my own experimentations in these veins, I conclude two things:
- Any type of self restraint is helpful to the person who undertakes it, if it causes them to reflect and contemplate and observe and be aware of what they are doing, even if it is a small matter. Once reflection in the mind begins, ethical dialogue begins. Once our own ethical instincts are awoken, they will guide us.
- But, Gandhi's example of unending effort shows that even though we may think we are in ethical dialogue within ourselves, pure conversation with the Truth within us, does not come until we have reached total convincement, utter certainty of the reality of that Truth, which Amma calls 'surrender'. Indeed, once that convincement is there, we would have no other desire or interest but to surrender ourselves to it. This is why death is a great teacher, but its rather a pity, that we all leave that convincement, which would have shown us our natural place in the creation, our goal and purpose of life, until the very end...not everyone gets the time then to deal with it. So, I feel that the thinking that goes along with the action, can develop evolutionarily into ethical thinking, which will have harmonic results for all concerned.
I may use this QnA in our Earth Ethics.org.in website, to start ethical discussions. Anyhow, Holy Mother Amma could shed more light on this if you ask her, which is always a difficult to come by opportunity. Nonetheless, She is here with us, and we are exceedingly fortunate. This fact is our only real wealth.
Loving you,
Your Kamala Aunty
