Yoga of the Heart

Many of you are probably planning to skip this chapter, because celibacy is not a popular word in the United States. It is a frightening term to most people, especially those who suffer from a broken heart, because they think that if they practice celibacy, they will be removed from the sweet support systems of life: touching, love, companionship, the enjoyment of a relationship. They look upon celibacy as a tragic, suffering sacrifice, like living in a convent with bare feet on cold stone floors. This is not at all what the ethic of Celibacy is about. If you can gather up your courage and read on, you may find that the subject is not so daunting after all.

Celibacy can be used as a building block to make you wonderfully free; to give you time to observe yourself and withdraw to your inner self, enabling you to rest and renew and then come forward again in full strength. In the practice of Celibacy, you can learn how to enjoy the feeling of sexuality without the constant fear that you will lose it — or the need to depend on anyone else to provide it.

HOW TO BEGIN PRACTICING CELIBACY

1. Start with five minutes a day. Celibacy can be practiced for very small periods at first; I am not talking about years of abstinence. If you would like to try this practice, you may choose any length of time that you prefer, but my suggestion is that you start with a very short period: perhaps five minutes a day.
Plan a time for this five-minute experiment when you are by yourself. The type of Celibacy that I am talking about here is restraint of the sexual conversation of the mind. During your five minutes of Celibacy, the idea is not to indulge in mental fantasy about sex.

I used to give a lecture called "The Joy of Celibacy." I’ll never forget the time I gave this talk to employees of a heavy-equipment manufacturing company in southern Ohio-, and afterward overheard one of the participants leaving the auditorium saying, "Geez, can you imagine how restful that would be — five minutes not thinking about broads!"

This type of Celibacy can be practiced by anyone, and no one needs to know you are doing it. If you are currently involved in a sexual relationship (with someone other than yourself), there is no need to hurt your partner by violently announcing that you are withdrawing yourself from sexual involvement.

If you restrain your thoughts for five minutes, and intently observe them, you can clearly see how pervasive sexual thought is in your mental pattern. This brings on an intense awareness of your inner thinking mechanisms. It becomes a very simple task to notice sexual conversation in your mind. What you do with your body comes a long time later. Once you start practicing this small exercise, you can then realize that all your actions, day and night, are subject to this sexual content, and that your behavior is being affected accordingly.

In order to practice the five-minute Celibacy experiment correctly, you must set a definite starting and ending time, whether five minutes, or a day, or whatever time period you choose, and see if you can complete it. Try not to set a goal that will too hard to reach.

It is said that the great god and hero Krishna was a practicing celibate and yet he had eighteen hundred wives; on top of that, he would make love with anyone he met. Both men and women were entranced by him. The most notable quality of Krishna was that he never worried about being able to satisfy so many people. He was always sure of his potency. I think that those who have practiced periods of Celibacy for quite a long time become very sure of themselves, not only in sexual performance but in all performance.
There is a story about someone who once challenged Krishna’s performance of Celibacy. This man and Krishna were waiting to cross the great river Jumna, which was swollen with floodwaters and very deep and treacherous. Krishna called on the river to verify his perfect practice of Celibacy. He said, "If Krishna has practiced Celibacy perfectly, may the river part and become a road." Thereupon the waters of the river immediately drew back on either side and became a dry road for them to cross. (This story may remind you of the Old Testament story of Moses parting the Red Sea. Is it possible Moses was teaching the same discipline? We do not know, but we do know, according to Shaivism, that intellectual understanding of Celibacy is impossible; it must be experienced.)
How could Krishna practice Celibacy perfectly while simultaneously making love with so many people? Krishna’s physical body was extremely active, but he was functioning completely from his spiritual body, so there was never any loss or harm in what he did.

The difference between Krishna’s accomplishments (see sidebar) and a person in ordinary life has to do with involvement and ownership. If you are practicing Celibacy, you pull back from involvement with sexual thought. This does not mean you do not have any thoughts about sex; it means that you watch thought operating without becoming involved. You will find that you can watch other people involved in sexual play and conversation with a great deal of enjoyment.

Go out on Friday night, and just watch. Enjoy sexuality expressing itself. Observe its power. Listen to what it says. Try to understand how people feel, but only in a very private way, in your own observations.

In this way, you will begin to appreciate the fact that sexuality expresses itself in everything. The basis of sexual power is the Earth Mother herself, the manifestation of all creation; it is the power that keeps you alive. You cannot get away from it. As the philosophy of Kashmir Shaivism says, you do not try to run from it, you try to join with it.

If you were able to sustain this expansive idea about sex, sexual experience would give you an awareness of its magnificence in such a way that sexual behavior would no longer be commonplace. Your awareness of the connection of the ecstacy of sex with this magnificent quality that is the essence of life itself and the universal force that underlies it brings a new dimension to all sexual relationships. There is no more fear of loss, and no more loneliness. You do not have to have a sexual partner to recognize that the basic power of sexuality lies within you; it is not dependent upon any other person.

2. The next step. If you become comfortable with the five-minutes-a-day commitment to Celibacy, you can increase your practice to perhaps one day a month, or one day a week. Now you begin to watch not only your mind, but also your body. Many people have the mistaken idea that simply because they have not knowingly indulged in sex during that time, they have been celibate. Celibacy practice must have a precise beginning and ending date. A certain time is set aside for this practice. Then the fun begins!

Most of the students I have known have been unable to keep that commitment for more than a couple of hours in the beginning. You can expect to lose many times before you succeed. It takes practice and it takes a great sense of humor.

One morning a student of mine decided that he wanted to try a period of Celibacy. I said, "That’s fine, when are you going to start?" He said, "I'm going to start today and go for three days." That evening when he came to our house for dinner, he asked if he could talk to me. He did not want to talk in front of anybody else, so we went down to the basement. At that time I was living in a big old rambling house with a maze of dark rooms in the basement.
I can remember him looking at me over the furnace pipes, saying, "I want you to know I couldn’t keep my Celibacy commitment. When I left here this morning, I drove out the driveway and oddly enough, an old girlfriend, whom I hadn’t seen for several years, was standing at the corner waiting for a ride, and it was all over." We both laughed, realizing that this commitment to even three days of Celibacy was a bigger task than he had suspected. After five or six attempts, he finally made it through one day.
Then there was the couple who decided to practice Celibacy for a time together, and thought that if they engaged only in mutual masturbation, they were fulfilling their promise of Celibacy. This is not what we are describing here. Celibacy means that you do not indulge the body in any sexual action.

Although you will not be personally involved in sex during your commitment to Celibacy, you can still constantly enjoy the observation of it while not owning it. I remember a religious man I once met on an airplane who, when he traveled, had himself blindfolded so he would not lay eyes on a woman. This kind of behavior is not at all connected to Yoga.

THE RESULT OF PRACTICING CELIBACY

Small periods of Celibacy help to build the second, spiritual body that we have been talking about throughout this book. The result of this united body is described by Lakshmanjoo in his discussion of Celibacy. In his words, Celibacy means "the maintenance of mental and physical character." "Maintenance" in this context means pulling back from relationships that sacrifice your personal power. Why is it important to cultivate this aspect of one’s character? He answers that by doing so, you attain what he calls viryalabha, the storage of power.

Yogic texts say that the result of practice of Celibacy is that "Your word becomes true." Lakshmanjoo elaborated on this by saying that this practice gives you strength for spiritual growth; this means that it will support the spiritual body that you are inviting to emerge.

Lakshmanjoo also said that in the later stages of Celibacy — after you have practiced on and off for quite a while — the awareness that you have a choice in your sexual attitude begins to come to you. He says clearly that this knowledge is not meant to be used in debates or to impress others with a show of understanding, but is meant for the pursuit of God consciousness (the experience that I also refer to as the Universal Body), which is then easily attained. It is said that if someone who is really practicing Celibacy correctly is instructed in meditation by his or her teacher, meditation will bring results easily and quickly. In other words, the practice of Celibacy supplies what you need to bring the spiritual body’s form into view.

Lakshmanjoo and I discussed the practice of Celibacy one day in his garden:

Lakshmanjoo: Brahmacharya [Celibacy] gives power in your body. Your power is maintained.
Alice: So whatever you say comes true.
Lakshmanjoo: Yes. When rise of God consciousness takes place, you know what kind of joy [the Yogi] experiences: that utmost joy of God consciousness which is just like the joy of sexuality.
Alice: Is that the supreme sexual feeling that you talk about?
Lakshmanjoo: Yes. And that sexual feeling is never lost. It is not just sexual feeling for two minutes, three minutes only and then it is gone. Not that. It is that sexual feeling that is everlasting. Only you think you are away from it. It is always there. So maintaining that brahmacharya in yourself gives power to that joy.
Alice: So then sexual joy then is not transitional, it’s constant.
Lakshmanjoo: Yes. If you are given to that outer sexual joy, that inner sexual state begins to become less and less. So [the practice of] brahmacharya is a must. Breath stops and you get internal flow. Then that sexual joy is just like a fountain.

Who says Celibacy is dull? What Lakshmanjoo is describing is the ultimate experience of God consciousness; he told me that if you multiply the ecstatic feeling of a sexual orgasm by a million times, that might approximate the feeling of sexual joy that is experienced in God consciousness. He also said that this ultimate experience cannot be sustained by a human body, so at first it comes on little by little, incrementally. This is why you will never see a true Yogi who looks unhappy; the outlook on sexuality of someone who has had even a taste of this experience changes completely.

A perfect illustration of this experience may be found in the beautiful verses of the Song of Solomon. It sounds like a love poem between a human man and woman, but from a mystical point of view, this poem describes the male/female attraction and the complexity of the universe that results from their joining. It is about you joining with yourself, opening the door to the tremendous expression of individuality that pours through you as you meet yourself; this experience has its own music and conversation.

When you have found yourself, you can never lose love. There is no loss, because love lies within you and the love of yourself for yourself never leaves. You can never lose it by loving someone else, and you never depend totally on someone else to provide love to you. If Celibacy has only one virtue, it is to protect you from loss while you transform that loss with courage. This, then, carries a new expansion of joy and freedom into your relationships. You are not going into a relationship empty-handed, and you are not haunted by the specter of loss. You are bringing something to the relationship, not expecting someone else to be the main contributor. In other words, you can carry the responsibility of your involvement in all phases of a relationship without fear.

Healing a Broken Heart

Celibacy can be used to heal a broken heart. I use the phrase "broken heart" to mean any feeling of loss, separation, or sadness; it is not limited to the pain of a failed love affair or marriage. If you have lost your job, for instance, or if someone you love has died, or if you are faced with a serious illness, you feel a loss of power, a sense of impotence — in other words, the symptoms of a broken heart. Often people equate the feeling of failure with a broken heart, but to me a broken heart is a much more serious condition.

Often people approach Yoga during times of crisis, when it seems that their life is in such a mess that they are desperate to find something to make it better. You really cannot practice Yoga properly with a broken heart, however, because Yoga demands full attention, and if you are suffering from a broken heart, the wound is so painful that you cannot concentrate on anything else except the pain. The practice of Yogic ethics, especially small periods of Celibacy (even five to ten minutes a day), helps to heal that wound in you and allows you to bring yourself back into balance so that the experience of Yoga can come on freely and become a support for the future involvements of your life.

I have found small periods of Celibacy extremely helpful when people are going through a divorce or any lost relationship. It is very clear to me that during times of extreme stress, people need to protect themselves against loss of energy in relationships. They need to protect and guard their strength and privacy, and very few relationships are set up to do this; Celibacy allows you an inner place to hide and heal.

Many times, people who have suffered a loss try to fill the empty space right away with a new relationship — even if it is potentially self-destructive, such as the Friday-night pickup scene — or surround themselves with material things. This kind of "self-medication" can never last. The casual sexual relationships that so many people enter into, for whatever reason, usually result in a loss instead of a gain. I believe that the feeling of loss can only be replaced by the individual turning inward for strength and protection. The real healing comes from within yourself, and Celibacy protects you while that wound heals. Gradually you realize that your strength has always been there within you. This realization provides strength for your reentry into self-satisfying relationships.

Celibacy allows a person to find depth and meaning in relationships of all kinds — from the most intimate sexual relationships to the most impersonal social relationships. The male-female principles of the universe are always longing and searching for each other. We can begin to realize that this whole picture of the universe is encompassed in ourself, and that the most important relationship is between our two halves: our inner and outer beings — what is referred to in this book as the spiritual and physical bodies.

In Yoga, unlike religious traditions, Celibacy is presented without any moral attachments. It is practiced simply to achieve a particular result: the powerful unity of the individual.-Brief periods of Celibacy, such as the five-minutes-a-day trial described previously, can vastly increase peripheral awareness, which is an important factor in being able to make meaningful choices in life. When you practice Celibacy, you develop an increased sensitivity to your new ability to make choices in your sexual relationships; this is because most sexual relationships are based on impulse and therefore often become self-destructive. Celibacy is one practice that creates truly mature adults, who take responsibility for their own happiness.

I like to think of Celibacy as a basic, perfect protection that we can call on in ourselves, at any time, and which we can return to in rest and observation; an atmosphere that is noninvasive, peaceful, where we can remember the total protection we experienced in the unborn state — floating, dreaming, all needs provided.

Recognizing Love

I have found periods of Celibacy to be extremely useful in finding and recognizing love in my life. Love means everything to me, and I have noticed that love seems to be important to everyone else in this country as well — even in the business world. Americans not only want to do business, they want to be liked, bringing an added dimension to negotiations that is rarely understood by representatives of other countries.

Celibacy also can improve sexual relationships, because the new awareness removes the subliminal fear of loss and impotence that is so pervasive in today’s society. One experiences a beautiful depth in love relationships as one learns to communicate in the hundreds of ways that sexuality provides. In Yoga, sex is viewed as the beautiful, powerful basis of human life. The person who enters into a relationship with some Celibacy training will be more aware of this, and it will add great enjoyment to relationships. How does this happen? When a relationship of great meaning appears, do you have the power to become involved, or are you afraid to take the step? Have you wasted your real energy in things that do not matter?

(to be continued)