Brahmacharya - Yoga

Yoga

The word brahmacharya is also understood broadly in yoga as "sexual continence," which can be understood as being applicable as appropriate in different contexts (e.g., marital fidelity, celibacy for spiritual aspirants etc.), in more extreme terms (complete celibacy) or in more specific terms in relation to preserving and sublimating male sexual energy rather than losing it through ejaculation.

In yoga, the term brahmacharya tends to take on a connotation of disciplining the use of and preserving sexual energy. Brahmacharya is discussed in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras as one of the 5 Yamas, the foundational commitments for the practice of yoga. According to the Yoga Sutras, the end-result or fruit of Brahmacharya practised to perfection is unbounded energy or vitality.

Many yogic techniques, such as meditation and asanas (e.g. shirsasana) can help one to achieve Brahmacharya interpreted as celibacy or strict control of sexual desires.

In Hindu as well as pre-vedic traditions, the spiritual aspirant is directed to emulate the transcendent absolute reality and obtain self-mastery of sexual energy in deed, mind, and speech so as to avoid causing any harm to self or others, on the level of body, mind, or spirit. A Brahmachari is a male and brahmacharini a female.

This embodiment discipline transcends gender and cultivaties the great power inherent in the sexual essence, channeling it upwards to enhance meditative capacity rather than dispersing it outwards. According to Patanjali's Yoga-Sutra, the yogin (practitioner of yoga) who is firmly grounded in this virtue gains great vitality. Among the sramanic traditions, Brahmacharya is the term used for the practice of self-imposed celibacy that is generally considered an essential prerequisite for spiritual practice.These characteristics correspond to Western notions of the religious life as practised in monastic settings but in the Brahma Kumaris and Prajapita Brahma Kumaris religion, it is practised by married couples and householders too, as a way of formalizing sexual behavior into a conscious, co-creative practice rather than merely an unconscious habit.