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The vital energy, the Veerya that supports your life, which shines in your sparkling eyes, which beams in your shining cheeks, is a great treasure for you. Remember this point well. Veerya is the quintessence of blood. One drop of semen is manufactured out of forty drops of blood. Mark here how valuable this fluid is!

A tree draws the essence or Rasa from the earth. This essence is circulated throughout the tree, its twigs, branches, leaves, flowers and fruits. The shining colours and life in the leaves, flowers and fruits are due to this Rasa. Similarly, the Veerya that is manufactured by the cells of the testes out of blood gives colour and vitality to the human body and its different organs.

According to Ayurveda, semen is the last Dhatu that is formed out of food. Out of food is manufactured chyle. Out of chyle comes blood. Out of blood comes flesh. Out of flesh comes fat. Out of fat comes bone. Out of bone comes marrow. Out of marrow comes semen. These are the Sapta Dhatus or the seven Dhatus that support this life and body. Mark here how precious is semen! It is the last essence. It is the Essence of essences. The Veerya comes out of the very marrow that lies concealed inside the bones. There are three divisions in each Dhatu. Semen nourishes the physical body, the heart and the intellect. Only that man who uses the physical body, the heart and the intellect can have perfect Brahmacharya. A wrestler who uses his physical body only, but keeps the intellect and the heart undeveloped, cannot expect to have full Brahmacharya. He can have Brahmacharya of the body only, but not of the mind and the heart. The semen that belongs to the heart and the mind will certainly flow out.

Semen is the quintessence of food or blood. One drop of semen in manufactured out of forty drops of blood according to modern medical science. According to Ayurveda, it is elaborated out of eighty drops of blood. The two testes or seeds that are located in the scrotal bag are called secretory glands. The cells of these testes have been endowed with the peculiar property of secreting semen from the blood. Just as bees collect honey in the honeycomb drop by drop, so also, the cells of the testes collect semen drop by drop from the blood. Then this fluid is taken by the two ducts or tubes to the vesiculae seminalis. Under excitement, it is thrown out by special ducts, called ejaculatory ducts, into the urethra where it is mixed with the prostatic juice.

Semen is found in a subtle state in all the cells of the body. Just as sugar is all pervading in the sugar cane, butter in milk, so also, semen is pervading the whole body. Just as the buttermilk is thin after the butter is removed, so also, semen is thinned by its wastage. The more the wastage of semen the more is the weakness.

In the Patanjali Yoga Sastras it is said:

Maranam Bindu Patanat,

Jivanam Bindu Rakshanat

Falling of semen brings death; preservation of semen gives life. Semen is the real vitality in men. It is the hidden treasure in man. It imparts Brahma-Tejas to the face and strength to the intellect.

SECRET OF HEALTH AND LONGEVITY

Without Brahmacharya, all your exercises are nothing. It is the master key for opening the realms of health and happiness. It is the corner stone of the edifice of bliss and unalloyed felicity. The preservation of semen is the secret of health and longevity, and of all success in the physical, mental, intellectual and spiritual planes. He who has even a little bit of Brahmacharya will tide over a crisis of any disease very easily. If it takes a month for an ordinary man for recovery, this man will be completely all right in a week.

The Srutis declare a full life or age of one hundred years for a man. This you can attain only by the establishment of Brahmacharya. There are instances of men who have attained longevity and intellectual powers despite their loose, immoral ways. But they would have been still more powerful and brilliant had they possessed a good character and continence as well. After Dhanvantari had taught all the details about Ayurveda to his disciples, they enquired about the keynote of this medical science. The Master replied, “I tell you that Brahmacharya is truly a precious jewel. It is the one most effective medicine-nectar indeed-which destroys diseases, decay and death.”

WET DREAM AND VOLUNTARY COPULATION-A VITAL DIFFERENCE

A sexual act shatters the nervous system. The whole nervous system is shaken or agitated during the act. There is excessive loss of energy. More energy is wasted during coition. But it is not so when emission occurs during the dreaming state. In a wet dream, it may be the outflow of the prostatic juice only. Even if there is loss of the vital fluid, there is not much draining. The actual essence does not come out during wet dreams. It is only the watery prostatic juice with a little semen that is discharged during nocturnal pollutions. When nocturnal emission takes place, the mind which was working in the inner astral body suddenly enters the physical body vehemently in an agitated condition. That is the reason why emission takes place suddenly.

The night discharge may not stimulate the sexual desire. But a voluntary copulation, in the case of a sincere aspirant is highly detrimental to his spiritual progress. The Samskara created by the act will be very deep; and it will intensify or strengthen the force of the previous Samskaras that are already imbedded in the subconscious mind and will stimulate the sexual desire. It will be like pouring ghee in the fire that is slowly getting extinguished. The task of obliterating this new Samskara will be an uphill work. You should completely give up copulation. This mind will try to delude you in a variety of ways by giving wrong counsel. Be on the alert. Do not hear its voice, but try to hear the voice of the conscience or the voice of the soul or the voice of discrimination.

A good lot of energy is wasted during copulation. Bad memory, premature old age, impotence, various sorts of eye diseases and various nervous diseases are attributable to the heavy loss of this vital fluid. It is greatly shocking indeed to see many of our youth walking with tottering steps, with pale, bloodless faces owing to loss of this vital fluid, instead of jumping hither and thither with agile, nimble steps with vigour and vitality like the squirrel. Some people are so passionate and weak that even the thought or sight or touch of a woman causes discharge of semen. Pitiable is their lot!

THE DISASTROUS EFFECTS OF SEXUAL INDULGENCE

The most devitalising and demoralizing of pleasures is the sex pleasure. Sensual enjoyment is attended with various defects. It is attended with various sorts of sins, pains, weaknesses, attachments, slave mentality, weak will, severe exertion and struggle, craving and mental restlessness. Worldly persons never come to their proper senses although they get severe knocks, kicks and blows from different corners. The strolling street dog never stops from visiting the houses even though it is pelted with stones every time. Eminent doctors of the West say that various kinds of diseases arise from the loss of semen, particularly in young age. There appear boils on the body, acne or eruptions on the face, blue lines around the eyes, absence of beard, sunken eyes, pale face with anaemia, loss of memory, loss of eye-sight, shortsightedness, discharge of semen along with urine, enlargement of the testes, pain in the testes, debility, drowsiness, laziness, gloominess, palpitation of the heart, dyspnoea or difficulty in breathing, phthisis, pain in the back, loins, head and joints, weak kidneys, passing urine in sleep, fickle-mindedness, lack of thinking power, bad dreams, wet dreams and restlessness of mind.

Mark carefully the evil after-effects that follow the loss of seminal energy! Persons are physically, mentally and morally debilitated by wasting the seminal power on so many occasions for nothing. The body and the mind refuse to work energetically. There is physical and mental lethargy. You experience much exhaustion and weakness. You will have to take recourse to drinking milk, to eating fruits and aphrodisiac confections, to make good the loss of energy. Remember that these things can never, never repair the loss completely. Once lost is lost forever. You will have to drag on a dreary, cheerless existence. Bodily and mental strength gets diminished day by day.

Those who have lost much of their Veerya become very irritable. Little things upset their minds. Those who have not observed the vow of celibacy become the slaves of anger, jealousy, laziness and fear. If you have not got your senses under control, you venture to do foolish acts, which even children will not dare to do.

He who has wasted the vital energy becomes easily irritable, loses his balance of mind and gets into a state of explosive fury for trifling things. When a man becomes furious, he behaves improperly. He does not know what he is exactly doing as he loses his power of reasoning and discrimination. He will do anything he likes. He will insult even his parents, Guru and respectable persons. It behooves, therefore, that the aspirant who is trying to develop good behaviour must preserve the vital energy. Preservation of this divine energy leads to the attainment of strong will power, good behaviour & spiritual exaltation.

Excessive sexual intercourse drains the energy enormously. Young men do not realize the value of the vital fluid. They waste this dynamic energy by immoderate copulation. Their nerves are tickled much. They become intoxicated. What a serious blunder they commit! It is a crime that demands capital punishment.

When this energy is once wasted, it can never be recouped by any other means. It is the most powerful energy in the world. One sexual act shatters completely the brain and the nervous system. People foolishly imagine that they can recover the lost energy by taking milk, almonds and Makaradhvaja. This is a mistake. You must try your level best to preserve every drop although you are a married man. Self-realization is the goal.

The energy that is wasted during one sexual intercourse is tantamount to the energy that is spent in physical labour for ten days or the energy that is utilized in mental work for three days. Mark how precious is the vital fluid, semen! Do not waste this energy. Preserve it with great care. You will have wonderful vitality. When Veerya is not used, it is all transmuted into Ojas Sakti or spiritual energy and stored up in the brain. Western doctors know little of this salient point. Most of your ailments are due to excessive seminal wastage.

NOCTURNAL EMMISSION 

By Dr. R. W. Bernard, Ph.D. (New York University)

A high-protein diet tends to produce sexual desire and nocturnal emissions by forming uric acid, which irritates the mucous lining of the prostatic urethra and also by producing intestinal putrefaction, generating poisons in the intestines which paralyze their peristaltic movements and cause constipation. Since the seminal vesicles, like the uterus, lie sandwiched in between the colon and bladder, constipation, involving a distended colon filled with hardened fecal matter, causes pressure on this organ and predisposes to emission, just as it predisposes to uterine discharges and painful and excessive menstruation.

In spite of their universality among the male sex, and contrary to popular and medical beliefs, nocturnal emissions are not natural physiological phenomena normal after puberty, nor do they provide a necessary release of semen when not discharged through voluntary sexual acts. A definite physiological mechanism exists for the lymphatic resorption of semen from the seminal vesicles where it is stored so that there is no physiological necessity for its periodic vicarious discharge through nocturnal emissions, which, instead, should be regarded as a morbid manifestation resulting from an excessive protein intake and representing a vicarious release of the albuminous end-products of protein metabolism beyond what the kidneys can handle.

Nocturnal emissions…indicate that the protein intake is excessive and that the kidneys are overworked. When protein intake is reduced to bodily requirements, there will be no need for the gonads to come to the aid of the kidneys and eliminate surplus nitrogenous matter in this way.

Dr. Deslandes states that the inflammatory condition of the urethra, which is responsible for nocturnal emissions, results from hyperacidity of the blood and urine. This means that foods which acidify the blood and which contain an excess of acid-forming elements tend to irritate the genital mucous membranes and predisposes toward such emissions, as well as to sexual manifestations in general. On the other hand, an alkaline diet low in protein has the opposite effect by neutralizing acids that tend to produce inflammation of the prostatic urethra. The chief alkaline-forming foods are vegetables, fruits and potatoes. Among grains, rice has been found to cause the least uric acid.

“I am a dyed-in-the-wool believer that these are unnatural and when frequent are pathological, doing damage to the economy and causing a sensation of weakness and lassitude that is not imaginary… These are caused by some irritant in the urine due to faulty metabolism. The main cause is a hyperdigestive condition of the deep urethra.”

—(Dr. Albert Mowry; Instructor in Genito-urinary Surgery at Northwestern University Medical School, Illinois)

SRILA PRABHUPADA TO A DISCIPLE

In your letter you have made it clear that you are finding some difficulty with sex desire and have asked guidance from me to instruct you how to handle this problem of the material body. First of all I think you should know that such problems are not very unnatural because in the body the conditioned soul is very prone to failure. But also we must remember that such failure will not discourage us from executing the most important mission of our life, to become fully in Krishna Consciousness. So whatever fall down has been, you should be regretful about it, but it is not so serious nor is it a permanent disqualification. But you must try to check yourself from such artificial things and take full shelter of the Lotus Feet of Krishna. I think that for such checking marriage is the only solution. It is understood that everyone has some nasty habits but by sticking to Krishna Consciousness, chanting our required rounds loudly, and tending the deities, these items will surely save you. So always be seriously engaged in serving Krishna and pray to Krishna to help you with your frailties. But I think that marriage is the solution with no other alternative. If you are married you can continue to practice all the items of worship and with more peace of mind, so such solution, along with redoubled efforts to serve nicely and be very pleasing unto Krishna, these things will help you. I have always known you as very good, sincere boy so with utmost seriousness you must consider these points and act upon them. I shall hope to be hearing again from you soon on this matter. (Letter to: Upendra — Los Angeles 9 December, 1968)