Living life in reality

IN HIS Yogasutra, Patanjali, the great sage, the greatest writer of them all, talks about eight ways to reach enlightenment. The second element in the first way, yama, of Patanjali is brahmacharya. Normally this word is translated as celibacy. This is wrong; totally wrong. Celibacy is suppression, perversion. Brahma means existence, reality; chariya is to walk in it, to live with it; brahmacharya is living with reality.

People ask: to become enlightened, do I need to leave my wife and children? I tell them: renounce only what you do not have; do not renounce what you already have. Live comfortably, intensely, happily with what you have. If you have a wife, live fully with her; not with the fantasy of some other woman. Renunciation is brahmacharya; it is dropping your fantasies. Brahmacharya is accepting reality as it is. When you drop your fantasies and accept your beloved for what she is, your life becomes heaven.

The idea of beauty is just an idea. As long as distance is maintained things look beautiful. Close-ups are always ugly and flat. Even if you marry the Miss Universe the idea of beauty will not last more than 15 days. The moment you start living together reality comes in; glamour wanes and fades. That’s why you call the first few days honeymoon, not honey sun.

When you drop your fantasies you can live with reality for ever. That’s why in Sanskrit there is no word for divorce. If you feed your fantasies you can change your partner any number of times and still be unhappy. Only in fairy tales do people live happily for ever. All legendary lovers, Romeo and Juliet, Laila and Majnu, were never married; had they married their stories would have had different endings.

People forcing themselves into celibacy are sitting on a volcano. They cannot look into your eyes for fear you will see their suffering. If you meditate and practice celibacy, Hindu mythology says that the gods above send celestial beautiful women to disturb you. Nobody sends women to disturb you; if that’s true everyone will start meditating. These meditators start hallucinating because of their suppressions, suppressed fantasies. Brahmacharya cannot be practised as morality, but as an understanding. When you accept your partner as he is or as she is, your fantasies drop, and you start accepting yourself as you are. Your partner then becomes your beloved.