Truth about being
Celibate: Excerpts from the book “Self Restraint V. Self Indulgence” by Mahatma
M.K.Gandhiji
Pdf of the book “Self
Restraint V. Self Indulgence”: http://www.mkgandhi.org/ebks/self-restraint.pdf
The following instructions may prove needful:
Remember if you are married that your wife is your friend,
companion and co-worker, not an instrument of sexual enjoyment.
You will seek the society of the good and the pure.
You will resolutely refrain from reading passion-breeding
novels and magazines and read the works that sustain humanity. You will make
one book your constant companion for reference and guidance.
You will avoid theatres and cinemas. Recreation is where you
may not dissipate yourself but recreate yourself. You will, therefore, attend
bhajan-numdalis where the word and the tune uplift the soul.
You will eat not to satisfy your palate but your hunger. A
self-indulgent man lives to eat; a self-restrained man eats to live. Therefore,
you will abstain from all irritating condiments, alcohol which excites the
nerves, and narcotics which deaden the sense of right and wrong. You will
regulate the quantity and time of your meals.
1. When your passions threaten to get the better of you, go
down on your knees and cry out to God for help. Ramanama is my infallible help.
2. Take brisk walking exercise in the open air early in the
morning and at night before going to bed.
3. 'Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy,
wealthy and wise/ is a sound proverb. 9 o'clock to bed and 4 o'clock to rise is
a good rule. Go to bed on an empty stomach. Therefore, your last meal must not
be after 6 p.m.
4. Remember that man is a representative of God to serve all
that lives and thus to express God's dignity and love. Let service be your sole
joy, and you will need no other enjoyment in life.
the resolution unanimously voted at Brussels in 1902 by the
102 members present at the Second General Congress of the International
Conference of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis, a Congress which assembled
together the most competent authorities on the subject throughout the world:
"Young men must above all be taught that chastity and continence are not
only not harmful, but also that these virtues are among those to be most
earnestly recommended from the purely medical and hygienic standpoint."
Zoologists tell us that Brahmacharya is observed by the lower
animals, as for instance cattle, to a greater extent than by human beings, and
this is a fact. The reason is that cattle have perfect control over the palate,
not by will but by instinct. They subsist on mere fodder, and of this too, they
take a quantity just sufficient for nutrition. They eat to live, do not live to
eat, while our case is just the reverse. The mother pampers her child with all
kinds of delicacies. She believes that she can evince her love only by feeding
the child to the utmost. By doing this she does not enhance the child's
enjoyment of his food, but on the other hand makes everything insipid and
disgusting for him. The taste depends upon hunger. Even sweets will not be as
tasteful to one who is not hungry as a slice of dry bread is to another who is
really so. We prepare food in various ways with a variety of spices in order to
be able to load the stomach, and wonder when we find Brahmacharya difficult to
observe.
Parents wrap their children up in heavy clothing and smother
them while they fondly imagine that they are adding to their beauty. Clothes
are meant just to cover the body, protect it against heat and cold, not to
beautify it. If a child is trembling with cold, we must send him to the
fireside to warm himself or out into the street for a run, or into the field
for work. It is only thus that we can help him to build a splendid
constitution. By keeping the child confined in the house we impart a false
warmth to his body. By pampering his body we only succeed in destroying it.
A naishthika Brahmachari would never suffer from fever,
headache, cough or appendicitis, as I have suffered. Medical men say that
appendicitis is caused even by an orange-seed remaining in the intestines. But
an orange-seed cannot find permanent lodgment in a clean healthy body. When the
intestines get weakened they are unable to expel such foreign matter. My
intestines too must have weakened and hence the inception of appendicitis in
me. Children eat all manner of things and the mother can never watch them all
the time. Yet they do not suffer as their intestines are functioning
vigorously.
Control should be acquired over the organ of taste. My
experience is that one who has not mastered taste cannot control animal passion
either. It is no easy task to conquer the palate. But conquest of passion is
bound up with the conquest of the palate. One of the means of controlling taste
is to give up spices and condiments altogether or as far as possible. Another
and a more effective means is always to cultivate a feeling that we eat just in
order to sustain the body and never for taste. We take in air not for taste but
for life. Just as we take water to quench our thirst, in the same way should we
take food only to satisfy hunger. Unfortunately parents make us contract a
contrary habit from very childhood. They corrupt us by giving us all manner of
delicacies not for our sustenance but out of mistaken affection. We have got to
fight against this unfavourable home atmosphere.
He who has realized the misery of mankind in all its
magnitude will never be stirred by passion. He will instinctively know the
fountain of strength in him, and he will ever persevere to keep it undefiled.
His humble strength will command respect of the world, and he will wield an
influence greater than that of the sceptred monarch.
In confidence:I have brought up children by the score. And
they have without difficulty taken to and delighted in any dress given to them.
We provide them with all kinds of heating and stimulating foods. Our blind love
takes no note of their capacity. The result undoubtedly is an early
adolescence, immature progeny and an early grave.
I tender this advice even to the newly married. It is easier
not to do a thing at all than to cease doing it, even as it is easier for a
life abstainer to remain teetotaller than for a drunkard or even a temperate
man to abstain.
I now place before the reader a few simple rules which are
based on the experience not only of myself, but of many of my associates:
1. Boys and girls should be brought up simply and naturally
in the full belief that they are and can remain innocent.
2. All should abstain from heating and stimulating foods,
condiments such as chillies, fatty and concentrated foods such as fritters,
sweets and fried substances.
3. Husband and wife should occupy separate rooms and avoid
privacy.
4. Both body and mind should be constantly and healthily
occupied.
5. Early to bed and early to rise should be strictly
observed.
6. All unclean literature should be avoided. The antidote for
unclean thoughts is clean thoughts.
7. Theatres, cinemas, etc., which tend to stimulate passion,
should be shunned.
8. Above all, one must not consider continence even as
between husband and wife to be so difficult as to be practically impossible. On
the contrary, self-restraint must be considered to be the ordinary and natural
practice of life.
9. A heart-felt prayer every day for purity makes one
progressively pure.
The common mode of life is shaped to minister to our
passions. Our food, our literature, our amusements, our business hours are all
regulated so as to excite and feed our animal passions.
General directions, however, may be safely reiterated here:
1. Eat moderately, always leaving the dining room with a
feeling of pleasant hunger.
2. Highly spiced and fatty vegetarian foods must be avoided.
Separate fat is wholly unnecessary when an adequate supply of milk is
available. A little food suffices when there is little vital waste.
3. Both the body and the mind must be constantly occupied in
clean pursuits.
4. Early to bed and early to rise is a necessity.
5. Above all a life of restraint presupposes an intense
living desire for reunion with God. When there is heart perception of this
central fact, there will be continuously increasing reliance upon God to keep
His instrument pure and in order. The Gita says: "Passions return again
and again in spite of fasting, but even the desire ceases when the Divine is
seen." This is literally true.
If the eye and the ear and the nose and the tongue, the hands
and the feet are let loose, it is impossible to keep the primal organ under
check. Most cases of irritability, hysteria and even insanity, which are
wrongly ascribed to attempts at continence,
Will in truth be found traceable to the incontinence of the
other senses. No sin, no breach of nature's laws, goes unpunished.
As I looked back upon the twenty years of the vow, I am
filled with pleasure and wonderment. The more or less successful practice of
self-control has been going on since 1901. But the freedom and joy that came to
me after taking the vow had never been experienced before 1906. Before the vow
I had been open to being overcome by temptation at any moment. Now the vow was
a sure shield against temptation.
Control of the palate is the first essential in the
observance of the vow. I found that complete control of the palate made the
observance very easy, and so I now pursued my dietetic experiments not merely
from the vegetarian's but also the Brahmachari's point of view. As the result
of these experiments I saw that the Brahmachari's food should be limited,
simple, spiceless and, if possible, uncooked.
Six years of experiment have showed me that the Brahmachari's
ideal food is fresh fruit and nuts. The immunity from passion that I enjoyed
when I lived on this food was unknown to me after I changed that diet.
Brahmacharya needed no effort on my part in South Africa when I lived on fruits
and nuts alone. It has been a matter of very great effort ever since I began to
take milk. Let no one deduce from this that all Brahmacharis must give up milk.
The effect on Brahmacharya of different kinds of food can be determined only
after numerous experiments. I have yet to find a fruit substitute for milk
which is an equally good muscle builder and easily digestible.
Fasting is useful when mind co-operates with starving body,
that is to say, when it cultivates a distaste for the objects that are denied
to the body. Mind is at the root of all sensuality. Fasting, therefore, has a
limited use, for a fasting man may continue to be swayed by passion. But it may
be said that extinction of the sexual passion is as a rule impossible without
fasting, which may be said to be indispensable for the observance of
Brahmacharya.
Many aspirants after Brahmacharya fail, because in the use of
their other senses they want to carry on as those who are not Brahmacharis.
Their effort is therefore identical with the effort to experience the bracing
cold of winter in the scorching summer months. There should be a clear line
between the life of a Brahmachari and of one who is not. The resemblance that
there is between the two is only apparent. The distinction ought to be clear as
daylight. Both use their eyesight, but whereas the Brahmachari uses it to see
the glories of God, the other uses it to see the frivolity around him. Both use
their ears, but whereas the one hears nothing but praises of God, the other
feasts his ears upon ribaldry. Both often keep late hours, but whereas the one
devotes them to prayer, the other fritters them away in wild and wasteful
mirth. Both feed the inner man, but the one does so only to keep the temple of
God in good repair, while the other gorges himself and makes the sacred vessel
a stinking gutter. Thus both live as the poles apart, and the distance between
them will grow and not diminish with the passage of time.
But it was after coming to India that I realized that such
Brahmacharya was impossible to attain merely by human effort. Until then I had
been labouring under the delusion that fruit diet alone would enable me to
eradicate all passions, and I had flattered myself with the belief that I had
nothing more to do.
But I must not anticipate the chapter of my struggles.
Meanwhile let me make it clear that those who desire to observe Brahmacharya
with a view to realizing God need not despair, provided their faith in God is
equal to their confidence in their own effort.
He, who attempts to control only one organ and allows all the
others free play, is bound to find his effort futile. To hear suggestive
stories with the ears, to see suggestive sights with the eyes, to taste
stimulating food with the tongue, to touch exciting things with the hands, and
then at the same time expect to control the only remaining organ, is like
putting one's hands in a fire, and then expecting to escape being burnt. He,
therefore, who is resolved to control the one must be likewise determined to
control the rest. I have always felt that much harm has been done by the narrow
definition of Brahmacharya. If we practise simultaneous self-control in all
directions, the attempt will be scientific and possible of success.Perhaps the
palate is the chief sinner.
Scientists 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.
The Brahmacharis we see about us today are very incomplete
specimens. At best they are aspirants who have acquired control over their
bodies but not their minds. They have not become proof against temptation. This
is not because Brahmacharya is so difficult of attainment. Social environment
is against them, and the majority of those who are making an honest effort
unknowingly isolate the control of the animal passion from all other passions,
whereas the effort to be successful must include control over all the passions
to which man is prey.
For me education has a much nobler purpose. Let the student
count himself as one among the millions, and he will discover that millions of
young men and women of his age cannot fulfill the conditions which he will have
his degree to do. Why should he make, himself responsible for the maintenance
of all the relatives he mentions? Why should the grown-up ones, if of sound
body, not labour for their maintenance? It is wrong to have many drones to one
busy bee—though a male.
The remedy lies in his unlearning many things. He must revise
his ideas of education. His sisters ought not to repeat the expensive education
that he had. They can develop their intelligence through learning some
handicraft in a scientific manner. The moment they do so, they have development
of the mind side by side with that of the body. And if they will learn to
regard themselves as servants of humanity rather than its exploiters, they will
have development of the heart i.e., the soul as well. And they will become
equal earners of bread with their brother.
I do not know what is meant by marriage taking place 'sooner
rather than later'. In no case need it take place before they are 20 years old.
It is no use thinking so many years in advance. And if he will revise the whole
scheme of life, he will have the sisters to choose their partners, and the
ceremony need never cost more than five rupees each, if that. I have been
present at several such ceremonies. And the husbands or their elders have been
graduates in fair circumstances.
I have discovered that I have not approached with adequate
detachment, the innumerable problems that have presented themselves for
solution. It is clear that I have taken many of them to heart and allowed them
to rouse my emotional being and thus affect my nerves. In other words, they
have not, as they should have, in a votary of the Gita, left my body or mind
untouched. I verily believe that one who literally follows the prescription of
the eternal mother(Gita), need never grow old in mind. Such a one's body will
wither in due course like leaves of a healthy tree, leaving the mind as young
and as fresh as ever.
what of the Gita? Its teaching is clear and precise. A mind
that is once hooked to the Star of Stars becomes incorruptible. How far I must
be from Him, He alone knows.
Brahmacharya here does not mean mere physical self-control.
It means much more. It means complete control over all the senses. Thus an
impure thought is a breach of brahmacharya; so is anger.
There is a verse in the second chapter of the Gita which
freely rendered means: "Sense-effects remain in abeyance whilst one is
fasting or whilst the particular sense is starved; but the hankering does not
cease except when one sees God face to face."
But I have a fear that the modern girl loves to be Juliet to
half a dozen Romeos. She loves adventure. My correspondent seems to represent
the unusual type. The modern girl dresses not to protect herself from wind,
rain and sun but to attract attention. She improves upon nature by painting
herself and looking extraordinary.
Men must learn to hold the honour of every woman as dear as
that of their own sisters and mothers. All the education they receive will be
in vain if they do not learn good manners.
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