Righteousness - key to control desires

The general tendency of people is to behave well with one who makes them happy. Average people tend to call a person who behaves nicely with them, good. Keeping exactly this secret of the attitude of an average person in mind, the code of the married householder has been framed. Moreover this secret itself lays the foundation of the religious code of the married householder’s life. The furthest limit of worldly happiness is sex. Hence in the Āyurvēda intercourse is called the seat of Bliss (Ānandsthān). In other words, though in the Satyayug carrying forward the lineage was the motive behind intercourse, gradually with the successive yugs it began to decline and the objective that intercourse should concomitantly result in progeny came into being. Mentally one has to go from the Kaliyug to the Satyayug, that is one has to make spiritual progress. Hence one should remember that life is not meant for enjoying material objects but these objects are necessary only to facilitate the journey of life. This is the very basis of our culture.

For one who is unable to love platonically, sexual intercourse is a means of uniting with the mind, by gradually developing physical attachment. Man acquires intense worldly happiness from the woman he marries; so also, the woman. Thus the implied meaning of marriage is that the couple should love each other deeply. The quality of love is that, as one starts loving someone and along with it follows Righteousness and remains in the holy company of renunciants, gradually it acquires a dimension of love without expectations. Love slowly shifts from the body to the mind. This itself is called widening of the horizons of love. Hence for the one who is unable to renounce material objects all of a sudden, the method of reducing it stepwise, is marriage. As the physical attachment of the couple starts decreasing they are able to love their children proportionately more and more. That is, they wish for the well-being of their children. Welfare means the fulfilment of human birth! From this one will realise how wrong is the belief that by following Righteousness, man becomes detached and more and more inactive day by day. Holy texts of great sages who have realised God will themselves illustrate how vastly expansive their love for others is, that is how much they love the world.

The holy text Navanāth Bhaktisār gives an apologue of King Bhartruharināth. To see how much Queen Pingalā loved him, the king falsely informed her that he was dead. Upon hearing this, she became a sati (entered the pyre). When Bhartruharināth came to know of it he was about to jump into the pyre when the others stopped him. Then for twelve years he remained in the crematorium waiting for Queen Pingalā. What is amusing is that in spite of having twelve hundred queens, his love had shifted from the body to the mind. Pingalātoo became a sati as her love had shifted onto the psychological plane. The twelve hundred queens were only physically attached and hence they did not become satis. Since the king was fed up of physical love he did not want their bodies but he wanted Pingalā. Later Gorakhnāthreleased the king from the Great Illusion (Māyā). One gets sāttvik (Sattva predominant) Bliss in another's company only when attachment for the physical body is reduced.

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• 1. Universal Sexuality
• 2. The sex life of an animal, man and a progressed seeker or a saint
• 3. Why is sexual desire the most powerful among all desires?
• 4. Types of sexual desire
• 5. Benefits of acquiring control over sexual desire
• 6. Methods of acquiring control over sexual desire
  • 6.1 According to the Path of Action (Karmayoga)
  • 6.2 According to the Path of Devotion (Bhaktiyoga)
  • 6.3 According to the Path of Knowledge (Dnyanyoga)
  • 6.4 According to the technique of autosuggestion
  • 6.5 Following Righteousness (Dharma)
  • 6.6 Satsang (holy company)
  • 6.7 The Guru’s grace (Gurukrupa)
  • 6.8 Realisation of God (Ishvarsakshatkar)
• 7. ‘Seminal loss means death’
• 8. Progress