Brahmacharya...
Let that word vibrate trough your vocal chords and roll of your tongue!
Brrrahmacharya.
The fourth yama, and part of the yogic moral code of conduct (i.e. the five yamas and five niyamas).
What a beautiful word, with even more beautiful interpretations. Combining the Sanskrit words Brahma – the highest deity in the Hindu pantheon – and charya – meaning ‘conduct’, or ‘practice’ – brahmacharya is behaviour that is in accordance with some highest, or ultimate, governing principle. It is translated as ‘behaviour that leads to Brahma’, ‘walking with God’, ‘moving into infinity’, and sometimes also as ‘the right use of energy’. I think the idea is that, if we use our energy right, we get closer to Brahma, God, enlightenment, a good life or whatever you define as the purpose of your time here on earth.
Traditionally, bramacharya was specified as celibacy, or sexual restraint. People walking the spiritual path were advised to refrain from sex. For why spend energy on thinking about or satisfying earthly desires, when you could use that same energy to reach higher levels of consciousness and get closer to God?! Obviously, sexual energy was to be sublimated into spiritual dedication.
This advice was given not only to spiritual seekers but also to youngsters. Interestingly (but not so surprisingly perhaps), brahmacharya is also the name for the first of four phases in the life of a Hindu. This is the time in which one is a student, and study requires focus, which is tricky when you’re preoccupied with fantasies about your secret crush or hot lover. In an attempt to explain this to my 13-year old students, I held a lengthy monologue in which I delicately wove the connection between sexual sublimation and spiritual development. Afterwards, one of them suggested that brahmacharya “basically means: ‘don’t fuck, just study’”. Brahma, help me.
Modern interpretations of brahmacharya involve a broader kind of constraint, namely controlling all our senses. Through our senses we experience the world, which is full of things to see, taste, hear, experience. And we need to experience those things, to some extent: we need to eat, and rest, and move, connect and cuddle. But if we would open up to every stimulus, follow each invitation, our senses would be chronically overloaded – and because of that, we would be chronically depleted of energy.
Brahmacharya then, is to practice the right amount of sensual stimulation, and is therefore also translated as ‘non-excessiveness’. The idea is that anything in excess, too much as well as too little, can cause distress and a lack of focus, scatter and waste your energy and steal your vitality. Just recall the last time you overindulged in anything (exercising, sleeping, spending time on your phone, consuming news, shopping, working, procrastinating, isolating, socialising, etc.) and how you felt afterwards (lethargic, anxious, sad, exhausted, hopeless, numb, in short: probably not too vital) and you’ll get the point.
The problem was that, these last months, I desperately did want to overindulge in one thing: sleeping. I have been so bone tired I have not known what to do with myself. To have a purpose, let alone energy to move towards it, both feel like distant memories to me. At the root of my tiredness lies an ancient human question: ‘Why am I here?’ This question has been following me around since I became, somewhat, conscious. But where it used to be a deliciously tantalising question, an exciting conversation partner, it now looked more like a howling, hungry wolf.
I’ve been trying to find things this wolf might like. Would it enjoy this activity, that study? What about another job, another relationship? The wolf remains hungry, the question unanswered. And I have less and less energy to keep on looking, feeding, looking, feeding. On some days, I have a little, but it gets gobbled up very quickly. On most days, I wake up already tired from the prospect of having to get out of bed and do things, want things, be a person. I so desperately want to lay down my heavy head and weary body, that even the jaws of the wolf seem like a fine place to rest.
This has left me feeling stuck as to how to approach brahmacharya. How could I use my energy in a right manner, if I didn’t have any? How would I be able to walk with God, if I had no clue of where to find her?
What made it worse, were the new-age articles I found as first hits when you type in ‘brahmacharya’ in the Google search bar, laced with undertones of performance and achievement. Remarkably, and in my opinion, disturbingly, many modern yogis explain brahmacharya as harnessing one’s energy so ‘you can find your true purpose,’ ‘realise your full potential’, ‘life your best life’. Doesn’t that way of talking just immediately drain all potential from your mind and all life from your veins? It demotes a spiritual practice to squeezing out every drop of productiveness from your life force. As if the way to God, the path into infinity, can be forged or forced through action plans and lists of goals.
Still, a big part of me felt bad for feeling so tired; apparently others were living their best lives while I was closing the curtains and pulling up the covers. Another part of me felt like a failure. Surely the deaf were leading the blind when I would attempt to explain brahmacharya in my classes at school or in the yoga studio? But there was also a part of me that felt an almost unbearable resistance to it all. That part didn’t want to achieve anything, fulfil any potential, didn’t want to be a good teacher or a good yogi. That part wanted to plant a big fat bomb under terms like good and bad and be rid of them forever. That part wanted to waste time and spill energy, caste it all like pearls before swine.
It’s from this part of me that I now write this.
For that part believes that if I finally give in to the tiredness, lie down and fall into a deep and formless sleep, I might find God there. Could it be that surrender – of the need to be someone, of the weight of my own identity – is an expression of brahmacharya?
To understand brahmacharya as controlling the senses gives the impression that we always can, and need to be… well… in control. To me it seems we immensely overestimate our ability to control ourselves, let alone the course of our lives. This illusion feeds into the next: that it’s up to us to create our ‘best’ life. Compared to what? All those other lives you don’t lead and therefore have no way of understanding or evaluating?
And what about this advice to walk ‘the middle path’ or ‘enjoy everything in moderation’? What holds the middle between lack and excess is different per day, per moment even. And somehow, we only seem to be able to determine that ‘golden mean’ in hindsight, when we already worked too much, said too much, ate too much. Too late really.
Don’t mistake this for some hopeless tirade. It’s a celebration of this being human, an ode to messy life. Mine for sure, and if yours is messy too, then to yours as well. An ode to losing control, getting lost and finding something unexpected. Making a plan and changing your mind. Closing our eyes, resting our senses. Facing our wolves, then stop fighting them. Give up forcing our way to God or a final destination, and start endlessly meandering in that direction instead.