Sex Enjoyment in Yoga Practice
Sex enjoyment as everything else is part of the existence which we currently experience. It should be monitored just as anything else. A careful study of the psyche and its habits should be done by each yogi. Irrespective of what books say or what teachers profess, each yogi should study his/her habits and work for expansion or contraction of habits in a way which better facilitates the practice.
There are books and restrictions mentioned in the literature about what facilitates yoga and what deters it. In the final analysis one has to hone onto one’s individual habits and fine tune the behavior of the subtle body so that yoga realization is increased.
Most of the literature about yoga, points in the direction of brahmacharya which means a behavior which focuses on and is absorbed in brahman which is a general term for the spiritual level of existence. Somehow that word was used in another way to mean celibacy. Actually, its original meaning in that context was not celibacy as a general aim or achievement but celibacy as it is experienced before sexual maturity.
Celibacy after sexual maturity and after having sexual experience (carnal knowledge) is not the same as celibacy before sexual maturity. To understand this, imagine what it would be like to go through the years of a body to its elderly state and not have that body reach sexual maturity. How would that be? For males or females how would that be? Is that the same as not having sexual experience after the body reaches sexual maturity?
The ideal brahmacharya state is the one where the body does not reach sexual maturity but it develops in every other way. It looks like an adult form or it remains in the juvenile state, but it does not have sexual arousal.
Consider if you had a love for someone of the opposite sex, just as you had already in this life span, but there was no sexual response in that emotion. Can you experience that? If you can then you understand what the true meaning of brahmacharya is.
What is the big deal about not having sex? Why is it given such appraise in the literature. In the first place some writers mean childhood and adult restraint from sex as celibacy. We have to read about it knowing the meaning for each writer.
What I wrote above is theoretical only because we know that our experience is that Nature causes sexual development involuntarily. It does not allow anyone to command such development. In each childhood body, it causes the sexual development to happen, regardless of whether the individual desires that or not.
Thus, if someone desires to cease sexual indulgence, that cannot happen completely. Partially one may do it by restraint, by surgically removing the genitals, by pretending that one is not sexually engaged or by some other means. But the fact is that sexual expression is mandatory because that is Nature’s way. It is a joke when monks speak about their celibacy. Why?
Because not a single monk gives a guarantee that he/she does not have subtle sexual activities. For that matter, if a monk is not aware of all his subtle acts, he cannot truthfully state that he is celibate, unless he declares that he has no sexual engagement physically but he cannot be certain if he does so during sleep or in dreams.
And what should he do if someone has a sexual attraction to him? How does he deal with that projection of energy? What is the method used in his sect?
For those who want to be honest about this, my advice is that one should quit sexual behavior on the physical level as soon as you can. For the subtle level, that is a difficult almost impossible achievement. For that one may strive to reduce that and perhaps to increase the reduction hereafter.
Cease physical sexual activity if you can but be practical in achieving this. Do not think that a religion’s declarations and promises can achieve this. Nature does not care about religious dogma and ideas. Face up to the need for sexual participation. Over time reduce it if you can. Study how nature operates it. See in what way you can reduce the involvement in the process of sexual intercourse and reproduction activity.
Brahmacharya or celibacy as not having sexual experience, yes, that is a wonderful idea. But here in this world, Nature does not allow it. It is not available except for the early years in a body and then only as a transit for the development of full-blown sexuality. What a dimension!
