VIII. BRAHM ACHARYA
- II
After full discussion and mature deliberation I took
the vow in 1906. I had not shared my thoughts with my
wife until then, but only consulted her at the time of
taking the vow. She had no objection. But I had great
difficulty in making the final resolve. I had not the
necessary strength. How was I to control my passions ?
The elimination of carnal relationship with one's wife
seemed then a strange thing. But I launched forth with
faith in the sustaining power of God. As I look back upon
the twenty years of the vow, I am filled with pleasure
and wonderment. The more or less successful practice of
self-control had 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. The
great potentiality of brahmacharya daily became
more an more patent to me. The vow was taken when I was
in Phoenix. As soon as I was free from ambulance work, I
went to Phoenix, whence I had to return to Johannesburg.
In about a month of my returning there, the foundation of
Satyagraha was laid. As though unknown to me, the brahmacharya
vow had been preparing me for it. Satyagraha had not been
a preconceived plan. It came on spontaneously, without my
having willed it. But I could see that all my previous
steps had led up to that goal. I had cut down my heavy
household expenses at Johannesburg and gone to Phoenix to
take, as it were, the brahmacharya vow.
The knowledge that a perfect observance of brahmacharya
means realization of brahman, I did not owe to a
study of the Shastras. It slowly grew upon me with
experience. The shastric texts on the subject I read only
later in life. Every day of the vow has taken me nearer
the knowledge that in brahmacharya lies the
protection of the body, the mind and the soul. For
#brahmacharya# was now no process of hard penance, +it
was a matter of consolation and joy. Every day revealed a
fresh beauty in it.
But if it was a matter of ever-increasing joy, let no
one believe that it was an easy thing for me. Even when I
am past fifty-six years, I realize how hard a thing it
is. Every day I realize more and more that it is like
walking on the sword's edge, and I see every moment the
necessity for eternal vigilance.
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
persued my dietetic experiments not merely from the
vegetarian's but also from 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. How I had
to go back to milk from a fruit diet will be considered
in its proper place. It is enough to observe here that I
have not the least doubt that milk diet makes the brahmacharya
vow difficult to observe. 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. The
doctors, vaidyas and hakims have alike
failed to enlighten me. Therefore, though I know milk to
be partly a stimulant, I cannot, for the time being,
advise anyone to give it up.
As an external aid to brahmacharya, fasting
is as necessary as selection and restriction in diet. So
overpowering are the senses that they can be kept under
control only when they are completely hedged in on all
sides, from above and from beneath. It is common
knowledge that they are powerless without food, and so
fasting undertaken with a view to control of the senses
is, I have no doubt, very helpful. With some, fasting is
of no avail, because assuming that mechanical fasting
alone will make them immune, they keep their bodies
without food, but feast their minds upon all sorts of
delicacies, thinking all the while what they will eat and
what they will drink after the fast terminates. Such
fasting helps them in controlling neither palate nor
lust. 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 like 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 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.
Brahmacharya means control of the senses in thought,
word and deed. Every day I have been realizing more and
more the necessity for restraints of the kind I have
detailed above. There is no limit to the possibilities of
renunciation even as there is none to those of
#brahmacharya#. Such #brahmacharya# is impossible of
attainment by limited effort. F'or many it must remain
only as an ideal. An aspirant after #brahmacharya# will
always be conscious of his shortcomings, will seek out
the passions lingering in the innermost recesses of his
heart and will incessantly strive to get rid of them. So
long as thought is not under complete control of the
will, #brahmacharya# in its fulness is absent.
Involuntary thought is an affection of the mind, and
curbing of thought, therefore, means curbing of the mind
which is even more difficult to curb than the wind.
Nevertheless the existence of God within makes even
control of the mind possible. Let no one think that it is
impossible because it is difficult. It is the highest
goal, and it is no wonder that the highest effort should
be necessary to attain it.
But it was after coming to India that I realized that
such #brahmacharya# was impossible to attain by mere
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 struggle.
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.
'The sense-objects turn away from an abstemious soul,
leaving the relish behind. The relish also disappears
with the realization of the Highest.' Therefore His name
and His grace are the last resources of the aspirant
after moksha. This truth came to me only after
my return to India.
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