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perfect accord with the spiritual masters, who counsel the need to refine desires and convert carnal appetites into a higher vibrational level through devoted spiritual practice.

      Since one of humanity’s oldest physical desires is lust, brahmacharya addresses this dilemma by advocating sexual moderation and, where appropriate, chastity. The next part of understanding brahmacharya is learning how to reperceive sexuality as an expression of the mind’s need to create. Once the aspirant realizes that sexuality does not have to be externally expressed but can be redirected internally as fuel for cultivation of enlightened mind, the doors to higher perceptions can open with time and patience. After all, 99 percent of our experience of the world, including sex, is mental.

      Surrendering to lust, the mahayogis warn, has manifold consequences: moodiness, depression, irritability, and a gradual weakening of the immune system—all manifestations of vital force depletion in the body and energies being imprisoned in the lower, carnal centers. Living in those lower centers eventually weakens you on numerous levels.

      In the yogic traditions, celibacy is considered the ideal for the unmarried and elderly. For married couples, sexual enjoyment is not supposed to usurp the deeper values of true friendship and committed monogamous love. If one engages in sex as rote, an obligation, or mere entertainment, the sacredness is stripped away and negative karma will eventually poison the relationship. One can observe the effects of this with many “marriages” that were just material procurements or arrangements of sexual convenience. The American divorce rate, in excess of 60 percent, is a testimony to this, and there are other countries whose marriage failure rate is even higher. We are “liberated” through indulging our whims and impulses, and it is not bringing us real happiness.

      If the aspirant becomes aware enough to catch him- or herself losing moral high ground in relation to brahmacharya, there is a recipe to follow to rescue lost virtue. These are all reinforcing of one another and can be implemented in any order:

      1. Keep your mind on holy, spiritualized thoughts and ideas. Focus on sacred passages in any of the revered religious texts.

      2. Engage yourself in creative projects: writing, painting, music, or any creative endeavor that can be a productive channel for redirecting the energies.

      3. Perform physical exercise while keeping your mind on some spiritually beneficial idea.

      4. Hold to a vegetarian diet. Meats and many dairy foods (except ghee) are thought to contain animal vibrations that energetically influence you toward animal (lower vibrational) behaviors. Even if you practice vegetarianism for a limited time, it can be helpful.

      5. Enjoy the frequent company of spiritual-minded associates and teachers.

      6. Avoid all entertainment that exploits sexual ideas (music, movies, TV, Internet, books, etc.). If you have it in your dwelling, discard it.

      7. Volunteer in a service capacity. Helping keep others healthy, sheltered, and well fed gets you out of that little egoistic drama. It is a wonderful experience to feel the freedom of service, and an effective activity to help unfetter the ego from neuroses.

      The key point to remember with regard to brahmacharya is that it is not forced celibacy. Instead, it is seeing the Divine in the other, treating sex as a sacrament, knowing how and when to practice restraint, and not abusing the physical act through depravity or excess.

      To express an impulse gives relief, but to control it gives strength.

       Hazrat Inayat Khan

      If we cannot control our physical urges, no matter what they are, we are not putting enough commitment into living the spiritual precepts. We are spiritual beings endowed with infinite creative power—we are not mere biological machines.

      Since many teachers and systems have contributed to the yogic systems, there are multiple formulas that have been recommended throughout the centuries. Another ancient formula for adhering to brahmacharya can be shown in this five-point format:

      1. Avoid all lusts (not just sexual ones).

      2. Discipline your mind (tapas).

      3. Keep to a pure, moderate diet and avoid all intoxicants (shauca).

      4. Do not oversleep, as it dulls the mind and acts as a type of mental intoxicant.

      5. Meditate daily and increase the depth of your attunement.

      The following are some excerpts from the readings. Many people came to Mr. Cayce with relationship troubles of various kinds. The readings’ source often gave advice similar to the Eastern masters, or at least in accord with the spirit of the yamas and niyamas.

      (Q) How should love and the sexual life properly function?

      (A) [T]he material things (or those in a three-dimensional world) are the shadow or the reflection of those in the spiritual life. Then, as God or the Creative Influence is the source of all things, the second law in spiritual life, in mental life, in material life, is preservation of self and the continuation . . . or propagation [of the species], in sexual intercourse or life.

      Hence in their very basic forces, [sexual relations] should be the outcome—not the purpose of . . . the answering of soul to soul in their associations and relations. And the [sexual] act . . . should be the result.

      Hence these questions should be often weighed well, remembering that God, or Love (for it is One), [looks] on the heart rather than the outward appearances. And that morality, virtue, understanding, truth, love, are those influences that make for [proper] judgments of . . . the material life . . . according to those rules that govern such relationships, then it behooves—and becomes necessary—that there be the adherence to such [moral] regulations, that thy good be not [evilly] spoken of . . .

      [K]now that Love and God are One; that relations in the sexual life are the manifestations [of the creative power of mind].

      For, unless [sexual] associations become [regulated by love and physical moderation], they become vile in the experience of those that join in such relations.

      272-7

      The readings implied on a few occasions that sexual activity between two people, if engaged in for purely carnal reasons and without a true heart connection, could produce offspring with physical and emotional problems:

      For, to be sure, relationships in the sex are the exercising of the highest emotions in which a physical body may indulge. And only in man is there found that such are used as that of destruction to the body-offspring!

      826-6

      The readings’ source counseled numerous couples that sex is not just for the act of creating a child but is the physical expression of spiritual and emotional bonds:

      Do not look upon sex as merely a physical expression! There is a physical expression that is beauty within itself, if it is considered from that angle; but when the mental and the spiritual are guiding, then the outlet for beauty becomes a normal expression of a normal, healthy body.

      1436-1

      (Q) So much has been written about sexual relationships between husband and wife. Is it the correct understanding that this activity should be used only and when companions seek to build a body for an incoming entity?

      (A) Not necessarily. These depend, of course, to be sure, on the individual concept of relationships and their activities . . . [I]f the activities are used in creative, spiritual form, there is the less desire for carnal relationship; or, if there is the lack of use of constructive energies, then there is the desire for more of the carnal, physical reaction.

      2072-16

      The masters teach that we are here on earth not merely to pursue pleasure but to gain wisdom. The sages gain perfect control over their appetites, severing the carnal bonds that perpetuate reincarnation.

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